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Veteran:
Service Branch:
Interviewer:
Date of Interview:
Date of Transcription:
Transcriptionist:
Highlights of Service:
Interviewer:
Veteran:
Interviewer:
Veteran:
Interviewer:
Veteran:
PHILLIPS, Frederick T.
AIR FORCE
Mayo, Aimee
April 15, 2002
December 23, 2004
Terry Moore
World War II; Captain; Squadron Commander; Served in New
Guinea and the Philippines
This is Aimee Mayo interviewing Frederick Phillips today at the Sterling
Municipal Library in Baytown, Texas. Today is April 15, 2002.
How old were you? You were in the Air Force, right?
Yes. Actually, I served my overseas time in Air Force, but I started out as a field
artillery officer. The reason for that was that back during those days engineering
people were scarce, and there was a surplus of engineers in the field artillery. I
wanted to get into the Air Force, and I managed to talk to the right people and
find out how to get the transfer out of field artillery into the Air Force, and I
pursued that. Actually, it was the luckiest thing that ever happened to me. The
field artillery organization that I was in was captured in the Battle of the Bulge in
Germany, and that was when they were taking no prisoners, and they lined all the
men up on a stone wall in Belgium, and they machine gunned the whole
organization-killed everybody. So, I would have been one of the lead officers
in that and no doubt killed. So, just wanting to make that transfer literally saved
my life.
I would imagine you were very relieved.
When I read of this massacre in the paper, I had to cry. It was overwhelming.
How old were you when you joined the service?
I was 22.
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