Local pair of WWII Veterans share their Honor Flight and military experiences

by Bob Beach

Two Waukon Veterans of World War II, Bob Anderson and Chuck Luther, were recently treated to a trip to Washington, D.C. to visit veterans memorials and other historic sites, courtesy of the Honor Flight Network. Anderson took his one-day trip with his grandson, Heath Hesse, September 13, while Luther journeyed October 18 with his son, Dave.
“The treatment was just terrific. You couldn’t imagine that they would treat you that nice, really,” Luther said. “Dave and I went to Dubuque the night before and they had a banquet that night before the flight and everything was just beautiful... and it was a great flight - just everything you wanted.”
Anderson’s trip began with an early-morning drive from Waukon to Cedar Rapids for his flight. “We left here at 2:30 in the morning and we got back the next morning at 2:30  - exactly 24 hours,” He said. “We saw all the monuments, toured D.C. It was unbelievable. It was a great trip. We went to Arlington for the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and on top of all that they had an hour and a half bus tour of historic places in D.C. - we went by the Ford Theater where Lincoln was shot and they took us by the Pentagon and the White House.”
“[The memorials] are really something to see. It’s fabulous,” Luther said. “They’re all terrific, the World War II memorial was really something. It’s something everybody should see. Kids should see it.”
Both Anderson and Luther said that they were very touched by the reception they received when their flights returned to Iowa. “When we got back, there were at least 500 people in that terminal. Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, veterans and civic people, shaking hands with all of us. I couldn’t believe it. It was a great trip,” Anderson said.
Luther’s experience returning home was remarkably similar. “We flew back to Dubuque that night, and in the armory there must have been 500 people,” he said. “They had an orchestra there and, as I say, they couldn’t have treated you better. It was just wonderful. It would be nice if all the guys could go, but they don’t. And I probably wouldn’t have if Dave hadn’t pushed me to.”
While Luther and Anderson both served in the South Pacific during World War II, their experiences during the war were very different. Luther saw fierce combat on Saipan and in Okinawa while Anderson served in the Navy.

ANDERSON SHARES HIS NAVY EXPERIENCE
“When I went in, there were 700 that went in that day and they picked seven for the Navy, that was their quota, that was all they wanted of the draftees,” Anderson explained. “They’d give you a choice, Army or Navy, well half of them said they wanted the Navy and I said that and they told me to go into the room on the left, and there were four other guys in there and I was the fifth guy. I just happened to get drawn for the Navy that day, or I’d have been the Army too. Just the luck of the draw.”
“I was on a floating drydock on the Marshall Islands in the Pacific,” Anderson continued. “Of course in those days, I never flew anyplace - transportation was by ship. I left San Diego when I shipped out there and it took 28 days to get to Guam. I was 30 days in the harbor in Guam waiting to be assigned.

"I was an electrician’s mate, so I replaced the electrician on the US AFDL Number 7 - nobody knows what that means - its means ‘Auxiliary Floating Drydock Large.’ We took ships in and repaired them. And then I moved from Enewetak to Kwajalein - that’s when they were going to experiment with the hydrogen bomb.
"So, our ship didn’t have a screw on it, we weren’t seagoing, so we had to get a seagoing tug to tow us. That took about a week, and that was a rough trip - flat-bottom out there floating like a cork being pulled by another ship. I spent the rest of my time there at Kwajalein until the spring of 1946.”

LUTHER'S ARMY
EXPERIENCE
“My first combat was on Saipan, where I was a rifleman,” Luther said. “It was a little hairy - it was supposedly the biggest banzai of the war at that time. We got hit pretty bad. We lost a lot of men. After that we went to the Liberties to fill up our company again and from there we went to Okinawa, and that was a tough one. At that time I was a staff sergeant. I got wounded there - shrapnel in my leg and they sent me back to Saipan to the hospital. After six weeks, I rejoined my outfit in Okinawa. By then they had battle plans for Japan, and that would have been a disaster - we would have had to fight kids and women. It would have been terrible. Thank God the war ended before that. It was quite an experience. Something nobody should have to go through.”