Phineas Stevens was born in Jackson, Mississippi in December 1917. He grew up during the Great Depression. He attended University of Mississippi [Annotator's Note: also known as Ole Miss in Oxford, Mississippi] and graduated in 1941. The war in Europe was raging and it was obvious the United States would get involved. Instead of joining his father and brother in practicing law, he joined the FBI [Annotator's Note: Federal Bureau of Investigation] in 1941. He went to school in Washington D.C., and Quantico [Annotator's Note: Quantico, Virginia]. He was stationed at Grand Rapids, Michigan when Pearl Harbor happened [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941]. All agents were told to report to the office immediately. They had a plan outlined for that event. They were sent out to arrest suspected saboteurs. Anybody with a Japanese name had to be brought in. It was foolish but he had to do it. He stayed there about 18 months. He was transferred to New York City [Annotator's Note: New York, New York] and assigned to an anti-espionage squad. That was interesting work. He was never in the office and he worked 24 hours on and 24 hours off. He was not in uniform and all of his friends were. He and his roommate quit the FBI, went to New Orleans [Annotator's Note: New Orleans, Louisiana], and got a commission in the Navy. He was sent to Harvard Business School [Annotator's Note: Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts]. He was trained as a Navy Supply Corps Officer which he hated. He got orders to San Francisco [Annotator's Note: San Francisco, California] to report to LST Flotilla 7.

[Annotator's Note: Phineas Stevens was ordered to join a Landing Ship Tank flotilla, LST Flotilla 7, from San Francisco, California.] He boarded an aircraft carrier to Australia. He then went on an Australian passenger ship and was put on the beach at New Guinea. He was given a boat and a coxswain to go to a Navy base. He went into the mess hall and got a can of SPAM [Annotator's Note: canned cooked pork made by Hormel Foods Corporation] for his first time. Nobody knew where the LST flotilla was. He boarded a supply ship that had no provision to feed the men. He was taken further up the coast of New Guinea. An LST came in to get water. Stevens got on it to go with them to his flotilla. He reported into a small yacht. He was told to get two lemons for his commander. He found another LST and the commander of it had been one year behind Stevens at law school. Stevens told them about the lemons for Captain Scruggs [Annotator's Note: later US Navy Rear Admiral Richard Martin Scruggs]. They hated Scruggs but they gave him the lemons. Stevens became the trouble-shooter for Scruggs. They made a number of invasion landings together. The most significant was the initial landing at Leyte Gulf [Annotator's Note: on 17 October 1944] where MacArthur [Annotator's Note: General of the Army Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander, Southwest Pacific Area] made his statement about having returned [Annotator's Note: on 20 October 1944]. All of the ships went in to unload. Captain Scruggs asked him to go ashore with him. The Japanese had constructed mounds with guns. They came across a Japanese officer who was dead. He had a samurai sword, but Stevens thought better than taking it. Soon he heard gunfire behind him. Someone had tried to get the sword and was met by Japanese still inside.

[Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks Phineas Stevens to explain what an LST or Landing Ship, Tank is.] "Large, Slow Target." Landing Ship, Tanks were vessels that carried vehicles to the beaches for landings. They would get as close as they could. They were the workhorses of the Navy. There were 36 in the flotilla [Annotator's Note: LST Flotilla 7]. Stevens was on the staff of the flotilla commander. They carried Army troops. In the second half of the war, they carried Australian troops. They had been at war since they were young teenagers; all they knew was war and they were tough. He admired them. They took them mainly to Borneo [Annotator's Note: Operation Oboe, Borneo campaign 1945, 1 May to 15 August, 1945]. Stevens went ashore once and a group of them were sitting around a fire to heat tea. They were primarily infantry. They were the roughest, toughest group and great guys. He made friends. There were a few Australian combat ships that helped out. There was not much of a submarine threat. They had one on radar that had fired at them but missed. It was a mini-sub [Annotator's Note: Type A Ko-hyoteki midget submarine]. He never saw a Japanese warship. They had some aerial attacks going into Lingayen Gulf, Philippines [Annotator’s Note: Invasion of Lingayen Gulf, Philippines, 6 January 1945]. They went in at dawn. He was ready to go to his gun station and heard bullets hitting the bulkhead. A Japanese fighter was strafing them but went on. In the northern Philippines, they came under terrific air attack. Stevens was in charge of a 40mm gun [Annotator's Note: Bofors 40mm antiaircraft automatic cannon] crew. One came in and never wavered. At the last minute it blew up. It was a kamikaze. He admired their courage. He never saw a Japanese combat officer alive.

Phineas Stevens was in every D-Day [Annotator's Note: D-Day denotes the day on which an important operation begins] landing in the South Pacific. After the war in Europe ended, the United States Navy sent most of the Atlantic Fleet to the Pacific. They had the largest fleet that had ever been assembled in the history of warfare. They set about to make the initial landing in Japan. All of the ships headed to Okinawa [Annotator's Note: Okinawa, Japan] to stage. The second of the horrible bombs [Annotator's Note: nuclear weapons dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, 6 and 9 August 1945] were dropped and the war ended. When he got to Okinawa, they loaded crews to establish a weather station. His ship had an escort and went into a big bay at night. At dawn, they saw that there were floating mines everywhere. Stevens was a good rifle shot but he could not hit the mines. They were afraid to move. There was a small village on the shore. A boat paddled out with old, Japanese men who came aboard. They had been suffering, so the ship gave them as much food as they could. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks what it was like to switch roles like that.] They were old men that had suffered, and it was pitiful. They could not communicate. They got orders to return to Okinawa. He never set foot in Japan but was only 50 yards away.

The only thing Phineas Stevens remembers about Corregidor [Annotator's Note: Corregidor Island, Luzon, Philippines] is that it had been abandoned by the Americans and occupied by the Japanese [Annotator's Note: on 6 May 1942] when Stevens was in Subic Bay [Annotator's Note: Subic Bay, Philippines]. Stevens went AWOL [Annotator's Note: absent with out leave] and took a PT-boat [Annotator's Note: Patrol Torpedo Boat] to Corregidor to strafe the shoreline as a nuisance. He got back and nobody knew he was gone. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks what landing was the most opposed.] Leyte Gulf [Annotator's Note: Battle of Leyte from 17 October to 26 December 1944]. By the time he went ashore, the Navy had completed the largest bombardment in the history of warfare. He went 23 months without a night ashore. He was in a dry bed every night, so he considers himself lucky. Correspondence with home was very spotty. He got one letter that a brother in the infantry in France was missing in action. It was months before he got another letter saying that he was a prisoner of the Germans. Stevens got orders to return home on emergency leave orders because of illness in the family. Stevens was aboard the command ship of the flotilla [Annotator's Note: LST Flotilla 7]. Stevens was required to write a history of the flotilla before he could leave. A copy of it is on file at the Museum [Annotator's Note: The National WWII Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana]. He went to an Army supply ship to get some pants and shirts. That was his only clothing. He drew his pay and put it in an envelope on his desk. When he went to leave, he found out the room steward had thrown it over the side of the ship as trash. Stevens dove overboard and retrieved it. He has a picture a friend took of him climbing back aboard with the envelope in his mouth. They had a good life on ship. They saw a lot of combat. Once about dawn, bullets were hitting the bulkhead. Stevens rushed out to see the Zero [Annotator's Note: Japanese Mitsubishi A6M fighter aircraft, referred to as the Zeke or Zero] strafing them.

When Phineas Stevens left Leyte Gulf [Annotator's Note: Battle of Leyte, Philippines, 17 October to 26 December 1944] after the initial landing, their ship [Annotator's Note: USS LST-466] was loaded with wounded. He called for an Ensign Keshishisian [Annotator's Note: later US Navy Lieutenant (jg) John Keshishisian]. He was told he could not be found. He told them to look in sick bay. The ensign was helping tend to the wounded. Stevens knew he wanted to go to medical school. Stevens says that when President Reagan [Annotator's Note: Ronald Wilson Reagan, 40th President of the United States] was shot in Washington, D.C. [Annotator's Note: on 30 March 1981] and taken to the hospital, Dr. Keshishisian was heading the surgical team. He is the only one Stevens has ever kept up with. It was hard to get back to the United States after the war, because Stevens was the most experienced officer in the flotilla [Annotator's Note: LST Flotilla 7]. His brother and father were in poor health and waiting for Stevens to join them in their law practice. Stevens' father called Senator Eastland [Annotator's Note: James Oliver Eastland; United States Senator from the state of Mississippi] to get him orders to return home. The flotilla commander would not sign his orders until he wrote a history of LST Flotilla 7. Stevens caught a ship to Manila [Annotator's Note: Manila, Luzon, Philippines] to a Navy base. That was his first night ashore in 23 months. They had a plane going to Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: Pearl Harbor, Hawaii]. He had his first civilian meal there at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel [Annotator's Note: in Honolulu, Hawaii]. He went aboard an aircraft carrier to San Francisco [Annotator's Note: San Francisco, California]. He then flew to Kansas in a raging snowstorm. He only had a tropical uniform, but he was glad to be there. He then took a bus to Mississippi. Stevens made it home and was sworn in to practice law. He had lost interest in the law and would rather have gone into business. His brother was carrying the law practice of his father. After his brother died, Stevens was thrown back in after six years away from it. Stevens feels the war experience helped some in his practice. He had to use a lot of initiative at home and his prior FBI [Annotator's Note: Federal Bureau of Investigation] training helped. The Naval training did not amount to anything.

Phineas Stevens feels it is absolutely important that future generations continue to study World War 2. It was horrible and required sacrifice both at home and abroad. It is as important as the Revolutionary War [Annotator's Note: American Revolutionary War, or, American War of Independence, 19 April 1775 to 3 September 1783] and the Civil War [Annotator's Note: American Civil War, 1861 to 1865]. The National WWII Museum [Annotator's Note: in New Orleans, Louisiana] is doing an awfully good job. The war gave him more confidence due to being thrown into situations where he had to exercise judgment that involved the safety of himself and others. He had a lot of responsibility thrown on him. The ones who fought the war ought to be remembered and respected. He does not object to them being called the "Greatest Generation." He and his brothers gave years of their lives. It is an important part of his personal and family history.