thedrifter
09-03-07, 06:40 AM
'A nobody' who helped beat Hitler
Monday, September 03, 2007
By MIKE BRANTLEY
TV & Media Editor
On Dec. 7, 1941, 17-year-old future U.S. Marine Pvt. Sidney C. Phillips was in a Mobile drugstore when news of the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor came on the radio.
He was not long removed from playing pranks with his high school buddy Eugene Sledge, who would go on many years later to author a respected World War II memoir about his own time in the Marine Corps. The inseparable pair used to get laughs by pretending Sledge's automobile had broken down on the city's streetcar rails.
A day after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Phillips signed up for the Marines. Not long thereafter, Mobile's streetcar rails were being pulled from the ground and the steel recycled for the war effort.
In the months and years that followed, Phillips would serve in the Pacific theater. For his generation, it would be a long haul to victory.
"The amazing thing was that I was caught up in all this, and I was a nobody -- just a private," said Phillips, now a retired physician residing in Theodore. He is the son of the late Sidney C. Phillips, for whom Sidney Phillips Junior High School, now Phillips Preparatory School, was named.
Phillips is among a generation of "nobodies" who helped defeat the Axis powers and save the nation, TV documentary producer Ken Burns told the Press-Register recently.
The filmmaker -- whose past documentaries have included "The Civil War," "Baseball" and "Jazz" -- has examined how World War II changed America by telling the wartime stories of Americans from four cities. In addition to Mobilians, the series recounts the stories of soldiers, sailors, Marines and civilians from Waterbury, Conn., Luverne, Minn., and Sacramento, Calif.
"The War" begins airing on PBS on Sept. 23. There will be a free screening of selected highlights emphasizing the Mobile segments at 8 p.m. this Saturday at the University of South Alabama's Mitchell Center.
What viewers much younger than his 83 years will take away from the series, predicts Phillips, is the unfathomable concept that America wasn't always a world-class power.
"In 1941 we were completely outgunned in the Pacific and in the Atlantic, too," he said. "We were a third-rate power."
Phillips' sister, Katharine Phillips Singer, said Americans at home didn't really understand that at first.
"It was years before we found out," said Singer, who was a student at Auburn University during the war years. "We really didn't know we were in dire straits."
In the short term America repeatedly lost precious lives, territory and military assets to its enemies. Even when victory for America became inevitable, the fighting remained brutal.
"I've always been a person that enjoyed jokes and enjoyed humor, and I would remember the funny things," Phillips said. "But my friend Eugene was in two terrible campaigns, and he couldn't get it out of his mind. It bugged him."
The late Sledge authored "With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa," an acclaimed book that helped inform Burns' documentary.
"You'll Be Sor-ree!" is Phillips' own more lighthearted war memoir. He published the spiral-bound, photocopied book himself in 1997 and frequently has new copies run off for friends and family members.
After three years in places like Cape Gloucester and Guadalcanal, Phillips returned to Mobile to find his sleepy town booming. The shipbuilding industry, in particular, was bustling.
"At night, you could look at Mobile River, and there would be a thousand lightning bugs right there, which was the building of a ship," Phillips said. "And a block away, there was a thousand lightning bugs, which was the building of another ship."
In "The War," Singer tells how women worked in factories, families dealt with rationing and youngsters collected scrap metal. Everyone at home faced fear and uncertainty as loved ones such as her brother Sid were in harm's way.
By 1944, Singer told the Press-Register, boys she attended school with were frequently listed in the newspaper as killed in action.
When she sees a World War II veteran even today, Singer said, she does not see an old man. She sees a hero who helped "save the nation."
She said, "These boys went off and they learned to fight and they learned to kill because they were about to lose their freedom. We were about to lose this nation, and they realized it."
Ellie
Monday, September 03, 2007
By MIKE BRANTLEY
TV & Media Editor
On Dec. 7, 1941, 17-year-old future U.S. Marine Pvt. Sidney C. Phillips was in a Mobile drugstore when news of the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor came on the radio.
He was not long removed from playing pranks with his high school buddy Eugene Sledge, who would go on many years later to author a respected World War II memoir about his own time in the Marine Corps. The inseparable pair used to get laughs by pretending Sledge's automobile had broken down on the city's streetcar rails.
A day after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Phillips signed up for the Marines. Not long thereafter, Mobile's streetcar rails were being pulled from the ground and the steel recycled for the war effort.
In the months and years that followed, Phillips would serve in the Pacific theater. For his generation, it would be a long haul to victory.
"The amazing thing was that I was caught up in all this, and I was a nobody -- just a private," said Phillips, now a retired physician residing in Theodore. He is the son of the late Sidney C. Phillips, for whom Sidney Phillips Junior High School, now Phillips Preparatory School, was named.
Phillips is among a generation of "nobodies" who helped defeat the Axis powers and save the nation, TV documentary producer Ken Burns told the Press-Register recently.
The filmmaker -- whose past documentaries have included "The Civil War," "Baseball" and "Jazz" -- has examined how World War II changed America by telling the wartime stories of Americans from four cities. In addition to Mobilians, the series recounts the stories of soldiers, sailors, Marines and civilians from Waterbury, Conn., Luverne, Minn., and Sacramento, Calif.
"The War" begins airing on PBS on Sept. 23. There will be a free screening of selected highlights emphasizing the Mobile segments at 8 p.m. this Saturday at the University of South Alabama's Mitchell Center.
What viewers much younger than his 83 years will take away from the series, predicts Phillips, is the unfathomable concept that America wasn't always a world-class power.
"In 1941 we were completely outgunned in the Pacific and in the Atlantic, too," he said. "We were a third-rate power."
Phillips' sister, Katharine Phillips Singer, said Americans at home didn't really understand that at first.
"It was years before we found out," said Singer, who was a student at Auburn University during the war years. "We really didn't know we were in dire straits."
In the short term America repeatedly lost precious lives, territory and military assets to its enemies. Even when victory for America became inevitable, the fighting remained brutal.
"I've always been a person that enjoyed jokes and enjoyed humor, and I would remember the funny things," Phillips said. "But my friend Eugene was in two terrible campaigns, and he couldn't get it out of his mind. It bugged him."
The late Sledge authored "With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa," an acclaimed book that helped inform Burns' documentary.
"You'll Be Sor-ree!" is Phillips' own more lighthearted war memoir. He published the spiral-bound, photocopied book himself in 1997 and frequently has new copies run off for friends and family members.
After three years in places like Cape Gloucester and Guadalcanal, Phillips returned to Mobile to find his sleepy town booming. The shipbuilding industry, in particular, was bustling.
"At night, you could look at Mobile River, and there would be a thousand lightning bugs right there, which was the building of a ship," Phillips said. "And a block away, there was a thousand lightning bugs, which was the building of another ship."
In "The War," Singer tells how women worked in factories, families dealt with rationing and youngsters collected scrap metal. Everyone at home faced fear and uncertainty as loved ones such as her brother Sid were in harm's way.
By 1944, Singer told the Press-Register, boys she attended school with were frequently listed in the newspaper as killed in action.
When she sees a World War II veteran even today, Singer said, she does not see an old man. She sees a hero who helped "save the nation."
She said, "These boys went off and they learned to fight and they learned to kill because they were about to lose their freedom. We were about to lose this nation, and they realized it."
Ellie