Grover Philips: World War II
Interviewed by Henry Laakman (Rotary Interview)
Interview date August 14, 2004
Q: Today we’re interviewing Grover Philips. And, Grover, I’m just
going to go through the questions that they ask, but there’s going to be
some places where I know I want to ad lib a little bit and ask you some
things because. . .
A: OK.
Q: . . . I’m just real curious about, ah, I’ve heard your
presentation, of course, about the battle of Leyte Gulf and. . .
A: Yeah. And there’s a new book out, you know?
Q: No, I didn’t know that.
A: ”The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors.”
Q: (laughing) Really?
A: Yeah, and it’s – it’s awesome. It tells so much about the
little part of that huge battle and what a last-gap stand it was.
Q: Yeah.
A: Just phenomenal.
Q: Yeah.
A: Well, go ahead.
Q: OK, well I’ll have to . . . OK, well, first of all it says when
and where were you born?
A: I was born October 26, 1925, in Muskogee, Oklahoma.
Q: Muskogee, Oklahoma.
A: I’m an Okie from Muskogee.
Q: There you go! It says when did you first begin thinking that
the US might get involved in World War II and did that occur after the
attack on Pearl Harbor or did you think the US involvement in the war was
inevitable prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor?
A: I thought it was inevitable. Several guys from McAlister, where
I was at the time in high school, had already gone to the RCAF [Royal
Canadian Air Force] because we weren’t in the fight. Some before that had
even gone over – there were a couple of guys that even went over and fought
in the Spanish, ah, Revolution.
Q: Ah-huh.
A: So, I suppose I had heard all of this conflict that was going
on and when it started it was a continuation – we’re going to be in it.
We’ve got to be in it. We were in it before.
Q: So what was your reaction and the reaction of your family and
friends when Pearl Harbor was attacked?
A: Well, everybody – “the Japs sons-of-bitches” – of course.
Q: Ah-huh.
A: The immediate reaction was “what a terrible thing to do!” At
that time we had no idea that the Japanese ambassadors were on their way to
the White House to tell them they were going to declare war on us when the .
. . you know, there’s some slippage there which we didn’t realize at the
time. But we were incensed, everybody was, that they would do such a – pull
such a dastardly trick. Although we all knew that we were involved in
lend-lease.
Q: Right.
A: As far as the Axis was concerned – it wasn’t an Axis then, it
was just Germany and Italy, I guess.
Q: So, were you already in the military in December of ’41?
A: No, I was a callow 16-year-old boy in December of ’41. We were
having lunch at – my uncle Jess was the superintendent of the Stringtown
Penitentiary and we were at his house for lunch that day. I don’t know the
occasion – December the 7th – but my family’s always been close. And I was
sitting in the living room and Dad and Uncle Jess were talking. And I wanted
to listen to some music, of course, Hit Parade, probably on Sunday
afternoon. And, ah, didn’t want to interfere with their . . . so I had to
sit close and listen to a great big old radio. And the news came over and .
. . so that must have been 1:30 – 2:00 our time when I heard it. And I said,
“Dad, Dad, listen, listen.” And that was the first announcement that we had
that the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor.
Q: Was that a reporter or . . .
A: It was, ah, they broke into the music to announce that Pearl
Harbor was, then, I guess, under attack.
Q: Under attack. Then it wasn’t the president speaking at that
time?
A: No, no, no. That was Sunday afternoon, the day of the attack.
And he didn’t speak until – I don’t think he spoke until he came before
Congress the next Monday – or it may have been Tuesday before he actually
made his speech – declaration of war. Ah, and, of course, we all listened to
the radio then. We heard the speech and we read it in the newspapers so the
– the – “Day that will live in infamy.”
Q: Ah-huh.
A: Immediately – he was good a turning a phrase – caught
everybody’s imagination.
Q: Ah-huh.
A: But that wasn’t – what I’m talking about was the actual day of
the attack . . .
Q: Yeah.
A: And the announcer broke into the music I was listening to.
Probably “String of Pearls” or “Tuxedo Junction” or something like that.
Q: So, ah, were you drafted or did you enlist or how long was it
before you were in the service?
A: Well, I – I was – I said 16 – I guess I was 15 – no, I would
have been 16 in October that year. I was 16. Ah, I was in school the next
year. I went to school at Durant. The university had a model training school
and I went down there as a junior in high school. Stayed with uncle –
another uncle – Uncle John – and went to Russell High Training School. They
reduced the, the age at which you could volunteer for the army to age 18 and
go into the paratroopers. They were looking for jump guys.
Q: Ah-huh.
A: Our phys ed coach down in Durant had put up a tremendous
commando training course – he’d built it – had it – we did all kinds of
things. When I – before I – my birthday that year, I could climb
hand-over-hand to the ceiling of that old-fashioned gym, which was about 75
feet in the air or something like that, turn around, you know, and climb
back down. And run that commando course. I was in good physical condition.
Several of us guys decided, well, let’s join the – let’s go to the air –
become paratroopers. Well, I wrote dad a card. I didn’t call then. In those
days you didn’t call except when somebody died.
Q: (laughing)
A: And I wrote dad and I said “I want to enlist in the
paratroopers. I’m supposed to be 18, but if you and mother sign my papers, I
can go in.” So he – he called. And he said, “Pack your clothes and come on
home. . .” McAlister to Durant. . . “and we’ll talk about this.” He had a
grocery store over on South Main in McAlister and so I went to the house,
left my clothes, and went to the store, drove the car down there. And he
said, “Let’s go get a cup of coffee and a piece of pie,” which was his
favorite thing about two o’clock in the afternoon.
Q: Ah-huh.
A: And we sat down and he said, “Now, your mother and I have
talked about this a lot. There are men here who ought to be in the army who
are not. Who are meeting farm requirements as deferments.” There were
draft-dodgers then like there have been since the world began, I suppose.
And he said, “Your mother and I could not stand to have you lie to send you
overseas and get you killed with these guys sitting around here. You’re not
18, but we’ve discussed it and you can join the navy if you want to at 17
and we will sign your papers.” In the meantime. . .
Q: So they were saying you could join the navy, but not, not. . .
.
A: Join the navy . . .
Q: . . .but not the paratroopers.
A: . . . they wouldn’t lie to get me enlisted. Seventeen was
alright in the navy. They’d let me do that. He offered me thirty-five
dollars a week to go to work in the store, which was like a fortune then.
Ah, people can’t understand that now, but thirty-five dollars a week was a
lot of money. I went to work. That was probably the first of November. Maybe
the 15th. First or the 15th. But one of my fast, best running buddies in the
world had a birthday December the 3rd and he was turning 17. Inevitably, we
enlisted in the navy.
Q: Together.
A: Yeah. So I enlisted at the age of 17.
Q: 17. OK. Ah, so how did the other men in your area feel about
serving in the military? You kind of talked about that.
A: Yeah. Ah, they were pretty patriotic bunch of people. Ah, my
football coach, in ’41 – ’42, he left – the assistant football coach whom I
admired a great deal – he enlisted in the navy and got him a commission as
an ensign. And I thought, you know, I’ll be going with him. So I – it
obviously was in my mind all along that I wanted to get in it and do our
part.
Q: Grover, it doesn’t surprise me what you say about this part of
the country, but back then were there other parts of the country where
people were, I don’t know, less patriotic than, than, you know, the South,
which has traditionally been patriotic?
A: I think, probably, there were. At first, even here, there were
those who were – would do anything they could to stay out of the service.
Ah, I’m kind of like Patton about that – they were cowards. But at any rate,
they had, ah, here, although we were mixed, it was a thin mix. We – there
was no great body of bund members, for instance. Back east they had the bund
– the German bund was a big thing and they met and they talked about what
was going on and didn’t like what they saw and so on and so forth. So I
think there were areas where – everything was just comfy. They didn’t –
there were those who were isolationists and didn’t want us involved in
anything. They wanted us to stay completely out of it.
Q: Ah-huh.
A: So, yeah, it wasn’t – all the country wasn’t like the midlands,
I think. The heart. . .
Q: Yeah. Yeah. OK, well, the next one – I think you already talked
about this, but it says how did your family, wife, or girlfriend feel about
going off to the war?
A: Didn’t have a girlfriend.
Q: So you already told about how your family felt. . .
A: Yeah.
Q: . . . yeah. And then the next question is in what branch of the
military you served, so that was the navy.
A: Yeah.
Q: So, then, where did you go for basic training?
A: San Diego.
Q: So did you have to, like, report somewhere in Oklahoma City,
and then. . .
A: Well, that’s another whole. . .
Q: And then how did you go from here to San Diego?
A: That’s a whole story in itself. I am going to write a book.
Q: Are you really?
A: Yeah. I had so many crazy things that’s happened. I think it
would be funny. War is not all hell.
Q: No.
A: It’s hell. I was – enlisted at Dallas, Texas.
Q: Oh.
A: Because the draft here was full. Well, they rejected me here.
And I went to Dallas to enlist. My left leg is shorter than my right one by
an inch and a half. I didn’t know it. I thought I was – mother says I was
perfect until I joined the navy.
Q: (laughing)
A: But, in a nutshell, the doctor said I had a limited reflex in
my right knee and I couldn’t do the deep-knee squats. Well, when you look at
my legs, it’s shorter!
Q: Ah-huh.
A: I didn’t know it. I didn’t even know it then. And that chief at
McAlister said “All your records will come back here and go to Dallas and be
enlisted.” I went back and gave him hell. My buddy went on. He went to Great
Lakes. I said that little scrawny dried up twig kept me and here I am and he
said (garbled) they’re crazy. Well, and some other things transpired and
then finally I was sworn in. [phone rings in background and tape is
stopped.]
So I went to Dallas and they said – sent me a card and told
me when – had a – was available. I went down there and was sworn in and
sitting out – I’d been home – I’d left home three times for the navy. And
they – chief walks – somebody announces “Any of you men want 30 days’ delay
in departure? You can go home for 30 days.” I’ve already said good-by three
times! The chief walked up to me and he says “Stand up, sailor.” I was 6
foot – 5’11” then – I grew after that. And he said “I’m putting you in
charge of a draft of 35 men for San Diego, California.” I said, “Me? You’re
putting me in charge?” He said “I think you can handle it.” I was big. And
so I took a draft of 35 men by train. We had our own car. All the way
through San Antonio, Texas all the way to Los Angeles, changed cars and then
went down to San Diego and reported for enlistment.
Q: Now what time of the year was this?
A: It was February.
Q: February. And so how long did a train ride from Dallas to San
Diego. . .
A: Oh, we were . . .
Q: How long did that take?
A: Three or four days. We were probably, as I recall, we were
three days into Los Angeles – three days and nights into Los Angeles. And
then we, ah, we had another day getting on down to San Diego because they
stopped at every. . .
Q: Yeah.
A: . . . you know, every town they came through. So I’d say we
were four days making the trip.
Q: To get there? OK, and then, so, what was your training like?
You know, was that the first time that you had had met men from other parts
of the country?
A: Oh yeah. Yes, it was. Ah, I knew all kinds of people in
McAlister. McAlister was, in the early days of this state, a crossroads. It
was – people from Dallas came there to shop.
Q: Huh.
A: Because of the coal and the crossroads of the railroad. It was
a big community. Well, there was a good mix of people. Jewish. I dated
Jewish girls – didn’t know they were Jewish. Didn’t know what the Jew was.
They were girls in high school. Polish. Italian. Had a large Italian
settlement – still there today. Krebs.
Q: Krebs, yeah.
A: Got a reputation. So, I admit those kind of people. But people
from other parts of the United States – I don’t know much about them. The
guys from Brooklyn and the Bronx – they were the foulest mouth people I ever
met in my life!
Q: (laughing) Still are!
A: Yeah, still are, absolutely! My grandsons attended a ball game
up in . . they said “Those people are foul! On the street . . . (garbled)
everywhere! The girls, too!” They were astonished. But I’d never heard a lot
of the profanity in my life that I heard in that . . .
Q: And this wasn’t from the drill instructors!
A: No, it was from the boots. The guys from Brooklyn and the
Bronx. And, ah, we had some from Chicago. Which was kind of strange. They
had a boot camp in Chicago, they sent him down here. Depends on when they –
we went to book camp for – we had a 12 week boot camp, even though they were
using a lot of men. Ah, and at night, you’d hear [sobbing] – these guys
crying themselves to sleep. I never did. In boot camp I just went sailing
right through it.
Q: So being in shape. . .
A: Being in shape had a lot to do with it.
Q: . . .had a lot to do with it, didn’t it?
A: And a grocery merchant. From the time I got through with
running that commando course I was in a grocery store working hard. It was
tough work. We carried groceries a block and a half to the – to the wagon
yard in those days. So, you know, you hustled. You worked hard. Yeah, I
didn’t – that part didn’t bother me. Getting out of bed did, but that’s
another story!
Q: So now did you have, like in the navy, did you have
marksmanship training and, you know, any of that kind of thing?
A: No. The things that we did that were unique, I think, ah, or
occur to me as being unique – we spent one day filling sandbags and making
slit trenches. Just, I guess, to get the feel of it. One day they said we
were going to go on a – and we trained with rifles, manual of arms, all that
stuff, marched with them, drilled with them just like they were real guns.
They were fake guns, but we drilled with them. Ah, one day they said we were
going to go on a 25-miles hike and so we fell out that morning in our
dungarees with leggings, a field pack, two blankets, a poncho, canteen of
water, web belt, bayonet, and honest-to-God rifle which was heavier than the
one we’d been practicing with, and we marched 15 miles through the hills up
the coast. Ten miles up the coast but it took us 15 miles to get to
Oceanside where there was a 40 millimeter training school. We marched up to
it and opened our rations and had lunch there and it was a sandwich and an
apple, maybe a candy bar, but I’m not sure about that. I remember the apple
and the sandwich. And our canteen of water. Weren’t to have anything else.
Got to fire 40 millimeter anti-aircraft gun because the class was in session
and they let us participate. And then we – soon as we did that, we took off.
We marched 5 miles on the beach down to Oceanside to Mission Beach. Ocean
Beach was 10 miles. Mission Beach was 5 miles. We marched to Mission Beach 5
miles to go take our swimming test. We had to learn to swim. And we did that
at Mission Beach and we marched up there almost every week until we took our
test – final exam. But anyhow, we marched on the beach – and that’s tough
marching in sand with a full load. And at Mission Beach we jumped back on
the road and marched in formation all the way back to San Diego. And we made
it in good style. Ah, there were – I bet you that our of a company of men –
160 men – I’ll bet you there weren’t 10 guys that fell out. . .
Q: Ah-huh.
A: . . .until, till the very last, we got in, ah, got back and our
chief got mad at us. We had a chief athletics officer for a boot chief and
we were grab-assing or sky-larking or something in the ranks as we marched
around this gridiron where we trained daily, and he decided we ought to make
another round or two. And I’ll bet you half of the guys that fell out fell
out then. And he stood and watched and he got his ass chewed out, too!
(laughing) He stood down there and – if he’d have gone with us he’d have
been alright, but he stood and watched us.
Q: Yeah, yeah.
A: But I was really pleased with that.
Q: Yeah, so where did you go, then, after basic training?
A: Well, ah, I went to Memphis, Tennessee. In the test that they
gave all of us, of course, there was two or three hundred of us in a big
room. They give us all kinds of test. Aptitude tests, intelligence tests,
everything. In the process, there was a blinking light down at the end, and
I could discern that light and could hear it, too. So when the tests were
analyzed we went in for assignment, this guy says “What do you want to do?”
I said “I want to go into the armed guard.” The armed guard were the guys
who manned the guns on the freighters and then – we’d seen and heard about
the Germans shooting our guys and sinking the freighters and, ah, that’s
where they need me – I can handle that. Well, he says “Wouldn’t you rather
fly? We’ve got all the armed guard we need, you know, anybody can do that.
You’ve got an aptitude for radio. How’d you like to fly?” I said, “Oh, I’d
love – I’ve love to fly. I never dreamed I’d get to do anything like. . . “
And I was sent to Memphis, Tennessee to the Naval Air Technical Training
Center at Billington, as an aviation radio trainee. Graduated from there,
and that was a – that was a 12 week school, and then that was followed by
two weeks of radar training. Radar, of course everybody’s so blasé about it
today. . . .
Q: Yeah, but that was new then.
A: It was new then. There was a 12 foot stockade fence and you’d
come up to that and you couldn’t carry anything in there – no
paper, no pencil – and they marched our squad in there, closed the gate
behind us and opened the other gate for us to walk on into the compound, and
they closed it and then they’d turn guard dogs loose in the area. And we got
our radar training there – two weeks.
From there had to go to aerial gunnery school. I came out of
aviation radio school a seaman first class. I had been a recruit seaman out
of boot camp, a second class seaman out of aviation radio school, a seaman
first class – aviation radio striker, they called it.
Q: Now just out of curiosity, how much did a seaman make? What was
your pay in those days?
A: Forty-seven dollars a month, I think. At first, it was
something like . . .
Q: And you were making thirty-five dollars a week working in the
grocery . . .
A: A week working for dad, yeah. And it wasn’t uncommon because
help was so hard to get. So many of the men who would work were gone - they
had enlisted or been drafted – that dad was humping to get people to help
him in the store that would work. And he had a pretty good hammer on me.
Q: (laughing)
A: So I worked – even if it’d been free, I’d have worked! But,
yeah, I made, seems like right at first it was forty – in boot camp it
wasn’t that much. But they gave us a raise along in there to about
forty-five or fifty dollars a month and I think that’s what I got in
aviation – as a graduate of aviation radio school. The aerial gunner school
– all of this, by the way, was by train.
Q: Right.
A: I’ve been across this country by train so many times and I love
it. It’s the only way in the world to travel. But you can’t do it. Somebody
screwed up the passenger trains. Anyhow, by passenger train to Pensacola,
Florida where we went through a 12 week school in aerial gunnery. Ah, it
seemed like there were three weeks classroom and then we went to an island
just off the coast for, I guess maybe it was just three weeks, of shooting.
Q: Ah-huh.
A: And about four of us guys, or half-a-dozen of us, volunteered
for kitchen duty and let our group go on and we stayed and worked in the
kitchen for two weeks. That was two weeks out there – two weeks. So we got
to eat good for two weeks. And then we joined the next class coming through,
see. They just rotated. And we came on – we took our two weeks there.
You asked about boot camp. One day they put us on the busses
and they took us up to Came Lejeune.
Q: Ah-huh.
A: To fire . . .
Q: Was that Marine even back then?
A: Marine, yeah. To fire our weapons and learn to shoot a gun. I
couldn’t hit a bull in the ass with a bass fiddle! I had fired a shotgun one
time in my life. I sneaked a pistol out of renter’s room one time and fired
it three or four times. It was a wonder I didn’t shoot myself! I couldn’t
hit that sleeve! Some of the guys were good. Some of them made marksman, you
know, just right off they were – and they got credit it for it when they
shot good. I didn’t shoot good. We went to Memphis. They ran us through a
program where we – the third week of school we did some trap shooting.
Q: Ah-huh.
A: And it was just fun shooting a shotgun. You know, I was a
little more comfortable with that. As a side note, our section chief, one
guy was in charge of the section – ARC6H – AR6H – ah, he flunked that and
then the tenth week of that school they kicked him out because he flunked
that course in the third week and off he went to serve as a deck hand
someplace. But I passed it well enough, apparently, to – I got to go on. And
when I left that school off the coast of Pensacola we had a track – a
railcar – that went around in a big circle and we had 10 low houses and 10
high houses. It wasn’t anything for me to hit 18 of them in a row. They made
a gunner out of me. And I’ve retained a lot of that today. And I – we
graduated and then we were assigned – I and 5 other fellow were assigned to
a VC-10 – by train through Chicago across the Great Northwest to join our
squadron out at Seattle, Washington.
Q: Huh. OK, so, then the next question was in what capacity did
you serve? Your duty and the places in which you served and your rank?
A: Yeah, I was – after joining the squadron, we, I made aviation
radioman third class. There were five of us that joined it at one time. We
all got our ranks within a month of the joining the squadron. We joined the
squadron about October 27 or 28 of ’43. And the squadron left for Brown
Field in California in December. They Christmas-ed down there and we stayed
and manned the base, a group of us, about thirty of us – I wasn’t put in
charge this time. I screwed that one up – and manned the base. I ran the
phone at the BOQ and waiting tables at the officer’s club and, ah, stood –
we stood watch. Telephone watch and guard duty at the hangars and that kind
of stuff because the squadron had gone – we had furnished that while we were
there and then soon as two more squadrons came in they took over the duties
and us 35 guys just hoofed it on down the coast by train to, ah, Reem Field
which is south of North Island, San Diego just a hair on the coast. The
squadron was still out at Brown Field. I’d never – we’d never even. . .
Q: So now what kind of aircraft were in this squadron?
A: It was a composite – the navy called it a composite squadron.
VC-10: V – aviation, C – composite. Avenger torpedo planes. Grumman TBFs
originally, and later changed to a TBM, which was – meant that the Ford
Motor Company got the bid or something. Grumman made them originally and
then the contract went to somebody else and they changed the code to TBM –
Martin-Marietta – I don’t know. And FM2s. An FM2 is a scaled-down F6F. It’s
a kind of a baby Wildcat. They were both – the Wildcat was designed to fly
off these little Jeep carriers, which is were we were headed. We didn’t know
it at the time, I didn’t. The skipper may have known. And the Grumman
Avenger was a replacement for the one that we lost so many of when Torpedo
Eight was shot up.
Q: So were these all – were these all carrier-type aircraft? Or
were they. . .
A: Oh yeah.
Q: These were . . .
A: All carrier, yeah, yeah.
Q: So did you know at that time that you were going to be . . .
A: On a carrier?
Q: Serving on a carrier?
A: Oh, yeah.
Q: So, I mean, you knew that you were not going to be shore-based?
A: Yeah, we were going to be aircraft carrier people. And, ah, I
didn’t know Jeep carrier. I thought carrier. Period. The composite part of
it, I just thought “well, it’s a - we fly together.” Our fighter planes
were assigned to protect us and we’d coordinate with – it was a small
cohesive group. Now on the big carriers, they’d have a torpedo squadron with
30 planes in it. We had 30 total. Then they’d have 30 or 60 SBDs, then
they’d have 30 or 60 fighters. They were each different, completely
different squadrons. But in our case we were one squadron. With one of the
officers in charge of the fighter division and one in charge of the torpedo
bomber division. And the mindset, as you know, of a fighter pilot is totally
different from that of a bomber pilot. It’s just . . .
Q: So now, in your training were you – I guess you worked on both
of these.
A: I – yes. I serviced radios on both of – the equipment – radio
and radar – on both planes. And I – it was necessary occasionally for me to
fire up that little fighter plane and taxi up to a certain place so I could
test the radio. And I loved doing that. I’d like to have done more than taxi
one of them but couldn’t get that far. Ah, so I was familiar with the plane
– both planes. I never taxied a torpedo bomber – them big . . .
Q: And these are all tail, ah . . .
A: Tail draggers?
Q: Tail wheel, right?
A: Tail wheel, yeah.
Q: Well, that’s a harder job.
A: You bet, that part would have daunted me considerably. But, ah,
yeah, I worked on the radios on both planes. Was very familiar with all the
equipment. It – now when we joined the squadron, us five guys didn’t get to
fly. We were surplus. The pilots had already been – everybody already picked
up sides. Each pilot had been assigned a gunner and a radioman and those
were pretty much permanent throughout the life of the squadron. Even when it
reformed after we got back to the states following the sinking of our ship,
most of them were stuck right where they were. Ah, the – I got separated
because of my wounds. But, ah, and some of the other guys – that sort of
thing happened.
Q: Well, let’s get to that part because that . . .because the next
question says that in terms of your own experience during World War II under
what kind of conditions did you live and work and just elaborate on as many
aspects of the food and clothing and so forth. But I guess, so when did you
actually get assigned to a ship and when did you, well, deploy?
A: We were already assigned a ship, we just didn’t know it.
Q: Oh!
A: When the squadron all finally came together – the detached part
of it and the main squadron – came together at a place called Ota Mesa,
which is just north of the border to Tijuana. High up on the mesa. And we
flew from there for a month or two. We practiced – (garbled) – I didn’t fly.
Kept the radios going. Ah, but the guys that flew did all this training and
had their own special training courses. They taught them a lot of things
that I didn’t know. And, ah, one incident – we had a squadron party and they
had all – ham and all kinds of fried chicken and everything – laid out the
biggest feed I’d ever seen in my young life – out under the trees in a bull
pasture out near Ota Mesa. And the officers played the enlisted men in
softball. Mr. Holliman turned 21 that week and he was wearing a white on
white dress shirt. I’d never seen a white on white dress shirt. And the
officers got drunk enough they tore that shirt off of him.
Q: (laughing)
A: And I thought that was hilarious! He would – and of course,
being such a small squadron and two enlisted men and one pilot in the
torpedo planes – we were pretty much first name basis, although it was “Mr.”
and so and so – we had good camaraderie. It was nice – a good thing about
it. Ah, that was a great party and the next day, however, he gave us a
liberty for the weekend, the skipper did, and the next day, ah, I happened
to be at the office and that’s too long a story to tell, but, ah, and I
heard him – he got called to the phone. And I could hear his side of the
conversation and they wanted us to fly a training mission with a simulated
landing on one of the little islands off the coast. They wanted our squadron
to cover the landing as if we were – would do on a D-Day. And that’s another
thing that kind of gets me, by the way – D-Day. Hell, there were D-Days
everywhere. People don’t know what “D” stands for – disembarkation is what
that means.
Anyhow, and he said, well, he was a West Point graduate and I
think this was one of his classmates that had already made admiral – he was
just a captain. He said, “I’ll tell you what, Jeff (or Jack or whatever his
name was) you get my squadron back here – they’re all on liberty – you get
them here, call me, I’ll come back and lead it. In the meantime, I’m gone.”
And he hung up the phone and left. You know, and he headed back to Tijuana.
Q: (laughing)
A: Huxtable was his name, you know, and of course, I thought he
was a giant. I didn’t think he could do anything wrong and I don’t guess he
could.
Q: Ah-huh.
A: Ah, but overseas at Pearl – on the way over to our first
invasion, we picked up two new torpedo bomber pilots. And I don’t know how
it fell out that – oh, I know. Of the five of us, two were taken off before
we left San Diego. We had – we were only entitled to three crewmen backup.
We were – we were there in case somebody got killed is what we were for –
any of the squadron air radiomen. And sure enough, we picked up these two
pilots at Pearl and they assigned me to one and Bill to the other one. Well,
I – my – then I was scheduled to fly with Sroyer was his name – S- r - o - y
- e – r. “Bug Eyes” was his nickname, had it written on his Mae West [life
vest] – I didn’t call him Bug Eyes – Mr. Sroyer. The navy had a rule which
said I couldn’t – he – pilot could not carry a crew until he had qualified
by landing and taking off three times on that ship. They also had a rule
which said a pilot could not qualify with a crewed – could not fly a crewed
plane in a combat zone without a crew. And he couldn’t carry a crew till he
qualified. We qualified D-Day at Saipan.
Q: (laughing)
A: I flew with him during Saipan. We made about 15 missions
during that invasion starting D-Day and when they secured about a third of
the island or half of the island or something like that we were withdrawn
and, ah, they decided that – some guy that came aboard – the warrant officer
decided he wanted to be a – have flight pay because it was pretty nice –
fifty percent of your base pay. And so he put in for flight pay, changed his
rank, and that meant somebody had to give up their flight pay. Well, there
were two – and the chief photographer wanted to fly, you know, and so in
order to do that, two of us had to give up our – the two most recent guys in
the squad room were Bill and me, so we were kicked back to radio repair
shack again. And we came back and started the invasion at Tiernan and the
other radiomen began to carp about having to fly with these extra pilots.
And we had some pilots that came aboard from the Fanshaw Bay when she was
hit and so we had more than our regular complement. I wound up flying with
Sroyer and Osterkorn and another pilot. I flew with three different pilots,
at least, during the Tiernan invasion and then one day chief says,
“Phillips, you’re not to fly anymore. They just found out you’ve been flying
without flight pay.” I said, “Oh?” He said, “Back to the radio shack.” I
said, “Yes sir! Whatever your say, chief.”
Q: (laughing)
A: So that’s what I did, I went back to the radio shack. Well, my
job at the radio shack – the three of us that were there – we would greet
the flights as the came in, ask the pilots – they knew what we were – they
knew us – and I’d do this, and he’d say . . . and I’d hang around and find
out what was wrong with his radio.
Q: Ah-huh.
A: Or if he said OK, I was doing it for the next one that landed.
And one day I was – the radioman – if there was a radioman that came out of
the torpedo bomber, I’d get him right there at the door. This plane landed
and taxied forward to the barriers. I popped open the door and the radioman
stepped out and I said, “How’d it run?” He says, “Good, Grover” – “Phil,”
rather, and I was looking back down the flight deck and here was a plane
coming in about that much too high. And I said “Run! Look out, Billy!” – the
radioman. And he turned and ran cross-ways. I turned around and ran forward
to get away from the barriers. And that torpedo bomber’s Pratt-Whitney
engine was still windmilling, and I grabbed hold of the wheel and just
turned around and hunkered down behind the wheel because I figured that
plane was coming right off through the barrier. Well, he veered a little to
the right and crashed the island and the barriers. A rocket flew loose
[claps his hands], hit Billy Ketchum in the leg and broke his leg. I got
permanent flight status then!
Q: (laughing)
A: Billy was shipped to, ah, to a hospital in Espritos Santos and,
ah, we got close enough once that my – that his pilot and gunner that I
inherited – the three of us flew down there and got to go in and visit with
him at the hospital. But I flew with that pilot for . . .
Q: So now, what ship – what was the name of your ship at this
point?
A: The ship – well, I served on one at that point. That was the
USS Gambier Bay.
Q: And this was a, you call it a . . .
A: A Jeep carrier.
Q: A Jeep carrier.
A: Baby flat-top, ah, Woolworth carrier, ah, I, ah, President
Roosevelt called it a Woolworth carrier. Kaiser built freighters – ships –
Kaiser Aluminum.
Q: Ah-huh.
A: And he came up with the idea of installing a flight deck on
these, ah, these freighter hulls and he could turn those freighter hulls out
so fast it would make your head swim. They – we were CVE73, which means ours
was the 73rd hull made . . .
Q: Ah-huh.
A: And that came – we christened – they christened that baby about
November of ’43. So, when they began to produce them, they just produced
them just quite fast. We were assigned that ship in rotation. It was just –
it took a while for it to identify itself. But we went about the Gambier Bay
and served in her until she was sunk.
Q: So what – tell me, what was the – I mean what were the
conditions like on the ship?
A: Well, conditions were good. Well, they were – conditions were
good. I’ve been on a destroyer. I know what good conditions are. We had ice
cream. We had soda fountain. We had a laundry. We had fresh water, showered
in fresh water all the time, drank fresh water. Big mess hall. Our rations
were not the best, ah, we’d have fresh eggs until we were out of port a week
or ten days and then we were out of eggs.
Q: (laughing)
A: We got powdered eggs from then on – they were no damn good!
Q: (laughing) Never have been!
A: And they’re still not! Ah, but we had – living was pretty good.
Now, it got hot. When you get out in the South Pacific – they talk about
over in Iraq how hot it gets, ah, I was reading, watching something on TV –
they started flying these planes off the desert. The cowlings would be so
hot you couldn’t service them without blistering your hands so they’d wait
until dark till it cooled down at night to service them. Well, that – it was
hot out in the South Pacific. The – the ward rooms – the officer’s quarters
were air conditioned. Our – the air crewmen’s bunk room, I think, was air
conditioned. But I wasn’t there, I was down below with the ship’s crew, down
forward, because of the complement thing I’ve already explained. I wasn’t
part of the – when we went aboard ship, I was transferred to the ship’s
company. So I became ship’s company from the time we went aboard and while I
was flying, I was flying TDY, I supposed. I was a loaner to the squadron.
Q: Ah-huh.
A: I don’t fully understand that. Never saw my orders. I just did
what they told me. But, ah . . . (end of side A)
Alright. The squadron crewmen had a nice head, which I
preferred to use to the ones we had down below. Ah, they were alright. Good
hot and cold water, that part wasn’t bad.
Q: Ah-huh.
A: Except that this big open thing and the commode was a – a
trough with – 16 guys could sit on at one time. . .
Q: Ah-huh.
A: And the high sea – that was a mess! But, ah, really, it was a
pretty good life.
Q: Well, good. Now, did you have any contact with people back
home? I mean, did you get mail on the ship, ah, fairly regularly?
A: We get mail from port to port. When we – when we – for
instance, when we sailed up to Saipan we had had mail delivered just before
we left – not Honolulu – not Hawaii, but we went by one of the islands which
I could think of given the time – to take aboard additional supplies, refuel
and get all ready for the invasion. We had a mail call there. Our mail was
sent there for us, waiting for us. And we went ashore, got our mail – the
mail guys did – and brought it back, so we had mail. And the mail that we
had written during that time was delivered – was sent back home. We’d go to
Saipan and Saipan lasted, ah, our part of it lasted 15 – 20 days, something
like that – it was a fairly small island and they had it secured. We went
back to the same island – I want to say Mannus, and that may not be right –
refueled, rearmed, took aboard new armament, and got a mail call.
Q: Ah-huh.
A: So then, started back to Tiernan, the same thing. After
Tiernan, we went back and rearmed again, and then we went to Guam, no, yeah,
Guam, and then we rearmed and then we went to Angar and Ulithi, ah, Peleliu
and Angar in the Ulithi Atolls . . .
Q: So this is getting close to the Leyte Gulf . . .
A: Getting ready, yeah, we were moving. . .
Q: Which is kind of next part where it wants us to talk about
combat and, you know, combat experience.
A: And I flew – I flew missions at Saipan and Tiernan, Guam,
Angar, Peleliu, and the Ulithi Atolls – there wasn’t anything there when we
got to it. It had already pulled out. It wasn’t much – it became a
tremendous harbor for our supply forces. They – we moved in there and it
became a huge operation. But, ah, we didn’t do it. So then from Ulithi, we
withdrew to Hollandia, New Guinea where we got ready for the jump into the
Philippines. And joined up with the big battleships.
Q: Now, were you part of a task force at this time, Grover, or
were you – was your ship pretty much, ah . . .
A: Ah, the theory was there were six Jeep carriers, each one with
a squadron – (garbled) composite squadron like our own. Twelve torpedo
bombers and 18 fighters is what we had. Thirty-plane complement. Ah, 6 of
them – each ship had one 5-inch gun on the fantail. We had a screen of four
destroyers and three destroyer escorts. The – so we were – sailed by
ourselves, mostly. We were directed to join up for different points – at
different points for different things. But we never traveled with the big
boys except when we were going to the Philippines. That‘s the first time I
ever remember embarking on an engagement where one of our pilots called in
for an emergency landing. We had a new skipper aboard the ship and he said,
“Helmsman, hard left rudder, bring her to 1-6-0. Radioman, call the flag and
request permission to turn into the wind.”
Q: (laughing)
A: And – the Missouri – I didn’t know what had happened, but I was
watching him because this was the first time I’d seen the Missouri up – in a
squadron moving like that. All of a sudden that Missouri just kind of sunk
in the water and began to lay some coal to it. They were getting out of his
way, because we turned and we were headed for him.
Q: Hum.
A: So the Missouri turned out of our way so we could get in
position to take aboard that plane. That didn’t happen with our previous
skipper. That’s another story. But, ah, we traveled mostly by ourselves. And
the ship, in it’s shakedown, went to Pearl carrying a load of planes and
Marines – brand new planes – fighters and torpedo bombers – 60 or 70 of them
– just as stuffed every nook and cranny of that ship – to Pearl Harbor
without an escort, even.
Q: Huh.
A: Zig-zagging as she went.
Q: But when you joined up with this . . .
A: Well, I . . .
Q: . . . you knew you were . . .
A: Had a little protection.
Q: Yeah, but you knew you were getting ready to see combat. . .
A: Oh, yeah.
Q: . . . or see. . .
A: When we left Pearl, there wasn’t any question where we were
going.
Q: So how long was it, then before the battle actually ensued?
A: Well, ah, of course, there were several battles over a period
of time. We – the invasion – see, D-Day in Europe was June the 6th? Our
D-Day at Saipan was June the 15th or 20th. Thirty-days later was D-Day at
Tiernan. Thirty days later, maybe forty-five days later, so, let’s see,
June, July, August, September – every month we had a D-Day or two, or we put
– covered a landing force of Marines. We were mostly was Marines in those
days. Then, from – when we rearmed at Hollandia and moved out with the
battleships and stuff, we knew we were going to the Philippines. We were
going to return and get MacArthur back in there. We were with the Seventh
Fleet – assigned to the Seventh Fleet – as a task force 73.4.3. And our call
was “Taffy 3.” Ah, so, we knew what we were going – now, we did the same
thing we’d always done, except that this time we went with the main body of
forces. Taffy 1, 2, and 3, plus, ah, Halsey’s Third Fleet was giving
coverage support to that invasion, and he was up bombarding everything. They
were bombing Manila and everything else – all the Philippines – till we got
there and that was October – D-Day was, I think, the 20th of October.
Q: You’re birthday, huh?
A:
