Ken Anderson
Battery B, 453rd Battalion
Transferred to the 83rd

February 19, 2007 - Poynette man saw D-Day up close

POYNETTE — Clumps of young American soldiers leaped off ship ramps and were swallowed by the deep water off Normandy, France before touching the beach.

"We never got the LSDs (landing ship docks) in far enough when they let down the front ramp," said Ken Anderson, 85, of Poynette. "They stopped in deep water and the Germans are shelling and bombing these LSDs full of people."

The chaos of D-Day was unquestionable, Anderson said, and for self-preservation he prefers not to revisit all the smells, sounds and sights of his first experience with combat.

Anderson was a young gun commander in the 453rd Battalion, entrusted with protecting 14 other soldiers during battle and protecting the front-line infantry from enemies in the air.

Anderson's men in Battery B consisted of stoic, common men. Several could not read or write. There were two Mexican-American men, both named Jose, who had not been exposed to winter elements before 1943. They were the fourth wave of soldiers to arrive on Omaha Beach on June 6, 1944.

"They were so cold all the time that they cut holes in the sleeping bags and wore them the whole time," he said.

Two months before, Anderson married Golda Waugh in Poynette. The Indiana native enlisted in the Army in 1942 before he could be drafted. Golda did her best to keep her husband informed of the normalcy at home and later informed him that she was pregnant with their first child, Gary.

"I just existed," Golda, 83, said. "Waiting for the mail was very important to me. And the news was censored ... which probably helped me get through."

Anderson and his battalion kept hold of the beach for two weeks before the Army's 83rd Infantry Division reached the shore June 19. At that point, Anderson's battalion was transferred to the 83rd as part of the First Army, and later the Third and Ninth during the campaign. Anderson and his men — none of whom were killed during the war — followed behind the front lines to Brittany, Loire Valley, Luxembourg, the Hurtgen Forest, the Ardennes, the Rhine River and the Elbe River.

Anderson remembers the heavy cold and deep mud in the Hurtgen Forest when the 83rd relieved the 4th Infantry Division. Shrapnel would hit the treetops and shards of metal and pine trees would rain on the men below.

"I remember that you couldn't smoke at night because they would see where you were," Anderson said.

As weeks dragged on, some soldiers from neighboring divisions decided to take their mortality in their own hands and shoot themselves in the foot, Anderson said, "because things were mounting on them" and they would be brought to the medic tent or sent home.

The physical and emotional demands on the men pushed some to breaking points. The men often marched 20 miles a day carrying 40-pound backpacks, Anderson said.

"We wore the same thing, same uniform for three years. We never, never took anything off because it was so cold," Anderson said. "Some people were taken back to the medics. ...You're in infantry and you go door-to-door trying to kill people. It's tough."

Anderson's battery had spot-on aim with enemy planes, but they could not protect infantry while marching through villages. Anderson bows his head and shakes it while discussing how out of nowhere, bullets shot from windows would take down soldiers in the front line.

During the stolen minutes of rest in fields or the side of a road, the soldiers would move dead American and German men away from the foxholes. Anderson wrinkles his nose when he recalls what death smells like.

"We had gas masks on and we would move the dead bodies away," Anderson said. "Sometimes we would move them and they would just break apart."

It is hard to pull dark memories out of the mind, Anderson said, after more than 60 years of trying to forget them.

At the end of the war on the Western front, Anderson was instituted as a burgomeister (German mayor) of a small town during the occupation. For three months, Anderson patrolled the area and mediated squabbles between locals with the assistance from a female interpreter. He was relieved when they received news of the dropping of the atomic bomb in Japan, which meant that Anderson and others would not have to continue the fight in the Pacific.

The "weird" transition of soldier to citizen weighed on Anderson. Golda picked him up in October 1945 from the Portage railroad station. Anderson would meet his son for the first time.

"Gary didn't like him at first," Golda said. "He was a stranger to him."

Home was a stranger to Anderson. He was back in body, but for years he was easily rattled by loud noises.

"I was bothered when I got home," Anderson said. "Quite often I would hit the deck when I heard loud noises. One night I woke up telling my men to fire."

The couple who personified the common sacrifices of World War II still live on the land they once farmed. Golda encouraged Anderson to chronicle his experiences for family history.

"When you're young, you think you can do anything," Anderson said. "But I'm learning that I'm aging. I have no regrets whatsoever."  Jen McCoy, Portage Daily Register - Portage,WI,USA