A recent photograph of Gen. Earl E. Anderson, a three-year baseball letterman and 1940 WVU graduate who has agreed to be on hand Friday night to help dedicate the brand new, $21 million Monongalia County Ballpark located in the University Town Centre.
	WVU Alumni Association photo

Retired Gen. Earl E. Anderson has been recognized numerous times during his distinguished 35-year career in the United States Marine Corps.

 

On Friday night, April 10, Anderson is going to be recognized once again when West Virginia University dedicates the brand new, $21 million Monongalia County Ballpark located in the University Town Centre.

 

Anderson, a three-year baseball letterman and a 1940 WVU graduate, has agreed to attend Friday night’s pregame festivities to help christen the new ballpark.

 

Anderson was a pretty decent centerfielder for the Mountaineers, hitting fifth in a lineup that included some outstanding players such as minor league catcher Charley Hockenberry and first baseman Charley Seabright, who later played quarterback for the Pittsburgh Steelers.

 

Anderson batted .309 as a junior in 1939 and hit .340 as a senior in 1940, good for fourth on the team behind Hockenberry’s .357 average and the .344 averages produced by leftfielder Charley Strauss and second baseman Lou Sloman.

 

In 1943, the late Morgantown Post editor Tony Constantine wrote this about Anderson’s diamond prowess, “Anderson covered the outfield like a blanket for three seasons for the Mountaineer nine. He was one of the greatest ball hawks ever to perform on the athletic field.”

 

The legendary Ira Errett Rodgers was Anderson’s baseball coach.

 

“A great man,” Anderson said of Rodgers. “We used to drive to away games in automobiles and he always made me ride up front with him. When I got into the service and I came back to Morgantown, I always went to see him. Even after he passed away I went to see his wife. She was a lovely lady – a West Virginia graduate and an English major. And he was a pretty smart guy; occasionally he would correct my English.”

 

Anderson’s WVU baseball career was certainly noteworthy, but make no mistake about it, the reason he is returning to Morgantown to dedicate the city’s new baseball facility is more about what he accomplished following his departure from WVU.

 

The Morgantown native is easily the most decorated soldier West Virginia University has ever produced, and has to rank among the most accomplished soldiers in our state’s long and proud history.

 

Anderson is one of only 21 four-star generals in the history of the U.S. Marine Corps; he was the youngest active duty Marine ever promoted to general and was also the first active duty Marine Navy Aviator to receive his fourth star. That’s significant because Marine Corps senior leadership positions are typically dominated by infantry officers instead of aviators, for whatever reasons.

 

On April 1, 1972, Anderson was promoted to Assistant Commandant of the Marine Corps and served in that capacity until his retirement in July, 1975.

 

During his impressive military career, Anderson received three Navy Distinguished Service Medals, three Legion of Merit citations, two Distinguished Flying Crosses for his valor during World War II and a Purple Heart.

 

Anderson also fought in Korea and Vietnam where he flew numerous combat missions and earned several additional citations.

 

In 1967, Anderson returned to Vietnam as Chief of Staff, III Marine Amphibious Force, where he later received his second Distinguished Service Medal. Anderson’s ascension in the Marine Corps continued in 1969 when he was appointed Special Assistant to the Chief of Staff and then to Marine Corps Deputy Director of Personnel, Headquarters.

 

In July 1971, Anderson assumed duty as Commanding General, Fleet Marine Force Atlantic, Norfolk, Virginia, before achieving his highest rank of Assistant Commandant in 1972.

 

In between, Anderson was the Marine Corps representative on the Board of Directors of the U.S. Olympic Committee in 1970, and in 1971, Anderson was appointed by the secretary of defense as the United States’ member of the Executive Committee of the Counseil International du Sports Militaire.

 

In 1973, Anderson was named West Virginia Son of the Year.

 

Anderson, who earned a law degree from George Washington University in 1949, served as president of the West Virginia University Alumni Association in 1976-77 and continues to serve as chair of the trustees of the WVU Alumni Association’s Loyalty Permanent Endowment Fund.

 

What a journey it’s been for the kid who grew up on McLane Avenue.

 

“Morgantown is such a great place and the people of West Virginia are so patriotic, it’s wonderful,” Anderson said.

 

When Anderson attended WVU, all students were required to take ROTC training for the first two years of school and were also required to march on the parade field.

 

“Those parades were something in those days,” Anderson recalled.

 

Anderson had taken advanced military training courses at WVU and was supposed to get his reserve Army commission after his fourth year, but because he was not yet 21, he only received a letter indicating that his commission was forthcoming when his name was announced during the last parade of the school year.

 

“I wasn’t 21 until the 24^th day of June in 1940, so I was really embarrassed at that parade,” Anderson said. “I was a young snot who wasn’t old enough to get his reserve commission in the Army.”

 

Because Anderson was designated a military and academic honors graduate at WVU, the Marine Corps also offered Anderson a regular commission, which he found out about when he was drilling in the summertime at Fort Knox in Kentucky.

 

His parents had received his commission letter in the mail and that’s when Anderson decided to become a Marine.

 

“I was sworn in by a lawyer in Morgantown on June 27, 1940, and on July 3, 1940, my father drove me to Connellsville, Pennsylvania, to catch a train to Philadelphia for officer training school. The basic school then was held at the Navy Yard in Philadelphia, and I was the last full class that did that before it was moved to Quantico, Virginia.”

 

Anderson was assigned to the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Yorktown and was in Morgantown on two-day’s leave following a North Atlantic patrol when he found out that the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.

 

“I was visiting my girlfriend and we were enjoying a nice Sunday afternoon when a girl from one the sorority houses walked out into the street and said the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. I made some sort of flippant remark about it, although I knew the possibility existed of some sort of attack in either Europe or the Pacific. About an hour later, my dad called and said I had been recalled immediately.”

 

Anderson’s father drove him to Pittsburgh where he caught a flight back to Washington, D.C. later that evening.

 

“The town was just lit up like a Christmas tree,” Anderson recalled.

 

Sixteen days later he was in the water on the Yorktown sailing through the Panama Canal headed to the Pacific.

 

“We were basically green, although we had been shot at plenty of times by the Germans in the North Atlantic escorting cargo ships to Europe,” Anderson said.

 

The Yorktown received extensive damage during the Battle of the Coral Sea when a Japanese bomb went through several decks, killing everybody but one in that particular area of the ship.

 

“I would have been on that mount but when the Yorktown returned to Norfolk from Portland, Maine, the ship was re-provisioned and my location on the ship changed,” he said.

 

According to Anderson, following the Battle of the Coral Sea the Yorktown was supposed to return to San Francisco for extensive repairs but was instead diverted to Pearl Harbor for a quick, two-day patch-up job.

 

When the Yorktown arrived in Hawaii, Admiral Chester Nimitz and his staff boarded the ship and explained to the Yorktown’s senior commanders that the Japanese code had been broken and an attack at Midway Island was imminent.

 

“Nimitz was smart as hell and when they broke that code he said, ‘We’re going to put you in dry dock and then you’re going to have to be out there within 48 hours,” Anderson said.

 

The general staff assembled in the war room and was briefed on the change of plans. Instead of a two-month overhaul in San Francisco, the Yorktown was embarking upon one of the decisive naval battles in the Pacific during World War II.

 

“What they indicated to us was that there was going to be a diversionary attack in the Aleutian (Islands) area, which there was, with one carrier and several other ships and the bigger armada – and it was one helluva a big outfit – was headed out to intercept the Japanese before they could attack Midway and occupy its airfield to give them the structure to stage air attacks on Hawaii while also protecting their perimeter.

 

“Thank God that never happened,” he added.

 

The Yorktown and a destroyer were sunk during the battle, but the Japanese suffered a major defeat when four of the six carriers in their fleet were sunk.

 

	Gen. Anderson pictured here as a Mountaineer baseball player in 1940. The WVU baseball field back then was located where the MountainLair presently sits.
	WVU Athletic Communications photo

“I got knocked off the ship,” Anderson recalled. “In those days, I was commanding a battery of anti-aircraft guns on the starboard side. I started down the rope when the order came to abandon ship and I got hit in the head with something. We wore metal helmets like the ground people did and I’m sure that’s what hit me in the head and knocked me into the water.”

 

Anderson estimates he floated in the Pacific for “six or seven hours” before he was rescued.

 

“I didn’t have much fear in those days, but I was certainly concerned when it was getting dark,” he said. “People say, ‘well, what about the sharks?’ Hell, they dropped so many bombs and there were so many torpedoes in the water that no sharks would want to be around all of that.”

 

Following his rescue, Anderson returned to the States before receiving orders to attend flight training school at the Naval Air Station in Dallas. In 1944, Anderson returned to the Pacific to assume command of a Marine Bomber Squadron, and he remained in the Pacific until the conclusion of the war.

 

There were only 180,000 enlisted men in the armed forces prior to World War II, ranking the United States 19^th in the world as a military power – smaller than Portugal, but in a matter of just a few years, the United States developed the most awesome fighting force in the history of the world.

 

It gives you goose bumps when you think about that.

 

And, West Virginia University’s Gen. Earl Anderson came of age when all of this was happening.

 

Today, Anderson, who lives in Vienna, Virginia and will turn 96 this summer, still remains very active. His stay in Morgantown will be brief, however, because he is being honored by the Sons of American Revolution in a black-tie event that is taking place Saturday night in Alexandria, Virginia.

 

“My wife says I’m sick of all of your awards,” joked Anderson.

 

Anderson isn’t sure if he will be able to throw out the ceremonial first pitch or not on Friday.

 

“I’m slowing down,” he said. “My son said I would be pleased to throw out the first ball, well, I hope I am able to. I’ve got two rotator cuff (injuries) I’ve had for years, but I’ll try and give it a go anyhow.”

 

Considering what Anderson has achieved in life, it’s quite OK if he chooses to remain in the bullpen on Friday evening.

 

Just having him here to help dedicate the county’s new ballpark is more than enough.