Phillip Candella was born in 1913 in Eunice, Louisiana, and grew up during the Great Depression. His family lived in the back two rooms of the grocery store that his parents operated, and although they didn't have many "treats," they always had food and a car. He attended the same school for his entire education in Eunice, and was persuaded by his coach to stay and play football an extra year, with the promise of a scholarship to some university. After graduating, Candella went to LSU [Annotator's Note: Louisiana State university] in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where he was a member of the ROTC [Annotator's Note: Reserve Officer Training Corps], and had completed two semesters when the intensification of the war motivated him to volunteer for the Army Enlisted Reserve Corps in December 1942. He was able to attend part of his third semester before being called up in May 1943, and was inducted at Camp Beauregard near Alexandria, Louisiana. Candella went through 13 weeks of basic infantry training at Camp Maxey in Lamar County, Texas, where he was assigned to the 99th Infantry Division. That completed, he went back to LSU as a participant in the ASTP [Annotator's Note: Army Specialized Training Program], and stayed until the program was disbanded in March 1944. Back at Camp Maxey, Candella joined the "old timers" in the regular 99th, who showed some resentment of the college boys, and underwent another period of basic training.

After his retraining period, Phillip Candella went by train to Camp Myles Standish in Massachusetts, and was deployed by ship from there to England. He said his division [Annotator's Note: Candella was a member of Company K, 3rd Battalion, 395th Infantry Regiment, 99th Infantry Division] "marched a lot" in England, and on one occasion he visited London. Conditions were crowded and the soldiers mostly bided time waiting for transportation to Le Havre, France. Once across the English Channel, the 99th Infantry Division boarded trucks and moved toward the line. Candella's first assignment in Company K, from the middle of November 1944 to the middle of January 1945, was conducting patrols around the village of Hofen, Germany. Candella said their regiment was scattered and his unit didn't have any information about what was going on in the rest of the war. Within the company, positions were so widely spaced, Candella didn't know what was going on in the next man's foxhole. When the Battle of the Bulge [Annotator's Note: Battle of the Bulge or German Ardennes Counter Offensive, 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945] commenced, he could hear the artillery, but the enemy never got close enough for him to identify tanks or anything else. Candella's battalion had a lot of support, and did not suffer many casualties; he said his commander, Lieutenant Colonel McClernand Butler, was "fantastic," and kept the Germans from coming through; what he saw most of the enemy were paratroopers. Candella's first glimpse of the 88s [Annotator's Note: German 88mm multi-purpose artillery] and the Tiger tanks [Annotator's Note: German Mark VI heavy tank, known as the Tiger] was after the Bulge, when the division moved toward the Rhine River. By then, combat was sporadic, and the enemy retreat was moving so fast the Americans began advancing in trucks. The Germans were firing rockets to interrupt their progress, and Candella mentioned that one of his best friends was killed by rocket fire.

When they started moving east from Hoffen [Annotator's Note: Höfen, Germany], Phillip Candella said the 99th [Annotator's Note: Candella was a member of Company K, 3rd Battalion, 395th Infantry Regiment, 99th Infantry Division] was the first division over the Remagen bridge [Annotator's Note: the Ludendorf Bridge across the Rhine River in Remagen, Germany], which collapsed after they crossed. The division moved into the Ruhr Pocket, traveling in trucks, and Candella wasn't certain where they were, but knew they made "a lot of miles." There wasn't a lot of armed activity, because the Americans weren't catching up with the retreating enemy. The Division was at Landshut [Annotator's Note: Landshut, Germany] when the war in Europe ended, and Candella, a BAR [Annotator's Note: Browning Automatic Rifle] man, was transferred to the 4th Infantry Division and sent to Bad Bruckenau [Annotator's Note: Bad Bruckenau, Germany]. He stayed there only a week before being moved back to the United States to train in North Carolina for action in the Pacific. While he was training, the atomic bombs were dropped and World War 2 was over. Going back to his "really nice" foxhole in Hofen, Germany, Candella said he and another man from his company moved into it when they replaced an outgoing unit. They had a Persian rug on its floor and candles for light and heat. The space was also furnished with a .50 caliber machine gun [Annotator's Note: Browning M2 .50 caliber machine gun] and someone from the heavy weapons company. Candella described the Germans as very good soldiers, very well equipped and properly fitted out for the weather. By contrast, the American troops were suffering casualties from exposure. Candella repeated that their ranks were spread very thin, and they had little communication with anyone outside their 12 man squad. He praised their squad leader and scouts as able and brave men.

His experience in the military had a maturing influence on Phillip Candella. He was from a small town [Annotator's Note: Eunice, Louisiana], and hadn't traveled; the war made him determined to get his college degree, and get a good job. He used the G.I. Bill to return to Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and knows he wouldn't have had the means to do so without it. Candella thinks that World War 2, by bringing everybody together, made the country "grow up" as well. He doubts the country could raise an equivalent armed force today. He thinks America was loved during the war and after it, but feels the country has lost its standing in the world. He worries about his progeny. He has rarely talked about his experiences, and until recently, when he went to a veterans' convention, it almost never came up in conversation. Asked if there is significance to having a museum that commemorates the war, he thinks it an interesting undertaking.