World War II Honoree

Andrew James Anderson

Branch of Service

U.S. Navy

Hometown

Sunnyside, New York

Honored By

Andrew James Anderson Jr.

Relationship

Son

The son of a WWI Marine) enlisted in the United States Navy two days after his seventeenth birthday at the same time dropping out of high school. He was in boot camp when the attack at Pearl Harbor Hawaii occurred. Courses were accelerated and he was assigned on December 31st,1941 to the Battleship New Mexico BB-40 first as an Able Seaman and soon after as a Gunners Mate. In short order the USS New Mexico (nicknamed The Queen) transitioned from the Atlantic to the Pacific theater of operations, passing through the Panama Canal. At this early time in the war the USS New Mexico took up patrolling the West coast from Baja to the Aleutians. These patrols were uneventful, but times would change. As the course of the war took hold the USS New Mexico found itself on mainly bombardment duties throughout the South Pacific and received six battle stars for those campaigns. Okinawa, Luzon, The Aleutians, The Gilbert Islands, the Marshall Islands and The Mariana's including Guam, Saipan and Tinian Island where the atomic bomb was first launched. During this time the USS. New Mexico sustained 88 men killed in action. Times 2 wounded. Almost all were killed by two separate Kamikaze attacks. The first in January 1945 at Lingyuan gulf in the Philippines. The second on 12 May 1945 off Okinawa. In all who were lost included the Commander of the USS New Mexico, a famous war correspondent and an Allied General. On 2 September 1945 she joined hundreds of ships in Tokyo Bay as witness to the Japanese surrender. My father was discharged from the Navy 4 November 1947. But re-enlisted January 1951 for the Korean War. He served on the USS Van Valkenburgh DD-656. Named after the Captain of the USS Arizona killed on December 7, 1941.