Herman V. Anderes
Herman V. Anderes
HERMAN
V.
ANDERES
SOLDIER DETAILS
BIOGRAPHY
Herman Anderes was born in Elmo, KS and entered World War II serving in the Army. The following is his account of an attack July 2 in Aukland, New Zealand. Andreas sat at a red cross serviceman's club after returning from the beach and was standing by the tent in his shoes and shorts. His buddy, Leo McGowan called his attention to some approaching planes. Since there was no warning of an enemy raid we assumed they were our planes and was trying to determine if they were B-25's or B-26's. They came over at tree top level and suddenly bombs started to fall. "I grabbed my helmet and made a dive for my foxhole. it was about 16 inches deep and half full of water. No sooner had I landed in the foxhole than someone landed on top of me. Bombs were dropping one after another and causalities were high One piece of shrapnel struck my foot but caused only a minor bruise. Two days later they came back. One of our planes had spotted them, so our anti-aircraft crews were prepared. The Japanese were over-confident because of the lack of ack-ack on their previous visit. So they again came in at tree top level. Our gunners were ready for them and knocked down 13 zeros with 85 rounds of fire, establishing a record for hits. It was a beautiful ight to see those planes plunging to the ground and we all felt they were repaid for the damage and death they had inflicted July 2". Andreas returned to Dickinson County Kansas to farm. He married Virginia Baier and they had 9 children. Courtesy of the Dickinson Co. Heritage Center and Museum.