Canadian paratrooper Leo Heaps (1923–1995) was seconded to the British Army during the Second World War and participated in the Battle of Arnhem. He was captured by the Germans and upon his escape, his work with the Dutch Resistance to help rescue hundreds of Allied soldiers behind enemy lines resulted in his being awarded the Royal Military Cross for “outstanding gallantry”. To commemorate the eightieth anniversary of the end of the Second World War, Leo’s son Adrian reflects on his father’s life in 1945.
Leo Heaps
In 1945, Leo Heaps was just twenty-two, a young Canadian whose experiences in the Second World War shaped him into the complex figure I knew.
Born in Winnipeg in 1923, growing up as the son of Abraham Albert Heaps, a prominent Parliamentarian, wasn’t easy, but Leo forged his own path. Educated at Queen’s University, the University of California, and McGill, he was restless by 1944, bored with the Canadian Infantry Holding Unit. His commanders underestimated him, calling him “not of officer caliber, no initiative, not aggressive enough.” Sarcastic and defiant, he failed to qualify for the Infantry. His father urged him to work on his aunt’s farm, an exemption from service, but Leo sought action. He volunteered for the CANLOAN program, seconding Canadian officers to the British Army, a choice that plunged him into Operation Market Garden.
Leo (upper right) before his first jump into Arnhem
In September 1944, Leo joined the British 1st Airborne Division, commanding the 1st Parachute Battalion’s Transport — without ever having jumped before. He described his first drop on 17 September 1944 with vivid clarity: “I floated down gently from heaven at 1:30 p.m. on Sunday… The sun shone, the fields of Wolfheze were bathed in warm light and the green meadow bloomed with large bursts of yellow sunflowers.” That beauty was short-lived. The Battle of Arnhem, part of a failed plan to seize Rhine bridges, ended in defeat. Captured by the Germans, Leo didn’t stay a prisoner for long. With the help of the Dutch Resistance, he escaped, hiding in a chicken coop at Ennyshoeve. There, he met members of the Resistance risking their lives for Allied evaders.
Leo with his father and brother David
His work with the Dutch Resistance earned him the Military Cross, a rare honour for a Canadian in British service. His brother, David, also received the Military Cross, making them the only Jewish brothers during the Second World War to win the decoration. Leo’s role in Operation Pegasus, the escape of over 100 Allied soldiers across the Rhine, was a triumph he chronicled in his book The Grey Goose of Arnhem. He called it “the most amazing mass escape of World War II.”
But some memories were harder to share. In April 1945, Leo was among the first to enter Bergen-Belsen concentration camp after the Germans fled, leaving behind a typhoid outbreak and unimaginable suffering. As a Jewish soldier, the sight of skeletal survivors, the stench of death, and the chaos of the camp struck him profoundly. In Escape from Arnhem (1945) he described the eerie silence broken by the groans of the starving, the piles of unburied bodies, and the desperate eyes of those clinging to life. The scale of the horror overwhelmed him. He rarely spoke of Belsen, but when he did, his voice was subdued. I can picture him there, a young man of twenty-two, confronting a darkness that no one could fully process.
Leo with his father following his decoration
By May 1945, Leo was no longer the kid who frustrated his commanders, but a decorated veteran, a survivor of capture, combat, and collaborator with the Dutch underground. However, the war left its mark on Leo in what we now recognise as PTSD. The loss of friends killed by the Germans ushered a quiet guilt for those surviving when so many didn’t. Yet Leo channelled his unease into action, as if movement could keep the ghosts at bay. His writing, his adventures, his relentless drive — they were, in part, his way of coping with a war that never fully left him.
In 1994, my son and I accompanied Leo to Arnhem for the fiftieth anniversary, as one of forty Canadian veterans. I often wonder what he felt in those sunflower fields, thinking of his lost comrades and his own life’s pursuits. Some of these feelings can be found in his records and letters in the Ontario (Canada) Jewish Archives, which offer a glimpse of the man and the many moments beyond his stories.
Leo died in 1995, leaving a legacy I’m still unravelling. In 1945, he emerged from the war not just as a survivor but as a storyteller who gave voice to the unsung. His books are a testament to a war that left its scars, but also of the man who became my father.
By Leo Heaps:
