NEWS

World War II veteran recalls a lifetime of service

Chris Crook
Photographer

SOUTH ZANESVILLE – Loren Anderson remembers the horrors of war. The stench of burning flesh in a German concentration camp. The biting cold of the winter of 1945. And the sound of an artillery shell as it rushed past him on its deadly mission.

Loren Anderson fought his way across Europe with the 87th Infantry Division of the 3rd Army during World War II, then spent more than 30 years as a missionary in Guatemala with his wife Helen.

Drafted out of Boardman High School in Youngstown shortly before the invasion of Europe during World War II, Anderson was shipped from camp to camp before embarking for Scotland aboard the ocean liner the Queen Elizabeth. Once a luxury liner, the ship crossed the ocean with more than 15,000 troops on board, zigzagging to avoid being torpedoed by a German submarine.

Anderson's unit, the 87th infantry division of Gen. George Patton's 3rd Army, fought its way through France on its way to the little Belgian town of Bastogne, where the Germans, on their march across Europe, had surrounded the little town, a vital highway hub in the infamous Ardennes forest.

"They had this little town Bastogne pretty well surrounded except one little area they couldn't get to, that's where the 101st airborne division was. That's when our group came in. Patton said we have confidence in our men and we can save that. That's one of the reason's Bastogne was saved and we stopped the Germans. We lost I think 19,000 men in that operation."

The Germans demanded the 101st surrender, giving them an ultimatum and two hours to decide. The divisions commander, Brigadier Gen. Anthony McAuliffe, replied with a single word: "Nuts!"

After U.S. forces broke through and saved the town, they continued their march across southern Germany. On the edge of a small town, while at the head of a patrol, Anderson's group came under attack.

"We were on what we called the tiger patrol, in a little town called Neuendorf, and we got to the outskirts of it, and in front of a little Catholic chapel, we were just standing there, and across the courtyard the Germans opened up on us. So we immediately went into the chapel, blocked the door, and I was laying along the side of the aisle ... my buddy was on the other side, and we were just laying there with our steel helmets. And the Germans are throwing everything in there, and they brought in some big shell, and I still remember, I can still see that, a big shell going down the aisle, hitting the back wall, the alter where some of our men were, then the screams.

"I was wounded that night. They were throwing in all kinds of grenades, concussion grenades, my helmet was taking it, mostly. But after a while I lost my glasses, got these scars, a little bit of shrapnel.

Loren Anderson and his wife Helen served as missionaries in Guatemala for more than 30 years before retiring in 1996. They still travel to Guatemala to help at a Christian day school they were instrumental in founding.

"I didn't know what I was going to do. It went all night long. But in my heart, I had a piece that I knew that the end was not here. I knew where I was going. Because as a young fellow I had made a decision for Christ.

"I knew, that if I didn't get out of that little Catholic church, on my feet or on a gurney, I'd be carried off in a royal carriage to heaven. When you get that thing settled, when you know what is on the other end, life becomes a lot more meaningful."

Anderson doesn't know what happened outside of the church where his men were pinned down, but in the morning the Germans were gone.

"Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night, I see that huge armor, right down the aisle. These are memories, fortunately you can forget part of it."

Many years later he visited the same little Catholic church with his son, who was a missionary in Spain. "I just knelt, in that little Catholic church, and just thanked God."

After three weeks in the hospital in southern France, Anderson rejoined his unit as it battled across Germany. As the war began to wind down, his unit ended up in Czechoslovakia, near the German city of Plauen. It was around this time that Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, supreme commander of Allied Forces in Europe, began to hear about the Nazi's concentration camps, and decreed that every soldier should see one.

"I think that was wise. Because there are so many people who said it didn't happen. But it did happen, I was a living witness to that."

The troops were loaded into trucks and driven to Ohrdruf, a satellite camp of nearby Buchenwald, one of the Nazi's largest. "I remember the stench. I'll never forget that. Of human flesh. It was nauseating. I was just sick to my stomach.

"We saw these bodies laying there. We didn't stay very long. But we saw what was going on.

"We understood later on what it was all about."

Not long after his unit visited the camp, the Germans surrendered, and Anderson was shipped back to the United States. After a furlough, his unit was one of the first scheduled to be shipped west for an invasion of the Japanese mainland.

"I suddenly woke up, that this war is on. And they are expecting thousands to die. They know exactly where the 87th infantry is going to penetrate Japan. Then I began to get scared."

The war ended without an invasion. "That's when life began. Those were two years out of my life. I'm glad that I went through it. I was from a very protective family, that opened my eyes to what the rest of the world was like."

After being discharged from the Army, Anderson enrolled at Asbury University in Wilmore, Kentucky. While at Asbury he met his future wife Helen, a Zanesville native. Graduating with a degree in history, he then entered the seminary. "I was brought up in a very small denomination called Primitive Methodist, and they happened to have a mission field in Guatemala. I applied, and boom boom boom I was in."

The day Eisenhower was elected president in 1952, the Andersons began their drive to Guatemala. They drove across the country and down into Mexico. "The last part of Mexico you have to put (the car) on a railroad car and strap it down and ride the train until you get to the end of Mexico. Then we drove into Guatemala. We were just green kids, we didn't know much Spanish. But we were from the farm, and the thing about farm kids is they know how to adapt. They make better missionaries."

Loren and Helen spent the next 28 years in Guatemala, raising four boys. They were finally driven out by the increasing violence of a civil war. "We had a wonderful time, just meeting people. We started to teach, we'd go to them, we had dozens of these little groups, and now they have become pastors."

After returning the United States in 1980 and spending time in New England working with Hispanic immigrants, the Andersons returned to Guatemala for another eight years, teaching Bible courses, teaching Bible courses in living rooms in villages around northern Guateamala. "People need to know who Jesus is, not necessarily doctrine or churches, but who Jesus is.

"They need help. They can't go to the seminary, so we go to them. The men said 'Let's have a church in my home.' After a while, they need something more. So we have a study, and before long, they are raising up everyone else."

Upon leaving Guatemala for the first time, Loren made a passing remark that the area needed a Christian day school. "We immediately forgot about it, but they didn't." Soon work began on a school. "On the day they poured the foundation, 290 people came to help.

"When they started, they had 30 people. The next year, 60. After a while we began to send them a little money." Now Anderson's church, Rolling Plains United Methodist Church, has about 50 teams that travel to Guatemala to help work on the school. Soon the one building school became a campus, then three campuses serving some of the most improvised areas of northern Guatemala.

The Andersons retired in 1996, returning to Helen's native Zanesville. They still return to Guatemala, helping build and teach. Anderson, sitting in his living room, his rich baritone reflects the pride of a life time of service. "We just wanted to make one thing. To make known the name of Jesus."

ccrook@zanesvilletimesrecorder.com

740-450-6766

Twitter: @crookphoto