John Racoosin - Combat engineer : the life and leadership of Colonel H. Wallis Anderson, commander of the Engineers at the Bulge and Remagen.

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Combat Engineer:

The Life and Leadership of Colonel H. Wallis Anderson, Commander of the Engineers at the Bulge and Remagen

by John Racoosin

Copyright 2021 John Racoosin

ISBN 978-1-64663-283-1

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any otherexcept for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior written permission of the author.

Published by

3705 Shore Drive

Virginia Beach, VA 23455

- - 4811

www.koehlerbooks.com

Colonel H. Wallis Anderson, Corps of Engineers, US Army

For Juliet, Wife and Muse

CHAPTER ONE

BEGINNINGS

H arry Wallis Anderson was born October 2, 1890, in a Frankford suburban home in northeastern Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The firstborn of John Henry and Ida Woodington Anderson, young Wallis was later joined by sisters Adeline and Rebekah (known as Betta). John Henry, or J. H., worked for the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) as an accounting clerk, which provided for a stable and solid middle-class status for the Anderson family. Wallis, who was called, inevitably, Wally or Andy, enjoyed a comfortable upbringing, without frills but with modern conveniences of pre-turn-of-the-century America.

Anderson wrote of his life in two accounts, Military and Civilian , recorded shortly before his death in 1973 at the age of eighty-two. In his formal, somewhat spare and wry writing style, he revealed a life of tight-knit neighborhood friends and families, and a childhood in an old-fashioned America. He was born in his parents house, one of three new brick rowtype houses owned by Idas father, James Woodington. Woodington had replaced his single-family frame with the three row houses, one of which he lived in, the remaining two given to Ida and her older brother Fred.

When Anderson was still a toddler, J. H. moved the family to another Philadelphia suburb to the south, Folcroft (two miles northwest of present-day Philadelphia International Airport), in the area that came to be more generally known as Sharon Hill. Andersons commentary reflects a life that centered around the railroad and the post office, as the small community was considered outside Philadelphias downtown, though only ten miles distant.

His life in suburban Folcroft was a time that included doctors house calls (which included the performance of minor surgery!), telegraph operators, stone masons, and one-room schoolhouses. Most roads were dirt, with only a few major ones macadamized. Water was provided via wells; Andersons Folcroft house had a pump in the kitchen with a tank in a closet on the second floor. Hot water resulted from a hot water back in the coal-fired kitchen range. Early on, there was no sanitary plumbing, nor any electricity; lighting was provided by oil lamps. Eventually, city water, gas, and then electricity became available, and J. H.s status as a railroad executive meant he was one of the first in the community to have his house thus furnished.

Turn-of-the-century American life included tragedies that struck with not uncommon occurrence. Three members of a neighboring family were killed by carbon monoxide from an improperly functioning gas hot-water heater. They were discovered by the father, who worked out of town every other day. Fires too were not rare, and Andersons narrative records numerous such incidents as he grew up.

Anderson also described severe weather eventsa reminder of the much more evenhanded battle between man and elements than present day. With life centered on the railroad, extreme cold and snowstorms affected life in ways understood in modern times only in far more remote regions, rather than a scant ten miles from one of the countrys major metropolitan centers. In a notable example, the blizzard of 1898, all rail transportation was suspended for several days. When a work train finally arrived in Folcroft, it delivered shovels and brooms to assist the local populace in digging itself out.

The Andersons enjoyed another aspect of railroad life that set them apart, and they seemed to have taken full advantage: free regional railway travel. The Andersons used the railroad and its network to enjoy a degree of mobility and freedom that provided wonderful opportunities for a small boy. Anderson related how J. H. took him and his friends on camping and fishing-crabbing trips to the Chesapeake Bay, fifty to sixty miles distant from Folcroft. In true Anderson style, the bridges crossed while in transit to the campsites receive more attention in his notes than do the fishing or crabbing (At that time the Susquehanna Bridge was low level and the Bush and Gunpowder [bridges] were timber trestles with an A frame draw-span).

Using the train as free and convenient transportation, J. H. took his family to presidential inaugurations in Washington, DC, regularly. Anderson remembered being present for William McKinleys first inauguration in March 1897, as well as similar events in 1901 (McKinleys second) and 1905 (Theodore Roosevelts). Of the latter, Anderson commented on the influx of cowboys and pseudo-cowpokes, some complete with cow ponies

The second of the dual themes that carried through Andersons liferailroad and militarywas also established early on. Walliss paternal grandparents and other relations lived in Leiperville, a township on the northeastern boundary of Chester, a little more than a mile or so from the Folcroft residence. The Pennsylvania Military College (PMC) was located nearby, a former private boys school with a strong military tradition that had transitioned into a full-fledged martial institution with federal ties. PMC was the second-oldest military academy in America, after West Point, upon which PMC was modeled.

Anderson attended several of the annual PMC commencement ceremonies with his aunt Annie Rebekah during the late 1890s. More than seventy years later, Anderson recalled the excitement of watching the PMC graduation exercises, which included not just the usual oratory, ceremonies and awards in the morning, but also a mock battle in the afternoon. The cadets, having exchanged dress uniforms for field-service duds, conducted an assault across the parade grounds against the colleges main buildingsalways gallantly defended by a small group of loyalists with a couple of smoking hot Gatling guns. These ceremonies left a lasting and enjoyable impression on young Wallis.

In February 1898, the US battleship Maine was sunk in Havana harbor, sparking the Spanish-American War. Consequently, the National Guard prepared, and volunteers were called to enlist. With his father, seven-year-old Anderson visited a National Guard camp in nearby Middletown, where Company K of the 6th Pennsylvania National Guard Regiment was being mustered. Years later, during similar mobilizations for troubles with Mexico and for World War I, Anderson commanded this same infantry companyan example of the enduring and community nature of American citizen soldiers.

Also as a result of the Spanish-American War, Anderson enjoyed the excitement of witnessing Admiral George Deweys Asiatic Squadron of the US fleet in the Hudson River, following their triumph over the Spanish Navy in Manila Bay, May 1898. J. H. had arranged for the family to ride the Pennsylvania Railroad ferry between New York City and Jersey City, New Jersey, in order to observe the victorious fleet, then at anchor in the Hudson. With no radio, satellite, television, internet, or even current photographs to supplement the occasional newspaper accounts of a foreign war conducted halfway around the world, the opportunity to see the actual recently victorious battle fleet must have been an indescribable thrill to a curious population.

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