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I asked my father to write an account of the battle in which he won the DSC - he wrote this when he was about 80 years old:

I located a dip in the concertina wire behind the small town of "Le Souche." If I could attack through there, I could blow the wire with bangalore torpedoes. My battalion commander got permission for me to attack from there, instead of a frontal attack where they had tried before.

I ordered 3 bangalore torpedoes (they are 15-ft pipes filled with TNT). They can be screwed together. I screwed them together. I did not have a man who had ever seen one.

At 4:00 o'clock a.m., we started toward "La Luchey.[Le Souchey]" We had to wade across a small river up to a house on the edge of town. We went toward the dip in the wire I had observed the day before. When I got there, the machine guns of the Germans opened up. I saw where it was coming from, and it hit the man with me in the foot. I took his bangalores, screwed them together, shoved them under the wire and blew the wire. I then hollered, "Follow me," and we got in with the Germans. I ran over to where the machine gun was located and killed the two gunners. I had to bring the German carrying ammunition back with me because I didn't have any more ammunition in my tommy gun.

So much started happening, I'll have to try and tell each thing from my own actions. My radio operator and I were laying in a small dip in the ground while he was setting up his radio. An 88 from another ridge fired at us, and the shell exploded just over our heads. It hit our radio and wounded my radio man. The explosion knocked me unconscious. Another radio man came up, and while he was setting up the radio, another 88 shell knocked out the radio and wounded the radio operator. So I was without contact with the rear. A fragment of that shell had hit me in the left shoulder. The first radio man was named Ciatolla, and the second operator was named Gandee. Both are still alive.

Next action after being knocked out by the 88, two sergeants walking to my lower left were shot by a sniper. I ran over there to see how bad they were hit. Both had a hole in their head and were dead. I knew the sniper was close and slightly uphill. A first lieutenant who had just been assigned to me to train as a company commander took out his raincoat and turned it inside out. They were white on the inside. I told him to take that raincoat off and get the hell out of the area. I didn't know whether he had gone nuts or was trying to surrender. I put a new second lieutenant in charge of the platoon.

In searching around the trench, a newly appointed private that I had made sergeant caught a German coming out of a hole in the bottom of the trench and shot him 8 times. I asked him why he emptied his clip in him, and he said, "I wanted a full clip in my gun for the next one I see." His name was Gleason. That German paid the price for killing the two sergeants from a "spider trap."

I then went into the strip of small pines toward where I thought the second machine gun was located. A German carrying two ammunition boxes came running toward the machine gun, and my tommy gun rolled him up the slope. Then I saw the machine gun. I killed the two Germans in the pit.

I came back toward the trench where we were, and a German appeared. The split seconds he was deciding whether to shoot me or surrender, I already solved his problem by shooting him. Some Germans in the trench threw their hands up like a bunch of kids who knew the answer to the teacher's question.

I contacted the officer in "E" company and outlined our attack on the big woods up above us. He was to go up the woods on the right, and I would attach through the woods on the left. There was open terrain between us. The Germans had pulled back out of the woods we went up, and I didn't hear any firing in his arm of the woods. We spread out, but did not meet any men from "E" Company. I pulled a man out from behind a tree so he could see what he was shooting at. While I had a hold of his collar, a sniper shot him in the head, and I was standing up .... I say a prayer for him several times a day, every time I salute a flag. I salute the flags that banks, etc. fly. I remember the men that gave their lives so our children and grandchildren are not learning to do the "goose step."

The Germans were attacking across the open space, and I picked up a German rifle and shot them. Dick Grousset would pick up their rifles and bring them to me. A tommy gun is of no use at longer ranges. Dick asked me to let them come closer, because it was getting hard to pick up their rifles. I thank my Dad for teaching me how to lead ducks, pheasants and big game when I was a kid.

Dick and I moved down the hill toward the "M" on the map of the letter Mandray. The artillery officer had not zeroed on the letter "M" like I told him. He ran off the hill and left his radio. I had picked it up. I had taken a course in artillery in Arizona. Three of us infantry officer had taken a course in advance artillery. We were 3rd, 6th, and 14th in the class. I called for artillery on the letter "M." They asked me where I was, and I told them on the letter "M," but there were more "f***king Germans" than Americans, so bring it in.

Before the artillery came, a sniper about twenty feet away fired at my head, and I fired a burst at him with my tommy gun. I must have come close to him because he didn't fire again. At the same time, 10 or 12 Germans lined up about twenty feet above me. They were dressed different from the other Germans. They must have been a special group. As I turned after shooting at the sniper, these men were shoving each other aside and shot at my head. I heard all of the bullets go over my head, and I swung my tommy gun. I saw all their heads go in the air. Why all those bullets by the sniper and these men did not hit my head I never figured out until years later. Their guns were zeroed in at 100 yards, and I was within twenty feet - therefore their bullets went over my head.

My 2nd platoon, which had been led by the 1st lieutenant that tried to surrender below, was led by a 2nd lieutenant from Kansas, surrendered below us. The lieutenant had a white flag on the end of his rifle, and Dick shot the rifle out of his hand, but they surrendered anyway, except for a few that ran back into the woods. Some were wounded. This left only Dick and me. Dick and I started down, and as we were just past where the sniper who shot at me, we heard a rustle in the bushes, and the sniper came out and rolled over his rifle and was aiming at a medic that was working on a wounded man. I knew I still had a shell in my tommy gun. There were two shells, and they lifted his helmet off his head and killed him. I sent Dick down to the woods, and then I went down and got a stretcher up to bring the wounded man and the medic down. I think the medic's name was Red Elk (an Indian).

The artillery opened up on the woods just prior to our leaving and was on the woods above us. It was the most devastating thing I ever saw. There were bodies and parts of bodies in the air. Just above us was a blue flame from their shells. All the artillery from the 3rd, 36th and 45th Divisions fired those woods.

A grave registration officer told me later that they took 486 dead Germans off that area. A wounded German major was wounded in the right knee. He had pulled extra troops into the woods to retake the area we had taken.

Dick and I were put in for the Congressional Medals, but it had to be witnessed by two men, and the only witnesses were dead Germans. We were both given Distinguished Service Crosses.

Prior to this action, I had put in for Thanksgiving dinner for 81 men, and there were only 8 of us left to eat it. In the house we were in was silver and dishes to serve it on. There was very little conversation between us.

A company clerk back at Division headquarters, who took care of the pay every month for the company, came up and said he almost came back to the company. I told him we would be glad to have him. He then told me that if anybody goofed up at headquarters, they would tell them "Captain Anderson needs men." That's a hell of a position for a company commander to be in. I led all attacks for the 36th Division from that time on. My men and I would fight!

After taking this area, I waited for replacements. During this time, the 142nd Infantry took the town of St. Marie. I moved into the town and had my first rest. I went to a house, and the woman moved her son out and gave me his room. I needed a bath, and the woman brought in a washtub and filled it with warm water. I peeled off my clothes and jumped in. She then kept bringing in a bucket of warm water for me to soak in. She then came in with a large pan of coals and ironed out my bed. I got in that bed and did not wake up until the next morning. The woman gave me my clean clothes.

When I got to my company, they had received fire from a 4-story building. There were four windows open at the top. Some of the two men I put in the ambush and the other man had been hit just under the skin, and the bullet was lodged just under the skin. I cut the bullet out and sent them in the ambushes, too. The bullet was about 22-caliber shell, but was over an inch long. I called out a tank destroyer and had him fire at the four open windows. He said he still had two more shells, and I told him to put them through the front doors at the bottom. I though maybe the sniper had run downstairs. When I went in the doors, the most horrible sight I'll ever see in my life lay before me. There was a swimming pool, and the water was red from kids.

At this same time, a sergeant came to me and said the factory north of the town was full of 88 shells that were manufactured there. I told him to take a couple of satchel charges and fire them from a nearby stone wall. That is the biggest explosion I'll ever see - but those 88 shells wouldn't bother us anymore. The building was totally destroyed. The town people were really mad about that, because their only income was what the Germans paid them. I'm sure the woman would not iron my clothes anymore.