Newell Anderson..WAR HERO

To the family and friends of 2nd Lieutenant Newell Anderson

I, like maybe many of you, have always been interested in the circumstances and events surrounding the death of Newell. I had made attempts through the military to get his personnel records. I reached a dead end when they told me his records had burned with man others in a fire in St. Louis. I have recently received some partial records that were all created aft his death, these came from the Army Resource command in Alexandria Virginia. One of Newell’s brothers, my father Dean, unfortunately passed away on January 25th of 2004. In going through Dad’s papers, I found a letter to Aunt Raye, their younger sister. The letter was from an army buddy of Newell’s named Pete. In the letter Pete said he was form Tacoma, Washington and that he and Newell flew together. I recently had occasion to be in Seattle on business. After some investigation, I located Newell’s army buddy, Peter Dempsey living in Stiehlacoom, Washington. Pete is also mentioned a great deal in the documents I recently received from the Army. I contacted him at his home and he agreed to answer some questions for me. Stiehlacoom is a quaint beautiful little town on the banks of the Puget Sound, south of Tacoma, and near McNeil Island. My Dempsey is 84 years old and in fairly good health. He has some hearing and memory issues, but was very cordial and pleasant to talk with. He was very emotional at times and not comfortable talking about some things. I didn’t press him on anything, just allowing him to talk about what he was comfortable with. He never referred to Newell by name, just calling him “Andy” throughout our talk. I think it is common in the military to call anyone name Anderson, Andy. My dad had this nickname from the service, and so did I after working at the VA Hospital. Pete said that he and Andy became fast friends in their pilot training. He described Andy as being like by everyone and somewhat daring in his approach to life. Andy was enlisted while Pete and many of the others were career. At one point they separated everyone and were taking the career pilots to the Washington area to McChord Air Force Base near Tacoma for training. He said that Andy wasn’t supposed to be with them, but he went anyway and no one stopped him. Because he was enlisted, Newell had a lower rank than the others. This may explain why in the records that I received he is listed as post a 1st and 2nd Lt. As a result of the lower rank, he also wore a hat that had an emblem different form the other pilots at McCord. The hat kind of got to be a joke and Newell would wear it everywhere, proud in a way to be different. Pete showed me pictures of all of them together, Newell was always in the middle surrounded by others and wearing a different hat and cocked to the side. Pete said that at one point the commander told the troops to get rid of Andy’s hat and get him one like the rest of them. I guess that was sort of a battle field promotion. They flew several different planes together and eventually ended up stationed in England, flying combat missions over Germany. They anxiously awaited the arrival of their new fighter planes, the P-38. These planes had been tested in Africa without very positive results, but Pete swore by them and said they were great airplanes. They finally got their planes and they arrived by freight in Europe. Pete later flew P-51s and said they were an even better aircraft. While they were waiting for their new planes and during other down time between missions, Pete said that following Andy’s lead, they would get on trains, never buying a ticket, and never knowing where they were going. Together they traveled all over England and parts of northern Italy riding the rails. At this point I showed Pete a picture of Newell with a young lady and asked if he knew her. He wouldn’t take the picture and said he didn’t know her. I asked about any other girl friends they might have had and he said he didn’t want to talk about it. I had also showed him the letter he wrote Aunt Raye. He said it looked like his writing because you could hardly read it. But he wouldn’t take it and didn’t want to talk about it. Pete and Andy seemed like happy go lucky fiends flying their P-38s in the middle of a terrible war, getting what enjoyment they could. He said that at one point they were all ordered to gear up for what turned out to be D-Day. But the weather was always bad, they couldn’t fly and the offensive kept getting delayed. At one point they were ordered to pack up and go home to the states. He said they were all packed when Eisenhower decided to push forward with D-Day even in the bad weather. The apparently flew air support in bad weather and many more missions after that. They took off and flew in groups of four. Pete and Andy were not in the same group. One morning Pete’s group went out ahead of Andy’s planes. They flew their mission and returned. Pete said e as he was getting out of his plane, the doctor came running up to him and said he had some terrible news. Andy’s plane had taken off for this mission and then unexplainably it crashed back down on the runway, killing him. Pete was very emotional when telling me this and had to struggle through it a couple of time to tell me what happened. I felt bad bringing up 60-year old memories that caused him such grief. Andy was buried there in England. It was later decided that Americans should be resting on the home soil, and he was dug up and transported back to the states. The paperwork I got back from the Army confirms this, that Newell was originally buried in Cambridge in the British Isles. Late he was transported back to the states. The orders state that at the request of the family, now Captain Peter Dempsey, is to accompany the body and be in charge of the transport. Also according to the documents, Pete had an illness in the family and was unable to head up that detail. But according to Pete he was later ordered by his commander at McChord to grab a plane, get a co-pilot and navigator and head to Utah to attend Andy’s funeral. He said that this was highly unusual for the military to send someone in this manner to a funeral somewhat after the fact. He credited Aunt Raye with being persistent and pulling the right strings. Pete took off for Utah, having no idea where he was going or a landing area. He recalled landing in a wheat field with several interested on-looks, coming to a stop about six inches from the fence. My mother, Betty, filled in the rest, saying that he actually landed in Mt. Pleasant where he called Aunt Raye and along with Uncle Shen, my Mom and Dad, and apparently me at a very young age, they drove and picked him up. Pete had told me that he left with the family while his co-pilot and navigator got a motel room. I asked if he had any trouble on takeoff from the wheat field and he said it was a breeze. He like Aunt Raye a lot and credited her with the body coming home and him being ordered to attend by flying there in a military plane. My mother said that the feeling was mutual; Aunt Raye thought Pete was a special person. I would imagine that the rest of the war was very lonely for Pete after losing such a good friend. He said that he was hit twice during the war and relayed one story of a firefight he was in. The Germans had come up with a new plane that was faster and steered better than the 38s. On this day one of these planes got behind him and he couldn’t shake it. The pilot got so close he could see his eyes. He then shot out Pete’s right engine, he smiled and waved at Pete and tilted his wings as he flew away. Disabling his plane and taking him out of the fight but not killing him. Pete said he got back to the base and realized that they even had some good guys in the war. The P-51s that he later flew were and answer to the new German airplanes that could out fly the 38s. I asked him if he and Newell ever named their planes, betting on Annabella or something like that. He said they never did, almost like they were elite and that would have beneath them. Pete finished his twenty year career in what had become the Air Force, after initially being called the Army Air Corps. He worked for another twenty as a civilian in the tower at McCord AFB. He is happily married with three sons and a daughter; he couldn’t remember how many grandkids. He was very kind and generous in discussing these old unpleasant memories with me. He really struggled at times and I could tell that he had greatly missed Andy over the years and talking with me took an emotional toll on him. When it came time to leave, he didn’t seem like he wanted me to go. He walked with me all the way out to the main road and waited while I drove away. He said to please call or stop by if ever in the area again. ---Randall Anderson, Taylorsville