One true war hero, France agrees

From News Press.com: One true war hero, France agrees
One of the enduring images of the June 6, 1944, Allied invasion of Normandy is U.S. paratrooper John Steele hanging from the church steeple in Sainte-Mere-Eglise.

Paratrooper Jack Anderson of the 101st Airborne Division had a different kind of landing in the same town that morning.
"I hit the thatch roof of a farmhouse," he said. "I fell right through. The farmer and his wife were scared stiff. They thought I was a German. I was pretty much out of it myself, 19 years old, with the German army all around you."

Last week, representatives of the French government and military awarded Anderson the Legion of Honor medal, France's highest honor, for his service in Normandy.

"It was wonderful being recognized after all these years, wonderful," said Anderson, a Chicago native living in Cape Coral. "They were really great, very serious about what they were doing."

Helen Anderson, Jack's wife of 65 years, heard France was awarding the medal to Americans who fought in Normandy and applied for it on behalf of her husband.
On Sept. 7 in Tampa, Anderson and eight other Normandy veterans received the medal.
Having fought with the 101st in Normandy, in Operation Market-Garden (made famous by the book and movie "A Bridge Too Far") and the Battle of the Bulge, Anderson already had plenty of medals from World War II, including a Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts.

On June 6, 1944, he was almost killed before he was able to jump from his plane.
"I was standing in the door - it was my job to make sure everybody got out - and a shell hit us," he said. "We were losing altitude like mad, not in a dive, but falling flat, like an elevator.

"I got blown out of the plane at about 400 feet and hit the thatch roof. My chute might not have even opened."

The next day, Anderson was wounded in the legs - he's not sure whether it was small arms or artillery fire - and sent to the Normandy beaches before being evacuated to England.

"It was strange for me to come down to the beach," he said. "I couldn't believe all the dead, and when the tide came in, it was just red."

One of the most famous statements of World War II was made during the Battle of the Bulge, after the Germans had surrounded the 101st Airborne and Combat Command B of the 10th Armored Division in the strategic Belgian town of Bastogne.

On Dec. 22, 1944, four German soldiers entered the headquarters of 101st commander Brig. Gen. Anthony McAuliffe and delivered an ultimatum: Surrender or be annihilated.
McAuliffe sent back a one-word answer: "Nuts."

Anderson, who had been wounded again three days before, happened to be present.

"When they gave him that ultimatum, the general had this look on his face like, 'Are you out of your frigging mind?'" Anderson said. "They wanted a formal answer, and he gave them one.

"He was a soldier's general, somebody you'd be proud to follow."

After the war and rehabilitation for his wounds at a military hospital in Colorado, Anderson returned to Chicago and worked as a welder.

Like many veterans, Anderson carried the war with him long after end of hostilities.
"His mother said he would tear up the sheets at night," Helen Anderson said. "He jumped out of bed and had these terrible nightmares. And I was taking shrapnel out of his back I don't know how many years."

Even now, 67 years after he jumped into Normandy, Anderson thinks often about the war.

"Everybody sings their own song," he said. "But nobody can explain it: You had to be there to understand. Some things you go through stay with you your whole life. But I guess I'd do it again."