[Annotator's Note: The interview starts with Robert Phillips talking about cats.] Robert Phillips was born in Sioux Falls, South Dakota in November 1924. He lived there through the fourth grade then they moved to Flanders, South Dakota in 1934 when his father took over his grandfather's gas station. He graduated from high school on 28 May and on 17 June was sworn in the Army. This was in 1943. He thought he would be drafted but not that quickly. A lot of the guys there got deferments to work the farms. The "city slickers" [Annotator's Note: slang term for individuals who are from urban areas] absorbed a lot of the draft. He went to Fort Snelling, Minnesota and then to Barkley, Texas [Annotator's Note: Camp Barkeley in Abilene, Texas]. The only choice they had was Army, Navy, or Marines. He was sent to the medical replacement training unit and did his basic there. He then was shipped to a general hospital in Springfield, Missouri for three months to train as a surgical technician. It was a waste of time and money. He was sent to the infantry and did not use that training but it probably saved him from the D-Day [Annotator's Note: Allied invasion of Normandy, France on 6 June 1944] landing. The people who did not go to ASTP [Annotator's Note: Army Specialized Training Program] or technical training went over as replacements and ended up in the Airborne or glider troops. He would not have appreciated that. He landed in Normandy around the first week of August [Annotator's Note: August 1944]. He joined the 110 and 28th there [Annotator's Note: 110th Infantry Regiment, 28th Infantry Division]. He stayed with that unit through 25 September when he was wounded by artillery at the Siegfried Line [Annotator's Note: a series of defensive fortifications roughly paralleling the Franco-German border built by Germany in the 1930s]. [Annotator's Note: A loud noise comes on. They discuss turning it off and then talk about cats.] He had no choice in being a medic and would not have picked it. He tried to get out of it, but they were too short of medics. He had ideas about the cavalry and maybe tank destroyers. He looks back at it now as not being a good idea. They called tanks, "moving foxholes that draw fire."

[Annotator's Note: Robert Philips was wounded by artillery fire on 25 September 1944.] Philips was in the 97th General Hospital outside of Oxford [Annotator's Note: Oxford, England] for about two months having skin grafts. He looked like a mummy for a week or so. They had crossed the Our River at Dasburg [Annotator's Note: Dasburg, Germany] within the Siegfried Line [Annotator's Note: a series of defensive fortifications roughly paralleling the Franco-German border built by Germany in the 1930s], south of Aachen [Annotator's Note: Aachen, Germany]. It was a blessing for him because he missed the Hürtgen Forest [Annotator's Note: Battle of Hürtgen Forest, 19 September 1944 to 10 February 1945]. He got out 30 November [Annotator's Note: got out of the hospital on 30 November 1944] and got back to the region 15 December. He was told to get a good night's sleep before rejoining his unit [Annotator's Note: Philips was a medic attached to Company F, 2nd Battalion, 110th Infantry Regiment, 28th Infantry Division] in the morning. He got to the company and he was set up as a litter bearer. They were completely outnumbered in the clash there [Annotator's Note: Battle of the Bulge or German Ardennes Counter Offensive, 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945]. Out of the two companies, only about 50 made it out. By 18 December, they were out of food and ammunition. The Germans had gone by them by then so there were Germans on the roads. There were two trucks going to Bastogne [Annotator's Note: Bastogne, Belgium] and Philips was told to ride on one. They did not have a map and lost sight of the other truck. They saw some trucks and thought they had caught up. The lieutenant told the sergeant to check it out. The sergeant came back and said they were Germans and they were the last vehicle in their convoy. [Annotator's Note: Philips laughs.] They fell back, but then were alone. They hid in the daytime and traveled at night for four days. The last night it was foggy, so they hid in some haystacks. In the morning, it was still foggy. They saw a farm and went to get warm when a squad of Germans came out of the barn. They waited until everyone was gone and built a fire to warm up. They moved on and ran into a village where a unit was headquartered. They slept in a barn the first night there. V1s [Annotator's Note: V-1 pulse jet flying bomb, German name: Vengeance Weapon 1; Allied names: buzz bomb, doodlebug] were coming over. One dropped short in an orchard and the whole barn swayed. The next day they moved to a house. Later they got in trucks to go to a replacement depot and discovered they were on the outskirts of Liege [Annotator's Note: Liège, Belgium]. That meant they had been going northwest instead of southwest that whole time.

[Annotator's Note: Robert Philips was separated from his unit during the Battle of the Bulge, or German Ardennes Counter Offensive, on 22 December 1944. He made it to an American unit near Liege, Belgium after going the wrong direction for four days.] On New Year's Eve, they went into a town where the V1s [Annotator's Note: V-1 pulse jet flying bomb, German name: Vengeance Weapon 1; Allied names: buzz bomb, doodlebug] were landing. There was a train there and they were told to get on it to get out of there. Close to midnight, a German fighter came down and strafed the train. They all got off, took cover, and then returned. So did the fighter. They did the same thing again. They got going on the train and made it to the French and Belgian border where the Division [Annotator's Note: 28th Infantry Division] was rebuilding. He went back to the 110th [Annotator's Note: 110th Infantry Regiment, 28th Infantry Division]. Eisenhower [Annotator's Note: General of the Army Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower, Supreme Commander, Allied Expeditionary Force; 34th President of the United States] was concerned about the German 19th Army that controlled the Alsace [Annotator’s Note: Alsace region, France] region. Philips' Division and 3rd Division [Annotator's Note: 3rd Infantry Division] were transferred to French Army control. At the end of January, the 75th [Annotator's Note: 75th Infantry Division] was sent down to join them. They did not have enough translators. Army XXI Corps was given to 7th Army. All American units were put in the Corps so that the translation was done there. [Annotator's Note: There is an odd tape break.] The 28th Division and French 5th Army liberated Colmar [Annotator's Note: Battle of the Colmar Pocket; Colmar, France; 20 January to 9 February 1945]. They then drove to the Rhine [Annotator's Note: Rhine River]. At the end of February, they were sent back to the American Army. At the end of the war, the French established the Association Rhine and Danube veteran's group with a chapter for the Americans. Philips was president of it for ten years. The detachment was phased out in 2005. He misses it. He has been a member of another group at the French embassy for 25 years. Philips was set for redeployment to Japan. They were pulled off the line at the end of April, just before V-E Day [Annotator's Note: Victory in Europe Day, 8 May 1945] and sent to Lebach [Annotator's Note: Lebach, Germany] as an occupation force. They were going to be one of the first to be redeployed to the Pacific. They and the 95th [Annotator's Note: 95th Infantry Division] came back at the same time to Camp Shelby [Annotator's Note: Camp Shelby near Hattiesburg, Mississippi] and were given a 30 day leave [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time]. Philips went home. Then they dropped the bomb [Annotator's Note: nuclear weapons dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, 6 and 9 August 1945]. They gave them another 45 [Annotator's Note: days of leave] and then had them come back to Shelby. He was discharged at the end of November [Annotator's Note: 1945] at Fort Snelling [Annotator's Note: Fort Snelling in Hennepin County, Minnesota]. He took the G.I. Bill. He was going to become a purser [Annotator's Note: officer on a ship who keeps the accounts; head steward] in the US Merchant Marines. He would have had to go through their boot camp, so he said forget it.

[Annotator's Note: Robert Philips served in the Army as a combat medic in the 110th Infantry Regiment, 28th Infantry Division.] There were supposed to be three medics in every company, one for each rifle platoon. Casualties were so high among medics, that was rare. When Philips was wounded, he was the last one. They were down to about 25 men there. The Germans had counterattacked with flamethrowers at the Siegfried Line [Annotator's Note: a series of defensive fortifications roughly paralleling the Franco-German border built by Germany in the 1930s; this attack took place near Dasburg, Germany]. At that time, Philips was with F Company, 2nd Battalion [Annotator's Note: Company F, 2nd Battalion, 110th Infantry Regiment, 28th Infantry Division]. The day before he was hit, they got 120 replacements in, but no replacement medics. He was among the first ones hit in the morning. He had hauled a wounded soldier into a barn. He was working on him and an artillery round hit right at the door he was in. It was a direct fire, probably an 88 [Annotator's Note: German 88mm multi-purpose artillery]. Shrapnel came under his arm and across his chest. The concussion lifted him up and he fell against the wall. It was not painful; he was surprised. He opened his jacket and his shirt was soaked with blood. He looked and saw a hole in his chest. A guy patched him up. A jeep was brought up and Philips was put on a litter. The artillery started up again and the men took cover, leaving Philips on the jeep. He could see the shrapnel cutting branches in the tree above him. He yelled for them to come get him. [Annotator's Note: Philips laughs.] More wounded were coming in. One man had his rifle burned out of his hands by a flamethrower. They took off in the jeep. Philips was watching an 88 dropping shells behind them all the way down the road. At the aid station, he ran into someone he knew from his hometown. He did not like sauerkraut and that night they had sauerkraut and wieners. There was a wounded German in the bed next to him. Philips gave him his sauerkraut. Another guy asked the nurse if there was more for the German. The nurse said she did not understand them because the German had been trying to kill them and now they were feeding him. The German wrote down his mother's and sister's name and said they were in Chemnitz [Annotator's Note: Chemnitz, Germany]. He said that they would probably get back there before he did and asked them to tell his family he was okay and was a prisoner. Philips never got to Chemnitz. He went back to England. It was nice because all the girls spoke English when you were on leave [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time]. He had been hit on 25 September [Annotator's Note: 1944] and made it back to his unit on 15 December. They asked him if he wanted to stay back and work in the wards. He says he was young and stupid and told them he did not get in the war to empty bed pans; he wanted to go back to his unit. He went back to his unit by ship and landed at Brest [Annotator's Note: Brest, France].

Robert Philips landed across Omaha Beach [Annotator's Note: Normandy, France] the first week in August [Annotator's Note: August 1944]. British Marines were running the landing craft to a floating dry dock. They loaded into trucks and drove past the cemetery at the top of the hill. He picked up the 28th [Annotator's Note: 28th Infantry Division] there. On 10 September [Annotator's Note: 10 September 1944], they liberated Bastogne, Belgium and then Luxembourg shortly after. Then they went across the Our River and into Germany. When he got back into the fight, he came through the same area. After they got out of Alsace [Annotator's Note: Alsace region, France], they did not do much. They went north of Aachen [Annotator's Note: Aachen, Germany] to Ahr River Valley. They went on the encirclement of the Roer [Annotator's Note: Roer River; also known as the Rur River]. They occupied one area. They were sent back to Lebach [Annotator's Note: Lebach, Germany] at the end of April [Annotator's Note: April 1945]. Philips acted as the doctor in the town. He could not do more than bandage things. He gave them soap and sulfa powder [Annotator's Note: group of synthetic drugs used to treat bacterial infections]. One lady was pregnant, and he did not want any part of that. There was a hospital near there run by nuns, so he sent them there. They had nothing to give him other than schnapps [Annotator's Note: type of alcoholic beverage]. A lot of soldiers got into trouble. They celebrated V-E Day [Annotator's Note: Victory in Europe Day, 8 May 1945] with booze collected from the Germans. That was a mess. One guy drank a whole glass of liqueur [Annotator's Note: type of alcoholic beverage], was talking and then passed out cold. They guarded the bridge there. Their kitchen was in one of the houses. A young German boy was there who had some mental problems and the men picked on him. They sent him over to say "Heil Hitler" [Annotator's Note: Nazi salute] to the mess sergeant. The mess sergeant said it back to him and then gave him a lot of food to eat. It was a decent occupation. Then he came home.

Robert Philips came home, took advantage of the G.I. Bill and went to the University of Oregon [Annotator's Note: in Eugene, Oregon] where he got a degree in History. He was in ROTC [Annotator's Note: Reserve Officer Training Corps] there and got a Reserve commission. He then went back in the Army. In two weeks, the Korean War [Annotator's Note: 1950 to 1953] broke out. He was on the first shipment out. He got married the week before he left. He went to the Pusan [Annotator's Note: Pusan or Busan, Korea] perimeter with the 21st Infantry, 24th Division [Annotator's Note: 21st Infantry Regiment, 24th Infantry Division]. He went into the 3rd Battalion which had been badly shot up and had men executed. When he went in, they only had 25 men in the company, counting the cooks. They brought 170 men in from Camp Stoneman [Annotator's Note: in Pittsburg, California]. He had put his paperwork in. They were not taking Reserve officers but if you went in as enlisted and then put your paperwork in, you would be on active duty as a lieutenant. He did that but his paperwork was not finished when he shipped out enlisted. At Stoneman, they told him to put the paperwork again. They flew to Hawaii, then Wake Island, then Tokyo [Annotator's Note: Tokyo, Japan] and Camp Drake [Annotator's Note: in Saitama, Japan]. They were taken to a range to zero-in their rifles with only five rounds. He thinks the men on the range poked holes in the targets to get them on their way. Philips was not that good of a shot. They had no physical exam. They took a train to Sasebo [Annotator's Note: Sasebo, Japan]. Then they went to a Japanese ship. They unloaded in Pusan and got on a train with no seats. A train came by them full of wounded South Korean soldiers and dead ones coming back for cremation. They got to camp and pitched their tents. He was there all of August and September [Annotator's Note: 1950].

[Annotator's Note: Robert Philips was in Pusan, Korea with the 3rd Battalion, 21st Infantry Regiment, 24th Infantry Division during the Korean War.] It was a mess. All of the ammunition, rifles, and artillery, had been stored in Okinawa [Annotator's Note: Okinawa, Japan] since the end of World War 2 and a lot of it was bad. Sometimes the artillery would drop short on American troops or they were duds. Half of the grenades did not work. They did not do many patrols and mostly just sat in place. One night, Philips caused a flurry. He does not think anyone knows he did it. He was digging a foxhole and his helmet fell off and banged down the slope. Everyone starting firing, not at anybody, just being jumpy. He never said a thing and found another helmet. Food was not that good. There was a little village with only one old woman and a water buffalo. They gave her rations. They would fill buckets with water and use the water buffalo to carry it to the camps. August and September [Annotator's Note: August and September 1950] were hot, and men were dropping from the heat. They had no salt pills or Atabrine tablets [Annotator's Note: an anti-malarial medication] for the water. Only twice they got regular food. One day he got a box of big white pills. He was told to take one a week for malaria. Philips took a whole handful. They were drinking water they never knew about. They broke out of there and came across the remains of a lot of the men they had replaced. A lot of them had been shot in the back of the head and their hands were tied. They met part of the 7th Division [Annotator's Note: 7th Infantry Division] coming down from Inchon [Annotator's Note: Inchon, Korea]. They went up the west coast road and crossed the 38th [Annotator's Note: 38th parallel north latitude; current dividing line between North and South Korea] and by that time [Annotator's Note: October 1950] the North Koreans were retreating. They ran into tank fire now and then. They had to dig foxholes every day. It was very boring so they would have contests to see who could find the most lice. They had fleas too. They went two days once with no rations. They had one rifle cleaning kit per squad. They would fire a round to clean the barrel. They had all armor-piercing rounds and a lot of it was faulty. They went through Pyongyang [Annotator's Note: Pyongyang, Korea] and got within six miles of the bridge across the Yalu [Annotator's Note: Yalu River]. Their job was to secure the land side. [Annotator's Note: Philips lists the units there, but it is difficult to follow or identify them.] Halloween night, they celebrated. The next day their orders were changed. They were told to head south and they got on trucks. They dug in along the Chongchon River. He had his birthday there. The Chinese had launched a big attack [Annotator's Note: Battle of the Chongchon River, 25 November to 2 December 1950]. Philips' outfit was holding the line as they all fell back. Philips injured his knee and had to ride on a jeep. It was really cold and every time they stopped, they would start a brush fire to warm up. They were pulling a trailer that overturned. They had been left by their convoy and were alone. They caught up with an outfit eating breakfast and ate. They then caught their convoy. They got out with relatively few casualties. The Chinese were not pushing too hard. They did not have a lot of winter clothing then. They dug in at the 38th parallel. The Chinese dug in on the other side. There was a village there. If the Chinese were gathering firewood, the Americans would stay put, and vice-versa. In time, there was no village left, it had all been used for fuel. On New Year's Eve [Annotator's Note: 31 December 1950], the Chinese launched their big attack. Philips had left though due to an ear infection. He was at a MASH [Annotator's Note: mobile army surgical hospital] outfit. The physician there had been in the 28th [Annotator's Note: 28th Infantry Division] with him [Annotator's Note: Philips had served as a combat medic attached to Company F, 2nd Battalion, 110th Infantry Regiment, 28th Infantry Division during World War 2]. Philips was air-evacuated to Tokyo General Hospital [Annotator's Note: Tokyo, Japan] in January [Annotator's Note: January 1951]. He stayed there until July. His paperwork had finally caught up with him and he was going to be sworn in as an officer. He could not be sworn in until he was out of the hospital. [Annotator's Note: The interview ends mid-sentence.]