This is Charlie Simmons. Today's the 25th of
October 2012. I'm interviewing Mr. Ray Phillips.
This interview is taking place in San Antonio,
Texas. This interview is in support of the Nimitz
Education and Research Center Archives for the
National Museum of the Pacific War,
Texas Historical Commission for the
preservation of historical information related
to this site.
Now, Ray, if you would please state your name,
your place of birth, and your date of birth.
Ray Phillips.
I was born October the 12th, 1922, in
Whitesboro, Texas, at the edge of Whitesboro,
in the farm.
And what sort of family did you have?
I had one brother and really three sisters, but
one I never knew.
She died at a very early age, so I never knew
her, but I had two sisters that I grew up with.
Okay, and what sort of life did you have
growing up? Were you...
Was your father a...
He was a... my father was a farmer.
I remember
during the Depression, he came in from town one
day very excited.
cotton had gone up to ¢5 a pound and that I
don't know what it had been
for the low but he was so excited that it is up
that much.
Okay and so that you grew up working on the
farm I'm sure in your spare time
that you started to school at the normal age?
Yes I started school at six years of
age and to a country school, two teachers,
eight grades. Later on before I
finished there they eliminated the eighth grade
and we went through seven
and I started into town at school in the eighth
grade which was high school then.
Yeah. What sort of life did you have as a young boy?
A working life, but a very pleasant life. My
mother and dad both worked.
I don't know how they did it. I'm going to
think about it today.
But they worked very hard and the kids all
worked hard too.
My dad died when I was only 13.
So my mother was left with four children.
She was not an educated person.
She went to Indian school in Oklahoma.
We used to kid her and say,
how far did you go in school?
And she'd say, until I was 16.
They wouldn't let me go anymore after that.
But my brother and older sister,
when they were in high school,
they could not do math and she worked their
math problems, algebra, geometry and
all. How she did it I still don't know. She
went to Indian school. Was she a
member of one of the tribes? Oh no. Now she
would not admit this. She did have some
Indian blood. We never knew what tribe it was
because she was ashamed of it.
That's too bad. It was too bad and she would
never tell us. But she had the
high cheeks and all the Indian features, but
she would not admit it at all.
I'm part Choctaw and I'm very proud of it. But
there was a time when people didn't want to
admit that.
Oh yes, yes. It's a shame.
So you finished high school?
I finished high school there at White Sparrow
and then I started college at Denton, North
Texas University.
I went there two years before I was offered a
job with the Interior Department in Washington, D.C.
And I went there, and when I was a sophomore in
college, I had just finished my sophomore year,
and I was there about nine months, I guess,
before I went into service in the Navy.
How did you come to be asked to get a job in
the Interior Department?
because of my shorthand.
I had taken shorthand in high school
and when I started college,
you know, jobs were not too plentiful.
And a man in that school anyway,
it was a teacher's college, really.
And I didn't know whether I wanted to be a
teacher or not.
So I took courses where I could work outside
as well as teach if I needed to.
And I enrolled in shorthand.
Well, having had it in high school, the teacher
wouldn't even let me come to class for about
six weeks.
She said it was unfair to me and unfair to the
other students who had not had shorthand before.
So, of course, it was a breeze for me because
I'd had it before.
I don't remember now whether I had two years of
shorthand in college before I went into
service or not.
I know I had the one year, but I don't remember
the second.
The Department of Interior was needing help,
and I don't know how I got on the register,
but I did, probably through the school, because
that was my first job, was through the college.
I went to the Department of Interior, and I was
a stenographer.
about nine months before I enlisted in the navy
okay and and how what were you how were you on
December the 7th 1941? I was working I was in
school uh in college and I was working in a
restaurant and I remember very well being in
the kitchen of this restaurant when we got the news
of Pearl Harbor uh and I was 17 years old at
that time and I the boss's wife happened to be
back there and being a smart aleck little kid I
said well I didn't have to
worry about the war I was 17 and but time I was
at that time draft age was 21
but time I'm 21 I'll have a family of four kids
and didn't work that way so
So then you, in the Interior Department then,
time is moving on because you've got a couple
of years of college behind you, and you're
getting close to draft, I hear?
Yes, I was.
In fact, I got a notice to appear before the
draft board, and that's when I went ahead
and enlisted.
And what did you, how did you go about enlisting?
I enlisted as a third-class petty officer.
I did not go to training camp or anything.
You didn't go to any kind of boot camp?
Well, later on I did, but initially,
I went from working in the Interior Department
next door to the Navy Department.
And I was in Naval Intelligence for, I'd say,
six months.
I don't recall the exact amount of time.
We worked with four, I believe it was,
four or five countries, Romania, Bulgaria,
Turkey, Yugoslavia, and we had a Yugoslavian
in the office, so all of the male that was in
that Croatian language came over to our
office because they had no one else to censor
it, and this Fella didn't speak Croatian fluently,
But he did know something, being of that nationality.
So he got to read all the letters that came
through that was in that language.
And he became a very, very close friend of mine.
And he was, I guess, a lieutenant in the Navy.
I used to go to his home on weekends.
He had a family and lived out of D.C.
In fact, we'd go to lunch together every day.
finally the top brass got word of this or sight
of this and they ordered him not to be associated
with the enlisted men that was not to be done
so we got around that I would go to lunch and
I'd go
to the men's room and I'd wait and then he'd
wait a few minutes and then he'd go to lunch
and he'd
come to the men's room and then we'd go to lunch.
Well, so when he was reading these letters in
Chorison, he would dictate to you?
No, he just, I didn't really have anything to
do with that.
So you didn't have any short, you weren't using
your shorthand?
No, not with him in that deal. There were three
of us I believe in this particular office
and the word came down that there were too many
fellows in the offices there in Washington
So some were going to go to the field.
Well, of the three of us, I was the only single one.
So I volunteered to leave the job there
and wherever they sent me.
So they sent me to Bainbridge, Maryland for training.
I mean, I'd been in the Navy several months,
but lived at a private home and all this.
I went to Bainbridge, Maryland
and had my boot training, as I said.
All of my company were rated personnel.
There was not an apprentice seaman in the bunch.
So they were all sort of the basic situation
you were in that already.
That's right, they went in with ratings of some sort.
When we finished our training there,
I was sent to California to Port Hueneme
and left there on an LST for Honolulu.
It took us 19 days to go from San Diego to Honolulu.
A flat bottom boat, mustering of a morning, we
had to hold on on the top deck.
We had to hold on because the boat was flipping
and flopping so badly, you know, just going
this way.
And we had to hold on or you couldn't stand up
out there.
You ever wonder why you joined the Navy?
Yeah, more than once.
More than once.
But I found out later that living quarters on
the LST was so much better than some of
the big ships.
I was later on a battleship Washington, and my
living quarters were about five decks down.
Hot, it was just like being in the furnace.
So I got permission to, there was an LST tied
up alongside, not the one I had gone
to Honolulu on, but this was in the Marshall
Islands where this happened. I got permission
to sleep on the LST. I had my meals and worked
on the Washington, but ate over there. One
evening in the battleship Washington, I might
add, I'd never been on anything so enormous
in size in my life. And every time I went to
the dining hall down below, I'd get lost
going back. Just couldn't find my way around.
So one evening when I was leaving
the Washington to go back to my LST quarters
for the night, I went to the
wrong side not knowing. I was just turned
around. There was a destroyer tied up on
the other side of the Washington. I got on it
rather than the LST and I saw all
this crew just scurrying like everything and I
asked one of them what's going on
he said we'll fix him to cast off. So I had to
get off that thing and I barely
made it before they took off. Otherwise I'd
have been a misplaced passenger on the LST on
the ride.
So back to your LST getting to Pearl Harbor,
your 19 days to see there, then what
What happened to you when you got to Pearl Harbor?
I was at Barber's, no, that was later, I was at
Barber's Point.
And what time, what was the time period that
this would have happened?
Well, about somewhere in 1943.
Okay, this is 43's? Yeah.
I tell you, it was before the invasion in the
Gilbert Islands because that's the first
overseas place I went.
I landed in Ontario the second day after the
Marines had taken over, and it was a sight.
Yeah, I can imagine.
But when you got, let's back up a little bit
though before you get there, when you got
to Pearl Harbor, do you remember what impact
the sight of the damage in the harbor had
done to you?
I did not.
I could not detect anything. Really?
station was too far away from it. I don't know
why I didn't. I was
only there a few days until we cast off again.
Okay, so are you still on the LST when you
leave out of Pearl?
No, and tell you the truth, I do not know what
my carrier was going. I do.
But you had orders to report to a ship?
No, my orders were with Acorn 14, they called
it. That was a land-based grouping. There
were several of those Acorn units and mine
happened to be 14. We were to maintain the
bases after they had been taken over by our
forces. So these were, the Gilbert Islands
were belonged to the British, but the British
had not done anything, so we took them over
and immediately they sent Colonel Fox
Stringways there to oversee it, but he had
nothing to
say. He was just there. Real nice fella, but
since they were under British rules, supposedly,
He was in charge, and, uh, he didn't have
anything to say about the operation, but he
supposedly was in charge of the islands,
because they were British-owned.
on uh okay so uh so after you left out of pearl
harbor you were you attached did you
meet up with the other members of this 814
while you were in hawaii yes well I met made
up with them in California before we left okay
so you're all you're all together yeah
during this time okay so you transferred
another ship and you move out and then what
they just
took you to Tarawa. The thing that was so
impressive and of course I didn't know
what the island was going to look like in the
far as far as what the damage
had been done but on the ship before we got
there just looking around and here
came a key ration floating in the water and
there was a I'm sure a Marines hand
was just in this position. Looked like he was
reaching for that k-ration. It tore
me up and it still does.
When you were there on the second day they were
still fighting.
No, the fighting was over. But the dead were
still there.
Yeah. Did you go ashore immediately?
Oh yeah. Then they moved us from Tarawa to
Adjoining Island, which had hardly been touched.
How long were you on Tarawa?
Just a couple of days then. I went back later,
and that's where our offices were.
But initially, I went to Adjoining Island, and
it had been hardly touched by the fighting.
we our office was in a thatched building that
was built by the natives for their
meeting places and what-have-you and I lived in
a thatched hut. I never
forget one of the officers who wrote his family
one day and he said the roof of
his hut leaked but he said when it's raining I
can't repair it and when it's
It's not raining, I don't need to repair it.
Well, I guess living in a fat stunt was not
something you ever envisioned when you were
growing up as a boy in Texas.
Gosh, no.
Sleeping on the ground maybe, but not in a fat stunt.
What were your duties at this time?
I worked for Captain Tate, who was the island
and area commander, and head of Acorn 14,
of course.
He was a rough, rough customer.
And you'll be familiar with this.
Captain Tate married a-was later an Admiral
Tate-assigned to the embassy in Russia.
He married a Russian actress-well, he didn't
marry her.
He impregnated a Russian actress, very, very popular.
She was jailed for a time, and he was ordered
out of the country.
A few years ago, by that, 10 or 15 years ago,
the daughter that was born to this couple
started looking for her father, and so she
located him in the States.
had retired from service and she went through
the process of trying to get a visa to visit
him and she finally, the Russians finally
allowed her to come over. It was temporary
of course but she never went back. She stayed
over here and before her mother died she came
over and saw her daughter over here.
So what would you do on a daily basis? Well
just regular routine office
work. In the evenings, we had an air raid every
night. In fact, the
day we landed in Inuitak, they said the first
thing you do is dig you a foxhole.
So, when we went to this adjoining island, it
was the same thing, Big Eel Fox Hole.
Well, we weren't particularly interested in
that, so there were about three of us partnering
and we dug a little hole about a foot deep, and
that's as far as we went.
That night we had an air raid.
The other two went to another fox hole that was
deep, and I stayed in that one, and I
I tell you, all the time those planes, ours and
the Japanese flying around, I could see
my stomachs above the top of the ground.
The next day I got busy and I died.
But there were two of us in the office, a
fellow from Houston.
And so he and I made the agreement that we
would alternate nights because after each
Each air raid, one of us had to go make a
report on damages or whatever had happened.
So we alternated.
Well, Captain Tate was always there, drunker
than a skunk.
He would call me Elsick, that was the other
fellow's name.
He thought I was Elsick.
So he'd say, Elsick, we're going to do so and so.
Well, I could hardly wait until I got off duty
to run back to Elsick's tent and tell
him because, you know, the next day the captain
might say something to him about it and he
wouldn't know what was going on.
But he was a rough, Captain Tate was a rough individual.
Almost every day he would strap on pistols on
either side.
He'd get him a driver for the jeep and he'd
take off because in low tide you could drive
from one island to another.
And he'd go down the island chain.
And I don't know what he was looking for, but
he made this a daily excursion.
He was a rough-talking and rough-acting and
rough-drinking man.
SHORT So you were in the Gilberts.
You mentioned it in a Wee Talk.
EBERS Okay, later I was transferred from the Gilberts
to the Marshall Islands.
SHORT So how long were you in the Gilberts altogether?
I would say at least a year, yeah, at least a year.
Okay, and what all was going on in the islands here?
Well, really there wasn't much of anything.
At first, of course, as I said, we had the air
raids every night,
and we didn't know when they might come back.
I remember one night they found this, I think
he turned out to be Korean rather than Japanese,
who had been under the pier ever since the invasion.
He'd get out at night and go to the food supply dump
and get something to eat.
Then he'd go back in the daytime and be under
the pier.
He was there for, oh, two or three weeks.
They'd found him one night, and that alerted us.
We thought we were being invaded.
But they, we all had our rifles and we were
ready to go.
We were ready to go.
Was this like a supply base then that you were in?
No, it was just a holding base is all.
Did they bring troops in? No.
Well, only the hospital ships came by, but that
was it.
No, I don't recall any other ships coming close
to us.
When I first enlisted, I think this has nothing
to do with your program, but we had to go
through the health checks, you know, and I went
to the dentist's office.
And the dentist called his corpsman, he said,
you've always wanted to see perfect teeth.
Here they are.
Well, of course, I had just been beaming all
over overseas, the hospital ship came by,
they said anyone who wants to go to the dentist
may go so, do so. I signed up and went out
to the ship to the dentist, had eight fillings,
and this was over a period of less than 18
months. It had gone that badly because I didn't
get to brush, I didn't get to do anything
on a regular basis there for a time, and it
just tore me up. That first filling just killed
me. Now, if it just won, I'd be happy.
So, okay, so after you left the Gilberts, you
went to Eniwetok, then?
Well, I went to Kwajalein. Kwajalein.
Yeah, that was one of the other islands.
And there was a lot more going on there, I
would suspect.
And, at the same time there, I went on Admiral
Jones' staff.
He was in command of the islands and the area.
He had, I think there were just, oh, maybe
three of us in enlisted personnel in the office,
but there were a bunch of officers.
There was a civil affairs man who looked after
the natives, and I worked a lot with him.
In fact, he had about three jobs.
So he could not get his work done at night, I
mean, at daytime.
So he would ask me to come to his tent at night
and help him.
I did.
One night I was over there, worked all day, and
then at night I went over there and worked.
He said, oh, won't you be happy, tomorrow
you'll be a so-and-so, meaning a promotion.
I said, yeah, you know what I wish I was?
I said, apprentice seaman.
Why would you do that?
And I said, so I wouldn't have to go through
all this stuff.
You know, I was tired.
That's what it amounted to.
Well, the next day I went to work
and of course I'd rested a while
and I was fit and fiddle.
I was in the admiral's office when he came in
and he said, sit down there.
So I sat down.
He said, how are you feeling?
Oh, fine.
He said, are you getting plenty of rest?
Oh, yes, Sir.
Well, come to find out, this fellow that had
reported me
was the civil affairs officer, Lieutenant Commander,
and he was his flag secretary.
He'd gone and told him something.
I never did know what, but about my being out
of sorts,
I guess.
But at that same interval, to show you how busy
I was,
I had, we lived in tents, and I had three tent mates.
They did my laundry, because I never had time
to do it.
And they volunteered.
I didn't ask them to.
They did my laundry, and they put it away when
it was dry enough.
One weekend, some of the officers were going
fishing, so they asked me to go with them.
Well, I went.
It was on a Sunday afternoon, and I came in.
All of my belongings were out in the yard.
been moved out of the tent. The three fellows
said, we no longer want to associate with
you. They were being funny, you know. Of
course, they moved it all back in for me later, but
they got their point across.
Yeah, well, pretty, pretty proven company there.
Yeah, they were great kids. Actually, they were
all younger than I by a year or so, and
So, and they sort of looked up to me as their leader.
And I tried to fulfill the spot they'd put me in.
I don't know how good a job I did.
So, how long were you on NOETOC?
Was it pretty much the same routine the whole time?
Oh yeah.
I'm sorry, you were on Kwajalein. Kwajalein.
Yeah, okay.
Yeah, the Admiral,
I'd go with him everywhere he went.
If he went out here sore, he asked me to go along,
and I took my notebook, because we'd stop out there,
and I'd put my notebook on a fallen tree trunk,
and he would dictate.
So one day we were out doing something,
I don't know what he was doing,
but anyway, he'd given me this letter,
and he said, we're going to be moving
pretty soon from one island to another in the chain.
Could you take over the office when we go? We
had a chief yeoman and a
Warrant officer that was there and both of them
were I didn't know this but both of them were
being moved and without my knowledge
He said could you take over and I said well, I
never have but I guess I could I would sure try
So when we moved just the locations the chief
and the warrant officer were gone
Well, come to find out, I don't know about the
warrant officer, what his situation was,
but the chief, for some reason, they did not
like him, and they thought he was, the admiral
didn't, and his chief of staff, Captain Thomas,
didn't like him.
So they had talked to another island commander
and said, we want to send this man to you,
we don't want him, and he does this, he doesn't
do that.
Well, I didn't know anything about this, what
the deal was, but he was gone one day and
here I was in charge.
So the same civil affairs officer got me aside
and he said, now you be careful about him.
He's going to call you wanting information.
You be careful what you say, because the
admiral and his chief of staff are going to be watching
you to see what you say.
Come to find out, after all the bad things that
they had told this adjoining commander,
When he got his transfer record, he was perfect
all the way through.
So he called the admiral and said, what goes here?
You told me all these bad things and yet you
gave him a perfect rating when he left.
The admiral says, I didn't do that, come to
find out he had done it for himself.
And that was the final blow.
The next month, his name came out in the publication.
He had been promoted from chief to ensign, but
of course he didn't get it because he
had fouled up.
So what happened to him?
I don't know.
He went to this other island, and he called me
a jillion times, and I would talk to him,
but I just didn't know anything.
I was the dumbest person that ever lived. Sure.
Well, you had to be.
Yeah, I had to be, yeah.
Couldn't afford to start talking, telling tales. Yeah.
And really, I didn't know what had gone on.
I had nothing to tell him.
So you were in charge of the office?
How many men were in the office?
Well, I think there were three besides me, four
of us.
And so you're staying there, the Admiral is
still there.
Oh yes.
One day, we were, before they moved the Chief
even, the Seabees came in carrying this desk
they had made.
Said, where do we put this?
Well, none of us working there knew anything
about it.
So we were trying to tell the Seabees that we
didn't know what the deal was, and the
The captain, who was the chief of staff, came
in and he said, that goes back in my office.
So they took it back there.
He came back then to where we were and said,
Phillips, you come with me.
This is your desk.
In there with the captain.
He said, you are not to do anything for anybody
unless I ask you to.
He said, if some other officer wants you to do
something, he's to come to me and ask for
Well, it left me with nothing to do, nothing.
I sat there at the desk, and I taught the
captain shorthand.
That was about all I did.
But there again, it was because they disliked
the chief, and I didn't feel that I was overworked.
But they thought I was doing his work, as well
as my own, and they didn't like that.
Well, it sounds like you didn't have any spare
time for yourself.
I didn't.
Okay, so how long were you there then, in that position?
I was there until I was discharged.
Came back to the States.
I wasn't discharged, but I came back to the States.
But in the meantime, when I landed in
Kwajalein, the civil affairs officer that I had worked
with in the Gilberts and briefly in the
Marshals had been transferred to Guam.
They had just gone in there, and they wanted
someone with experience to take care of the natives.
So they sent him there.
Well, he wired or requested my transfer up
there with him, because I'd worked for him
so long.
They wouldn't allow it where I came to.
They didn't know anything about me because I
just got there, but they wouldn't let me
go because they thought he was out of his place
by requesting a transfer for me, so
they refused to let me go, which was just as
well with me.
At the time I sort of regretted it, but later
it was probably better for me.
So you eventually got back to the States then? Yes.
I had this point system for discharge, and I
might say this, that my mother being a widow,
When I signed up in the Navy, enlisted, I
claimed her as a dependent.
And I sent money home out of my paycheck every month.
So that was additional points for me, just like
I was married, you know.
I was nearing enough points for discharge, and
so I came back to the States.
a brief liberty and then reported back to an
airbase in Oakland, California. And I hadn't
been there a week until I looked on the
Bulletin board, and here were the orders. And I was
on there to go on a ship's crew, and the
departing was just in a few days.
Now, you went on leave, you said, when you came
back to the States? Yes.
Okay, and how did you get back to the States?
On a battleship, not a battleship, a troop
ship, the USS Polk.
And, so, where did you dock when you came back
to your home?
I presumed Oakland, you know, uh-huh.
And so, you had leave, you had home leave.
Yes, I had home leave for 30 days.
For 30 days.
Okay, so you got back home, got to see your
mom, and?
Yeah, and then I went back to the base.
And I was there just a matter of two or three days
when these orders were posted
that I was to be assigned to this ship.
Well, the Navy rules were that you had to be,
if you'd had overseas assignment,
you had to be back in the States for,
I think it's six months before you were qualified
to go back overseas.
Well, I'd only been home 30 days.
So I went and complained.
I said, well, I can't go,
because if I'd have gone,
I'd have been gone for two or three years, you know.
I got my due, I got my way that time. So-
It's a good thing you spoke up.
That's right.
Then they had the,
I had enlisted in Washington, D.C.,
and the Navy policy was for your discharge,
you could be discharged at your place of enlistment,
at your hometown, or out there if you had transportation
or some other reason, I've forgotten what it
was now,
to qualify for a discharge in California.
One of my friends, who was, I think he was
a chief petty officer, had an old Hudson automobile.
and he put the title in my name as well as his.
So I got my discharge in
California and then got paid for mileage back
to Texas. In other words, I was
cheating a bit okay so so did you did you stay
in California no no I got out there uh I liked
it but
it was a play place and not a place where I
wanted to live you were in Oakland yes okay yeah
Well, it's still not a place you want to
probably hang around, is it?
No, no.
I was too country-fied, I guess.
That was too fast a life for me.
I enjoyed my time there, but I wouldn't want to
be permanent at all.
I came back and started back to school, and
finished my degree, and I guess, well, I had
registered for, enrolled for summer school to
work on my master's and Humboldt O.L. called
the placement service there at school and they
needed someone who could do shorthand
and so the placement office got in touch with
me. I went to Humboldt for an interview, was
hired and that's where I started out. But this
was after of course I'd finished school.
So you didn't have any desire to stay in the Navy?
No, no I did not. My intent the whole time I
was there was to go back to school.
In fact, I guess I was pretty strong about that
because one of the career Navy men
who worked next door to where I was there in
Kwajalein, he came to me one day,
we talked a lot. But he came to me one day and
he said, I have decided I'm leaving the Navy.
I'm going back to school. Yeah.
Yeah. Well, that's well, it's not for everybody.
No, no. Service.
Well, that's sounds like you've had that you
had a pretty full time while you were in the.
I did. And really, I look back on it and most
of it was enjoyable.
Well you saw a lot of country. I saw a lot of
country and I learned a lot.
When I went back to college I got credits for
for the work, a lot of the work I had done
while I was in the service.
Okay. So I graduated a lot quicker than I
thought I would.
Yeah so, well Ray, I think you've you've
covered, it sounds like,
most of the bases here. I'm running out of
questions. As I said,
I'm known as the winner of the war, my ink and pen.
Well, they all served, so okay, well, I'll
close this down.
I just want to say thank you very much, and
regardless of the way you feel about it, we
all appreciate what you did in the war because
that was equally important with what a lot
of other people did.