West Orange Soldier Honored At Graveside Ceremony In Normandy

WEST ORANGE, NJ — The following article comes courtesy of West Orange Township Historian Joseph Fagan. Find out how to post announcements or events to your local Patch site.

Gordon J. Hansen was born in 1924 and lived with his parents on Valley Way in West Orange. He was their only child. He graduated from West Orange High School in 1942 shortly after the United States entered World War II.

As world events unfolded the WOHS Class of ’42 realized their place in history. The understanding of their role is memorialized by the statement in their yearbook. It read, “Hell broke loose our senior year, making our graduation an event not of local interest as those in the past, but one of national importance. We are rising young Americans. We are the ones who will stand behind the guns, the workers who will win the war of production, the statesmen who will create the peace of the future.”

Hansen’s classmates had an accurate perspective on the future and one that would determine his own tragic fate. He was killed in action while serving with the US Army in France only weeks before the end of the war in Europe. His death was reported in the West Orange Chronicle on April 26, 1945 but no information about his death were known.

Missing details regarding Hansen WWII service came to light in September 2021. The late Charlotte Christiansen was Hansen’s high school sweetheart and fiancé. Hansen’s parents treated her like a daughter-in-law for many years after he was killed in action. They eventually turned over all of Hansen’s military records, and medals to her. She moved away in the ensuing years and took all the items with her. They were turned over to Joseph Fagan by Christiansen’s son after 70 years in exile revealing previously unknown facts.

On December 16, 1944, a German counter offensive began along a 75-mile front which became known as the Battle of Bulge. The next day Hansen’s unit had been cut off from communication with rear artillery support. He and another soldier drove a truck down a road subjecting themselves to direct gun fire from German paratroopers. They somehow were able to reestablish communications with artillery positions who subsequently halted a German Panzar tank division from further advance. Hansen was awarded a Bronze Star for his heroic actions.

On March 20, 1945 he was running communication lines in an abandoned six story hotel in France near the German border. It was being set up as the unit’s headquarters to begin their final push into Germany. Although the building had been scanned for explosives and deemed safe it had been booby-trapped by the retreating Germans. An ensuing explosion occurred with six soldiers inside. Hansen was one of two soldiers instantly killed only weeks before the surrender of Germany.

Hansen’s parents read about their son’s death in a local newspaper a few days before the tragic news reached them by a War Department Western Union telegram. Hansen was posthumously awarded the Purple Heart that was subsequently sent to his parents. The Purple Heart, the Bronze Star, and the Western Union Telegram were among the items given to Fagan which also included pictures and Hansen’s last letters home. Hansen’s body was never returned stateside and was interred in a cemetery overlooking Omaha Beach on the Normandy coast in France after the war.

Fagan shared the story with Hansen’s surviving distant cousins from around the country in a Pennsylvania hotel lobby in October 2021. They travelled from Maine, Massachusetts, and Alaska and had no knowledge of Charlotte Christiansen’s existence or story. It was their first time seeing and learning about Hanson’s war documents and collectively agreed that everything should stay intact with Fagan. His Bronze Star and Purple Heart are currently on display at West Orange Town Hall.

A West Orange Street had been previously named for Hansen. In April 2022, West Orange Mayor Robert Parisi decided to make Hansen the namesake of a parking lot in the St. Mark’s section of West Orange after learning about the story. The annual Memorial Day Ceremony that year also paid homage to Hansen. His original trumpet used in the marching band in WOHS in 1942 was located by Fagan and returned on loan to West Orange. TAPS was played on it during the ceremony to honor Hansen.

Marilyn and Margie Hansen are sisters and distant cousins to Hansen who learned about his story after meeting with Fagan who had prepared the war records for them in a booklet. Earlier this month both sisters travelled to Normandy to place a wreath on their cousin’s final resting place. A graveside ceremony was held in the American cemetery at St.-Avold by the French patriotic association Les Portes de la Memoire represented by Guy Reichert. The story has now come full circle in a way that could not have been predicated or imagined for a fallen West Orange soldier whose story will not be soon forgotten.

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