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Website - http://www.marinesidphillips.com
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Most WWII stories begin on December 7,
1941 with someone bursting into a crowded room and shouting, “The
Japs bombed Pearl Harbor!” “Where’s that?” everyone exclaims. But
Sid Phillips’ WWII odyssey began unlike any other and would remain
that way. “It’s in Hawaii,” 17-year-old Sid announced to the
confused adults as they huddled around a radio at a soda fountain in
Mobile, Alabama. Sid’s Uncle Joe was in the Navy and had served
there. W.O. Brown, Sid’s great friend, worked behind the counter and
suggested they join the Navy in the morning. “Ok,” Sid replied. But
they were too late. The line to join the Navy poured into the
street. As they waited, a Marine recruiter approached Sid and W.O.
and said the Marines who would put them “eyeball to eyeball” with
the Japanese. That was all it took... On the streets of Mobile, the
Marine recruiter had to avoid Sid’s mother for the next two years
because “he took her little boy.” Sid’s father, a WWI Army veteran
always admired the Marines and supported Sid’s decision. Sid went to
boot camp singing and in high spirits with his fellow recruits. The
Parris Island drill instructors (DIs) would change their tune.
Before their bus squeaked to a stop that last day of 1941.
(from Dr. Sidney Phillips website).
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| Dr. Sidney Phillips with the host of Local Heroes Doug Mansfield. |
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| ... one calm night for no apparent reason, a gigantic dead tree
trunk perhaps ten feet in diameter and fifty feet tall fell over in
our camp area killing
Don Rouse
from Biloxi, and breaking both legs of another man in our company.
I was sleeping about 20 feet from Don. The whole company
(about 300 men) turned out with Coleman light from the galley to
lift the tree and retrieve his flattened body. This happened a number of times in the division while we were at Cape Gloucester. The next day a team of Seabees came to our area and cut down all of the trees with a precision that amazed us. The man in charge they said was from Oregon, and he could drop a tree with the accuracy of a genius. No tents were moved, and he simply dropped the trees between the tents. This was the first time I ever saw a chain saw, and it was carried by two men. It had handles like a stretcher, and we simply gawked at their skill. The giant logs were cut into sections, and we rolled and carried them away. |
 Don Rouse |