Philip Whitman was born in May 1919 in Zion, Illinois. He lived there until he was 12 when he moved to Wenatchee, Washington. The Great Depression had not hit the West Coast like it did the East Coast, but by the time they moved there, things were falling apart. His father had worked a plasterer but was not working and only had a fourth grade education. He taught himself to play the violin. He had one older brother who went blind at 18 or 19 because of glaucoma. Whitman feels badly that he did not live closer to him. [Annotator's Note: Whitman details his brother's college education.] Whitman went to high school in Wenatchee and joined the Navy on 18 August 1937, for a four year enlistment. There was not much work until the apple harvest. Wenatchee was the apple capital of the world. [Annotator's Note: Whitman describes fruit growing in detail.] He would walk into town after the apple harvest, looking for work. In the spring of 1937, he worked for a hardware store unloading box cars. He knew the boss was making work for him, he had to plug pipes that were leaking oil and fertilizer from train cars. He was 18 when he was laid off. His sister died on 10 April 1937. He got a job as a bellhop. The night clerk told him this was no life for him and advised him to join the Navy. So, he did.

[Annotator's Note: Philip Whitman joined the Navy on 18 August 1937.] Whitman really enjoyed the Navy and had a hard time to keep from reenlisting. When Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941] came along, he thought "who the hell are the Japanese to pick on the Navy?" Roosevelt [Annotator's Note: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States] did his job to make sure the fleet was sunk. He wanted to go into the Naval Air Force. On Monday morning, he went over to do that, but he did not have the two years of college, so he went to the Army and took the exam. He did not pay attention to instructions and failed. He got some books, studied for three months for the new exam, and passed. On 4 September 1942, he signed up for the Army Air Corps. He was called up in February 1943 and went to Nashville, Tennessee where he learned he was going to be a pilot. He then went to Maxwell Field, Alabama for preflight training. He learned Morse Code easily.

Philip Whitman first flew in June 1943. It was very difficult for him, but he blamed his instructor. He could feel his hands on the controls. He was put up for an elimination check ride. He had gotten a letter from the Navy telling him if he returned, he would get the rank of Chief Petty Officer. He told the instructor he gave up a position in the Navy to do this, and he was a serious cadet and did not want to fail. He asked for a new instructor and got one. He had no problems after that. [Annotator’s Note: Whitman gets emotional.] He went to Macon [Annotator's Note: Macon, Georgia] and flew what they called the Cadet Killer [Annotator's Note: likely the Consolidated Vultee BT-13 Valiant basic trainer aircraft; nicknamed the Vultee Vibrator]. One of his buddies crashed. He had gotten a Dear John letter [Annotator's Note: a letter from a female to a male serviceman serving overseas breaking off a romantic engagement] and they think he flew the plane into the ground on purpose. He went to Moody Field [Annotator's Note: now Moody Air Force Base, Georgia] and flew the AT-9s [Annotator's Note: Curtiss-Wright AT-9 Jeep advanced trainer aircraft] and AT-10s [Annotator's Note: Beechcraft AT-10 Wichita advanced trainer aircraft]. He was a Cadet Officer due to his Navy experience. He was in the front rank for drill. They had been told that if they ever dropped their weapon they were to pretend to faint and he had to do so. He was named Honor Man for the week. [Annotator's Note: Whitman says he gets sidetracked.] One man taxied into a gasoline truck and he had to walk around with dumbbells. Every morning they had to line up in formation. He was standing at attention and was given an order he did not follow. He was taken into see the commander. He was later apologized to and he ended up a second lieutenant.

Philip Whitman went overseas on a Liberty ship [Annotator's Note: a class of quickly produced cargo ship]. He went through Ardmore, Oklahoma for B-17 [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber] training. They were at sea for about 30 days and landed in Oran, Africa. They went by ship to Naples, Italy and then by truck to Foggia [Annotator's Note: Foggia Airfield Complex, Province of Foggia, Italy]. Whitman was a copilot. They arrived in 1944. Their first flight was a crash. The operations officer wanted them to fly a brand new B-17 to a nearby field to test the radar. The pilot did not want to fly it but did. They were over the field with two parallel runways and Whitman could see piles of gravel on the runway. They tore the landing gear off. They were lucky it did not blow up. Whitman never took off without thinking he would not come back. He never prepared for crashing. He carried a pack of cigarettes in his knee pocket. He was always scared but he always thought he would come back. On Whitman's first mission was a guy who was flying his last mission. Whitman's job was to watch the instruments. He thought propaganda leaflets were flak [Annotator's Note: antiaircraft artillery fire]. They were flying in the number four slot and the pilot told him to handle the throttles. Whitman would never have done that, but he assumed the pilot was as scared as he was.

Philip Whitman's last seven missions were over Vienna, Austria. He made five trips over Ploesti [Annotator's Note: Ploesti, Romania], the worst target, the oil fields in Romania. They had 301 guns [Annotator's Note: antiaircraft guns] and they were good. They never flew over Ploesti without seeing flak [Annotator's Note: antiaircraft artillery fire], they lost an engine each time they went over. Whitman learned a lot from one pilot, Young [Annotator's Note: unable to verify identity]. The gunners [Annotator's Note: antiaircraft gunners] at Ploesti were accurate. The only thing that ever turned them back was weather, never enemy action. They always had fighter escorts. The Germans did not want to fight our pilots. On one mission, he could see their own planes going down. B-24s [Annotator's Note: Consolidated B-24 Liberator heavy bomber] had missed their meeting point and the fighters were not escorting them. The B-24 group was hit hard by the German fighters. Whitman's original pilot quit. The mission rules were changed on the crews [Annotator's Note: for how many missions were required to go home]. He was close to getting out. He had previously met a nurse in Oran, Africa, and they corresponded. He was flying a bunch of men who had finished missions to Naples [Annotator's Note: Naples, Italy]. They lost an engine on the flight but landed okay. They stayed over while they got another engine. He saw a ship, the Augusta [Annotator's Note: USS Augusta (CA-31) was the ship he was on when he was in the Navy before the war], he saw a shore patrolman he knew from 1941. It was now 1944. Whitman went onto the ship to see others he knew and had the best lunch he ever had overseas. It was a pleasant experience. They got a new engine and flew back.

Philip Whitman's 33rd mission was flown on 13 February 1945 over an oil refinery in Vienna, Austria. It was 53 degrees below zero in the cockpit. He was wearing a heated suit on this mission. It was the worst thing he could have done because when his chute opened, his boots fell off and he landed in evergreen trees. He was so tired from fighting to keep the plane in the air so everyone could get out. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer backs him up in the story.] Whitman was first pilot and flying in the number two position off of the lead ship [Annotator's Note: airplane; Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber]. There was no flak [Annotator's Note: antiaircraft artillery fire] close to him and one came out of the blue and knocked an engine off the plane. It pulled the air cooler out and laid it on the wing. There was a fire in the number three engine immediately. If he could have had enough control, he might have been able to blow the fire out, but the autopilot was out. They were losing altitude and the squadron [Annotator's Note: 172nd Bombardment Squadron, 463rd Bombardment Group, 15th Air Force] was gone. When you are hit, you are by yourself. They did have fighter cover until they went down. You go down quick. You never figure it is going to happen to you. He had lost engines many times and came in once with one and a quarter engine. It [Annotator's Note: the B-17] could fly on one engine. He hit the bailout button at about 10,000 feet but there was nobody there. He could not get a command through. The crew bailed out. Whitman was fighting to keep the plane from rolling over and went into a steeper dive. Whitman went out headfirst but could not get out as he was pinned at the knees. The plane was diving about 300 miles per hour and spinning in a spiral. He was ready to pull the ripcord when the plane exploded and blew him clear enough to get out. Pulling the cord was a peaceful feeling.

[Annotator's Note: Philip Whitman bailed out of his Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber over Vienna, Austria on 13 February 1945.] Whitman's parachute got caught in the trees. He was so exhausted from fighting the airplane [Annotator's Note: to control it so the crew could bail out], he was weak and had to cut himself out of his chute. He landed in two feet of snow. He was wearing a Mae West [Annotator's Note: common nickname for an inflatable life preserver] and took it off. He tried to cut it to use to cover his feet [Annotator's Note: he lost his boots when he bailed out]. Two men took him to a shack and gave him some old shoes. They put him in a barn and covered him with hay. They woke him the next morning and gave him food, coffee, and cigarettes. He went through the woods and saw a sentry. He backed out and got away to an open field and could see traffic. He got close to the road. Germans soldiers were going by and not paying any attention to him. He scaled a wall and saw a haystack. It started to rain, and he crawled into it. He could see a house and a man. He approached the man who asked if he was American. He took him in the house and gave him food and milk. They dried his clothes and smoked his cigarettes. [Annotator's Note: Whitman talks of speaking Russian and being in China.] He left there at night and was in mud up to his knees. He had hobnails in his shoes, and he made a lot of noise on the road. He was walking and heard someone tell him to halt. A German guard had a gun on him. He was taken to a shack and interrogated. This was in Eisenstadt [Annotator's Note: Eisenstadt, Austria]. A German pilot who could speak English came in. He was brought a blanket and the next day he was taken to a base at Neustadt [Annotator's Note: Wiener Neustadt, Austria]. His copilot, engineer, and tail gunner were already there.

[Annotator's Note: Philip Whitman was captured after bailing out of his Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber and was taken to Wiener Neustadt, Austria.] There ended up being about 20 of them there, including a B-24 [Annotator's Note: Consolidated B-24 Liberator heavy bomber] crew. When they were being marched through towns, the B-24 captain was laughing at the damage which Whitman thought was awful. He feels they were fortunate that their guard was a former pilot who had lost a leg in a dogfight [Annotator's Note: aerial battle] and had his wife and child killed when Allies bombed Linz, Austria. The guard protected them from the locals who wanted to tear them to pieces, and this captain was laughing at them. They were put on a train and taken to Frankfurt am Main [Annotator's Note: Frankfurt am Main, Germany] and put in cells for more interrogation and threats. The interrogator was an intelligent man. They went by box car to Wetzlar [Annotator's Note: Wetzlar, Germany]. They were bombed there, and it was a frightening experience to hear their own bombs coming down. He finally got shoes that fit him and an overcoat as well. They fed them well there. They were later taken to Nuremberg to Stammlager III [Annotator's Note: actually, Stalag XIII-D, Nuremberg, Germany] for about a month. Rations were horrible there. The peas had maggots and they ate them boiled. He really believes the bread was made with sawdust. They got Red Cross parcels after about a month and that was a blessing. He learned later that his father had applied for Whitman's insurance thinking he had been killed after being notified he was missing in action. Whitman's half-brother was an engineer on B-24s in the Pacific and was killed in action.

[Annotator's Note: Philip Whitman was captured after bailing out of his Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber and was taken to Stalag XIII-D in Nuremberg, Germany.] It was too late in the war for his family to be notified he was a prisoner of war. He went down in February [Annotator's Note: February 1945] and was liberated in April in Moosburg [Annotator's Note: Stalag VII-A in Moosburg, Germany]. Patton [Annotator's Note: US Army Lieutenant General George S. Patton, Jr.] came down the main street there. They had heard that Hitler [Annotator's Note: German dictator Adolf Hitler] had ordered all prisoners killed. The German Generals were smarter than Hitler and did not do that. On 29 April [Annotator's Note: 29 April 1945] Whitman was liberated. He made a cake using black bread, sugar, and margarine in a stove they made out of tin cans. It tasted so good. White bread tasted like cake when they got into France. He went from Moosburg to Landshut [Annotator's Note: Landshut, Germany]. While there, a Stuka dive-bomber [Annotator's Note: Junkers Ju-87 Stuka dive bomber] was coming in to surrender and everyone was shooting at him but did not hit him. Whitman dove into a shelter and realized it had been used as a latrine. He was doused with a lice killer but had all of his clothes on. Somebody got their pictures out. Whitman had a beard.

Philip Whitman flew a mission to Blechhammer, Germany and they hit bad weather. They got into the clear and a pilot named McCoy [Annotator's Note: no given name provided] was off to his left. At one point, McCoy said he did not think he could make it back to base, but he thought there was a partisan airfield nearby. He was running out of fuel. When Whitman got back to base, he reported it. Whitman ran into him [Annotator's Note: McCoy] in the prison camp. The Germans had taken over that airfield. He learned later that McCoy was killed with his family in an airplane crash after the war. They had flown together back in the United States in training. Whitman was scared all the time. A bomb run is terrifying. His pilot quit, due to several bad missions. The pilot told him about a mission where he was flying on only one engine and six of Goering's [Annotator's Note: German Reichsmarschall Hermann Wilhelm Göring] yellow noses [Annotator's Note: many German fighters had yellow painted cowlings] were coming at him. [Annotator’s Note: Whitman gets emotional.] The Germans peeled off without firing a shot when they saw this crippled plane because that is the kind of men they were. There is camaraderie among pilots. He has a book his daughter sent him about a German fighter pilot following a crippled B-17 [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber]. He was trying to give them the directions to a safe place like Sweden. He could have shot them down, but he sent him to safe landing. They met later. During the war, the most unusual things occur. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks if there is anything he would have done differently.] He could have sat the war out, but he did not want to do that. When you are young, you do not think. He would have done nothing differently except he should not have lost his ship [Annotator's Note: he was shot down on 13 February 1945].