Dee C Anderson

1st Lt Dee Anderson was killed in action on 06 June 1944, serving with Company E, 5th Ranger Battalion. On D-Day, the 5th Ranger Battalion crossed the Channel through the early hours of June 6th and touched down on Omaha Beach at Dog White, about 800 yards east of Exit D-1, after the battalion commander shifted the landing point away from the heavier fire raking Dog Green. The first and second waves came ashore in good order with relatively few casualties, then pushed over the seawall, through the wire, and up the bluff under smoke cover, breaking a key strongpoint along the way. From there the battalion threaded through minefields and hedgerow positions toward Vierville-sur-Mer, fighting through sniper, machine-gun, and artillery fire along the village and its western edge before linking up with elements of the 116th Infantry and digging in for the night alongside tanks and a detachment of the 2nd Ranger Battalion. One landing craft carrying part of Company F's headquarters and its First Platoon was swamped en route and came ashore separately near St. Laurent-sur-Mer, taking heavy fire and casualties before being pinned down short of Vierville-sur-Mer; a separated platoon of Company A, meanwhile, fought its way independently through the town and on to Pointe du Hoc, reaching the 2nd Rangers there by late evening. By day's end the battalion had taken roughly 100 prisoners and inflicted about 150 enemy casualties, at a cost of some 60 of its own men killed or wounded. 1st Lt Anderson was killed in action that day; the report does not specify the individual circumstances.