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Honoring Our Nation’s Heroes
www.saukvalley.com
A Supplement of Sauk Valley Media
Michael Krabbenhoeft/[email protected] a Memorial Day observance along the Rock River, people came to Odd Fellows Cemetery on Emmons Avenue in Rock Falls, where a second ceremony was held on May 27, 2013.
Stories of service, from Pearl Harbor to today
Parks Honor Sauk Valley Veterans
From Dixon to Lyndon, and from Milledgeville to Rock Falls, parks honor the service of Sauk Valley veterans. They rely on the efforts of
local volunteers and donors.
Named after Whiteside County, the USS Whiteside served from 1944 until she was finally decommissioned in Astoria, Oregon, on Jan. 30,
1958. The last flag to be flown on the ship now rests in Morrison.
From the SVM archives: WW II Navy veteran Roy Phillips Sr. shares his harrowing tale of surviving the attack on
Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.
The Rewards of Military Careers
The Stars & Stripes Comes HomeA Survivor’s Story
Lt. Col. Breck Woodard, a Sterling native, was at the helm of a withdrawal from Afghanistan. Meanwhile, a Rock Falls native is set
to become a brigadier general in the Air Force.
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HONORING OUR NATION’S HEROES | THE IMPORTANCE OF LOGISTICS
Philip Marruffo/[email protected] highlight of Lt. Col. Breck Woodard’s 19 years in the Air Force was his role in strategizing a recent withdrawal of 31,000 military personnel and 610,000 pieces of equipment from Afghanistan.
BY CHRISTOPHER [email protected]
T he best-laid plans are only as good
as those executing them. And, no mat-ter how many bases are covered, one variable can blow up those plans.
That concept is at the heart of all that Lt. Col. Breck Woodard has accomplished dur-ing his 19 years in the Air Force.
Q�Q�QHe is a celebrated
logistics officer whose problem-solving prow-ess brought home 31,000 personnel and 610,000 pieces of equipment from Afghanistan.
But to rise to such great heights, Woodard had about a month to decide how he would handle being grounded.
He had dreamed of being a fighter pilot in the Air Force, but he was woken abruptly by a medical disqualification in 1998.
“That point when they say, ‘You can’t anymore,’ it’s a tough thing to hear,” Breck said. “But some-times those points in life make you stronger.
“That’s one thing I love about the military: It chal-lenges you. It asks a lot of you. It really builds a lot of resiliency.”
Breck’s father, Terry, said his son was some-what quiet while deciding whether to consider a dif-ferent career path in the armed forces or get out.
“It was a devastating experience for both him and me,” said Terry, who earned nine medals and awards as an Army mede-vac pilot in the Vietnam War.
The young man consult-ed his mentors. He stud-ied. Then he researched some more. And he decided to try his hand at logistics.
During a recent inter-view at Sauk Valley Media, Breck agreed that choos-ing logistics was the best decision he has made.
Brilliant decision leads to many moreSterling native at helm of Afghanistan withdrawal
DECISION CONTINUED ON C4�
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HONORING OUR NATION’S HEROES | THE IMPORTANCE OF LOGISTICS
“Life dealt me a situ-ation, and I was going to make the best of it,” Breck said. “I can’t say it was that clean. There was turmoil and rough waters along the way.”
Instant gratification
It didn’t take long for Breck to be rewarded for his decision. As a young captain in Ellsworth, South Dakota, he was a strategic planner deploy-ing B-1 bombers.
While he discovered his calling, he also found his bride, Gina. They were married Sept. 2, 2000, in South Dakota, a little more than a year after Breck recruited her into the honor guard he was leading. The pitch came at a birthday party. Gina arrived late, and the only seat left was across from Breck. Fate took over from there.
Also a commissioned officer, Gina served 10 years active duty, and they have two children, Tyler, 8, and Ryan, 5. Breck has been deployed seven times, the last three to Afghanistan, Iraq and, most recently, Kuwait. The hostile terri-tory might have nothing on the heartache of being apart from family.
“It’s never easy to say goodbye. A deployment just has this heavy feel-ing about it,” said Gina, who’s been deployed once herself, and has opted to say goodbye to Breck at the house before someone else drives him to the airport, a tip she picked up from a higher-up officer. “It’s always tough to be separated, but we also know this is the life we chose.”
Nonetheless, his rise was meteoric. Last summer, Gen. Fran-cisco Espaillat person-ally requested that Breck deploy with him to Kuwait, where they would plan and execute a historic drawdown of U.S. forces.
“When opportunity knocks, you jump right through that door, you
grab it and you go,” Breck said. “It was sort of one of those offers you can’t refuse.”
Relying on experience
Breck used his deploy-ment to Afghanistan in 2006 as something of a road map. At that time, he was leading an orga-nization that trained the Afghan army in logistics. Little did he know, learn-ing the landscape would prove paramount.
Because, while helping draw down U.S. forces in Iraq in 2010 was an undertaking as mas-sive as it was dangerous,
land-locked Afghanistan was a whole different animal.
“I don’t want to take anything away from leav-ing Iraq,” Breck said. “That was difficult. But in Iraq, we had a road that took us all the way down to Kuwait, and we drove a lot of stuff down there. Afghanistan is a land-locked country. It’s a lot harder to move stuff.”
And political turmoil compromised Pakistan, one of their chief lines of communication and a hub for moving out per-sonnel and equipment.
The timelines and expectations for the drawdown were consis-
tently challenged. So it was up to Breck and 24 fellow officers to get cre-ative. He implemented an airlift system, reduc-ing the number of times vehicles had to drive dangerous passages.
But perhaps his greatest brainchild was a mobile
unit that helped pack and mobilize supplies, and allowed soldiers to focus on their contact with the enemy, not the need to prepare for with-drawal.
“A commander in com-bat will never give up anything while he has troops in contact,” Breck said. “He or she doesn’t want to have to go back to a family and tell them, ‘We lost your son or daughter because we gave up our vehicles.’”
So Breck and his group found soldiers with specific skills. They moved people around, reaching to other countries to grab soldiers and assemble a group that mobilized a unit, then moved on to the next.
“All of a sudden, we have 60 people who can move around and aug-ment where needed,” Breck said. “It helped out the people at the tip of the spear, who were taking the fight to the enemy.”
Relying on training
No matter how brilliant Breck’s logistic mind might be, he could not read the minds of the enemy.
“The enemy has a vote,” Breck said. “Every plan is only good until you have
first contact with the enemy.”
So, no matter how many scenarios were dis-cussed, there were many instances where allow-ing ingrained training to take over was vital to survival.
“You find a calm, and it’s like your mind shifts into automatic,” Breck said. “Your training tells you what to do, and you’re just reacting.”
But decisions often must be made immedi-ately.
“Seventy percent now is better than 100 percent late,” Breck said. “You instinctively go, and it might not be the right answer, but you’re going and moving down the field. Then you adjust as things fall apart, and you keep adjusting until you’re out of there, and you have a moment to catch your breath and regroup.”
It’s a good thing that, 16 years ago, Breck caught his breath when medical disqualification tried to take the wind out of his sail.
“He didn’t sulk. He could’ve had a pity party, but he didn’t,” Terry said.
Instead, he quenched his thirst to serve, and the Air Force named him its 2013 Logistics Staff Officer of the Year.
But before leaving the SVM office, he took a few minutes to empha-size that the award – not unlike the Pulitzer Prize of the Air Force – belonged to everyone who carried out the with-drawal, from his officers to the soliders on the front lines.
“He’s always been such a team player, very conscientious of other people’s feelings,” Terry said.
And very aware of his calling, it turns out.
Wife also commissioned officer, with 10 years’ active duty
Photo submittedAir Force Lt. Col. Breck Woodard, a Sterling High School graduate, is photo-graphed during a deployment to Afghanistan.
’’‘‘In Iraq, we had
a road that took us all the way
down to Kuwait, and drove a lot of stuff down there. Afghanistan is a
land-locked coun-try. It’s a lot harder
to move stuff.Lt. Col. Breck Woodard
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BY MATT MENCARINI
It didn’t take Col. Walter Lindsley Jr. much time after enlisting in the U.S. Air Force in 1982 to realize he wanted to make a career of it.
Lindsley, 50, a Rock Falls native and 32 years into his military career, was nominated by President Barack Obama for the rank of brigadier general. His nomination, made in April, is awaiting Senate confirmation.
“The Air Force and I got along really well,” Lindsley said when thinking back to the start of his military career. “I actually appreciate the discipline. ... And you get a sense of purpose.”
Lindsley is stationed at Wright Pat-terson Air Force base, just outside Dayton, Ohio. His career has taken him to Louisiana, England, Italy, Korea, Arizona and Utah, among oth-ers.
He was stationed at the Pentagon for 6 years, and was there on Sept. 11, 2001, working in the office of a three-star general.
Two people in the office were gath-ered around the TV that morning. Not aware of what they were watching, Lindsley told them there was work to do. By the time he got to the TV, he said, the second plane was flying into the second tower.
They grabbed what they could off the boss’ desk and started to set up a crisis team in the Pentagon so they were ready to support the general and others.
“The enemy wasn’t going to get us out of the Pentagon,” Lindsley said recent-ly. “[The mentality was] we didn’t know who you are, but you’ve just made a big mistake.”
As they were setting up the crisis team, Lindsley said, the plane hit the Pentagon.
“As they’re fighting the fires, most everyone is evacuating the building,” he said. “We did not. We always had the building manned. I remember all of that activity, and then I remember that as they were fighting the fire. ... The fires continued to spread. The smoke and fire spread over the Pen-tagon.”
Finding a ‘sense of purpose’ in serviceRock Falls native nominated for rank of brigadier general in Air Force
About the rank
Dates of Lindsley’s previous promotions
Col. Walter Lindsley Jr.’’
‘‘I have not done anything from the time I was 18
until now to make a name for myself,” he said. “... I love serving my country, and I love the Air Force. Air Force Col. Walter Lindsley Jr.
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HONORING OUR NATION’S HEROES | CLIMBING THE RANKS
Eventually, the crisis team operations had to be moved out of the Pen-tagon, Lindsley said. He and another officer made their way to another facility to set up a tempo-rary center, so operations could continue smoothly.
Those operations moved back to the Pentagon later that day, once the fires were under control.
Lindsley had gotten to work at 5 a.m. that day, he said, and didn’t get home until after midnight.
Walter Lindsley Sr., 76, who still lives in Rock Falls, isn’t surprised at the way his son handled the events and his duties of the day. His son has always been a leader, he said.
“That is kind of the dif-ference between the lead-er-type person and a non-
leader,” the elder Lindsley said. “In the time of crisis, they don’t think about what they’re doing.”
His father said he didn’t expect Lindsley to make a career out of the Air Force when he enlisted. But after a first re-enlist-ment, Lindsley knew he had found his calling.
“I never expected him to go this far,” the elder Lindsley said. “I told him, when he went, to find a rank that he’s comfortable in and stay there. I didn’t think he was going to make a career out of it.”
But he said his son just keeps “climbing up in the ranks.”
“I’m very proud,” he said. “It makes me very proud.”
Lindsley’s 32-year career has been about service. Each promotion, includ-ing the recent nomina-tion, has been an oppor-tunity and a challenge, he
said, for him to take on more responsibility and serve in a greater capac-ity.
“It’s not about me,” he said. “And it won’t be. I’m just doing my job, and I found my niche in the Air Force.”
Lindsley credits the work ethic that was instilled by his father, and the people skills he learned from his mother, as major factors in his military success.
When looking back on his career, Lindsley said the Air Force has provid-ed him with a lot, includ-ing an education, and an opportunity to see and do things he never thought a kid from Rock Falls would be able to see or do.
“I have not done anything from the time I was 18 until now to make a name for myself,” he said. “... I love serving my country, and I love the Air Force.”
Lindsley: Each promotion an opportunity, challenge
U.S. Air Force photo by Dennis CarlsonCol. Walter Lindsley Jr. (left), 498th Nuclear Systems Wing commander, hands Senior Airman Janarious Devine, 377th Security Forces Squadron, his lunch at the Thunderbird Inn on Christmas Day in 2011.
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HONORING OUR NATION’S HEROES | REMEMBERING THE FALLEN
Army Pfc. Scott Tyrrell, 21,
of Sterling
Marine Lance Cpl. Andrew G. Patten,
19, of Byron
Army Sgt. Jessica M. Housby,
23, of Milan
Marine Lance Cpl. Alec E.
Catherwood, of Byron
Army Pfc. Norman L. Cain III,
22, of Mount Morris
Marine Staff Sgt. Justus S. Bartelt,
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STAFF REPORT
SPRINGFIELD – An unusual and touching memorial to Illinois mili-tary members lost to the war on terrorism is avail-able for groups to request to exhibit, or for viewing online.
“Portrait of a Soldier” is an exhibit of hand-drawn portraits of Illinois military personnel who have been killed since Sept. 11, 2001, in the global war on terror. The portraits are copies of the original, which has been given to the fallen soldiers’ next of kin.
The exhibit, which trav-els throughout the state, includes portraits of six of Sauk Valley’s fallen.
The project began in August 2004, when art-ist Cameron Schilling of Mattoon, then a student at Eastern Illinois Uni-versity, drew a portrait of Army Spc. Charles Neeley, a Mattoon native who was killed in Iraq.
Schilling gave the
sketch to Neeley’s par-ents, to convey his sym-pathy. In October 2005, he decided to draw a por-trait of every Illinoisan who has fallen in the war against terror.
Local service men and women represented in the exhibit include:
-rell, 21, of Sterling, died Nov. 20, 2003, of wounds received 6 days earlier in Tikrit, Iraq.
Andrew G. Patten, 19, of Byron, killed Dec. 1, 2005, by a roadside bomb in Fallujah, Iraq.
Housby, 23, of Milan, assigned to the Army National Guard 1644th Transportation Company in Rock Falls, killed Feb. 9,
2009, by a roadside bomb in Route Golden, Iraq.
Cain III, 22, of Mount Morris, killed March 15, 2009, by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan.
-tus S. Bartelt, of Polo, killed in combat in
2010.
Alec E. Catherwood, of Byron, killed during a combat mission Oct. 14, 2010, in Afghanistan.
Organizations are invited to request the exhibit for display. Call the Illinois Department or Veterans Affairs at 217-782-0244 or go to tinyurl.com/PortraitOfASoldier to view the portraits or for more information.
Sauk Valley portraits part of traveling exhibit
www.saukvalley.comThursday, July 3, 2014
HONORING OUR NATION’S HEROES | VETERANS PARKS IN THE SAUK VALLEY
BY PAM [email protected]
DIXON – It was Novem-ber 2001 when John Weit-zel presented plans for a veterans memorial park on the west edge of Dixon to the city’s park board.
Weitzel was president of the Dixon Veterans Memorial Commis-sion, a 10-person panel appointed by Mayor Jim Burke.
Weitzel promised that the funding would come exclusively from dona-tions and an endowment would be established for site maintenance.
Armed with $2,000 from a Dixon Tourism grant, the commission embarked on its fund-raising journey. Thir-teen years and about $400,000 later, the work continues.
Several veterans memo-rial parks grace the area – some are completed, others have additions in the works, and another project planned for many years in Sterling has been tabled.
Although the area’s vet-erans parks vary in scale, all exist because of the tireless efforts of the fund-raisers who have pounded the pavement for dona-tions from businesses, organizations and indi-viduals, and orchestrated countless raffles and pork chop dinners.
Dixon Veterans Park organizers were fortu-nate – much of the heavy lifting was done before the recession hit in late 2007.
Veterans parks are works in progressTiming is everything for organizers
Philip Marruffo/[email protected] Force veteran Jim Reubin paints the underside of the F-105D Thunderchief on Oct. 1, 2012, at Veterans Memorial Park in Dixon. Members of the Veterans Memorial Park Commission and local veterans worked to spruce up the decommissioned jet that now is on display at the park.
Alex T. Paschal/[email protected]
Rock Falls Veterans Memorial Park, at West Fifth Street and Galt Ave-nue, has a walkway that includes legacy stones.
Alex T. Paschal/[email protected]“The veterans of Lyndon are just as important as the veterans anywhere else,” said Fred Steele, head of the Lyndon Economic Advisory Panel that established Lyndon Veterans Memorial Park, at 604 W. Commercial St.
BY PAM [email protected]
MILLEDGEVILLE – In smaller towns, veterans park projects might not be as elaborate as the Dixon project, but that doesn’t mean they are going unnoticed.
In Milledgeville, ground was broken 2 years ago for its memorial park on a half-acre site near the high school at 100 E. Eighth St. The project’s price tag initially was estimated at $70,000, but inflation bumped it up to $85,000.
The Milledgeville Park District is leasing the land for 100 years, at a cost of
$1 a year.“We offered to buy the
land, but the park district said it would be better to lease it,” said Lee Gibbs, American Legion Post 553 commander.
The park was dedicated last Veterans Day, and while it’s still a work in progress, the accolades already are coming in.
The Milledgeville Memorial Park will be recognized July 12 at the American Legion State Convention in Spring-field. The project has captured first place in the Commander’s Commu-nity Service Award.
Small towns, big efforts in Milledgeville, Lyndon
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HONORING OUR NATION’S HEROES | VETERANS PARKS IN THE SAUK VALLEY
After the city acquired the title to part of the land at the site at state Route 2 and Palmyra Road from the Illinois Department of Trans-portation, construction started in 2003. The first legacy stones were unveiled in 2004, and the showcase items were gradually assembled.
A Cobra gunship that was shot down several times in Vietnam was added in September 2005, huge granite slabs with plaques in April 2006, followed by a 103,600-pound M60A3 Patton Tank in May 2006.
On May 17, Armed Forc-es Day, a Blue Star Memo-rial plaque was dedicated at the Dixon park. The project was part of a nationwide program start-ed by National Garden Clubs Inc. The plaques can be seen near national cemeteries, parks, veter-ans facilites, and gardens that are along the Blue Star Highway system.
“The Blue Star Memorial honors past, present and future men and women who served in any branch of the armed forces,” said Jim James, Dixon Veter-ans Memorial Commis-sion chairman.
State and Dixon-area garden clubs were instru-mental in the Blue Star project.
The work and fundrais-ing never seem to end, as the planning commit-tees move on to the next stage.
“We’re in the process of the second phase in Dixon,” James said. “We’re working on side-walks, lights, another flagpole for the Merchant Marine flag.”
Groundwork also has started for a museum project. A lot has just been
cleared out and dedicated for a 5,000-square-foot building. James said they are just laying the ground-work at this point for a project he says won’t be finished for 5 years, even in a best-case scenario.
“We have quite a bit of paperwork through the state to do, and we have to get nonprofit status for the project,” James said. “There is grant writ-ing to do, and we have to get the donations.” He said they are looking for someone to work on the grants.
Plans are for the muse-um to house many arti-facts that are donated by the families of area vets. An education area with a theater would be designed especially for kids.
In the meantime, vol-unteers keep plugging away to honor Weitzel’s promise to keep taxpay-ers’ money out of the process.
“We just finished a gun raffle, and there was a ded-ication cerermony for 18 more stones,” James said.
SterlingIn Sterling, there has
been talk of a veterans park for several years, but many factors have pushed the project to the back burner.
Mayor Skip Lee says the
project has been stalled by inability to choose a loca-tion, the economic down-turn, and figuring out how a veterans park could fit in with overall plans to develop the riverfront.
Several years ago, American Legion Post 296 announced plans to build a veterans park next to Grandon Civic Center in downtown Central Park.
“They had come to us with a proposal almost 3 years ago,” Lee said. “We went back to them with some refinement, and no location was chosen.”
City officials were con-cerned that the Gran-don site wouldn’t offer enough acreage, espe-cially with the municipal band needing concert space there.
Lee said nothing spe-cific has been discussed, but the city has consid-ered some alternate sites for the memorial park.
“They could go to Gran-don on a smaller scale, but green space on the riverfront might be a bet-ter option,” Lee said.
Another possibility is a small triangular-shaped park near Locust and Avenue B. Lee said there also is space near the American Legion post at 601 First Ave.
“There is definitely
interest in the project, it’s just that no one has a good, solid feel for it yet,” Lee said. “Nothing has been concretely pro-posed or ruled out.”
The mayor also believes that the economic down-turn might have been a factor in slowing the project’s momentum.
“In 2008-2009, what was happening with the economy sent everyone scurrying in the charity world,” Lee said. “Fund-raising and finding grant opportunities became much more difficult.”
While former Sterling Legion Commander Dick Cox says the park wouldn’t be of the same scale as Dixon’s, cost still is a problem.
“We’re looking at some-where in the neighbor-hood of $250,000, and our legion doesn’t have that kind of money,” Cox
said. “We have a capital fund, but that is used for our building.”
Another former com-mander, Mike Wolber, said the location has been the biggest stum-bling block. While plan-ners originally thought it would be appropriate to build the park near the Civil War monu-ment, the project is likely to become part of the city’s riverfront development plans. The legion has about $1,500 in seed money from vari-ous organizations, but efforts to raise money stalled.
“We haven’t pursued other fundraising efforts because people don’t want to donate without a location,” Wolber said. “Once the riverfront plans get going, then fun-draising for the park can be done in earnest.”
Wolber said a riverfront site would likely be at the far west end near Avenue B. The original proposal called for illu-minated clear acrylic walls for each military branch with logos. There would be retaining walls, benches, and landscap-ing done from a walk-ing area to the walls. A memorial to MIAs and POWs would provide a more solemn type of sanctuary.
The city owns the land on the riverfront, and the original plans would have to be reworked.
“We have no idea of the space available on the riverfront,” Wolber said. “We’d have to adapt the renderings for that site.”
Wolber believes that figuring out the logistics is the biggest problem, not the state of the econ-omy.
Riverfront could be future site for park in Sterling
Alex T. Paschal/[email protected] Veterans Memorial Commissioner Keane Hud-son (left) and Dixon City Commissioner Jeff Kuhn unveil a new Blue Star Memorial Highway plaque May 17 at Veterans Memorial Park.
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We proudly salute the brave men and women who haveserved and made the ultimate sacri!ce for their country. Weonce again pay our respects to America’s fallen soldiers. Wepray for their families, and we honor their memories. To all
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The award is given to small-town posts that aren’t able to compete for the Hall of Fame awards won by the larger cities.
The application pro-cess focuses on both the effort put in to make the project a reality, and the reaction from the com-munity. Gibbs said the response from citizens has been remarkable.
“We have had a lot of support from the com-munity,” Gibbs said. “We have already put in 225 memorial bricks. The fundraisers have been successful, and we were fortunate that sev-eral contractors donated labor to the cause.”
The pavers were part of the project’s first phase,
which also included con-crete and flagpoles. The pavers were intially just to memorialize the locals who had served in the armed forces. Now they are available to everyone at a cost of $200 each.
The bricks surround an eagle that serves as a base and centerpiece. Efforts were made to make the memorial inclusive of all branches.
“Each branch has its own monument, including the Merchant Marines,” Gibbs said.
Residents also are sell-ing pavers for the memo-rial, on which people can recognize those who served. Originally, they were for Milledgeville res-idents, but now anyone can buy the bricks, after several out-of-towners expressed an interest in memorializing relatives who had local ties.
After raising about $40,000, volunteers still are busy fundraising, with hopes of eventually making upgrades.
“We have everything in that was originally planned,” Gibbs said. “We just have some land-scaping were’re finish-ing. There is room for additions, but we haven’t talked about exactly what we want to do yet.”
LyndonIn the tiny village of
Lyndon, population 646, its veterans memorial wall shares a home with the municipal building at 605 W. Commercial St.
The area of the village, perhaps best known for its annual Crow Festi-val, is less than 1 square mile, but its residents still wanted to find a way to honor area veterans.
The support continues to grow since the site’s dedication in July 2010.
“We’ve started putting the engravings on the back of the memorial because we were run-ning out of room on the front,” Village Clerk Shelly Moore said.
Moore said the names, mostly of Lyndon natives, span from the Civil War to the present.
The names are engraved on granite blocks that are sur-rounded by an inviting gazebo and landscaping, a walkway, and two stone benches. One distin-guishing characteristic helps account for the number of names on the blocks – there is no cost to put them there.
“We are doing really well with donations and fundraisers, so we can put the names up for
free,” Moore said. There are special blocks for entire families to consid-er that are sold for $125.
The Lyndon Economic Advisory Panel raised about $100,000 to install the wall and landscape the park.
Although there are no plans for additions at this time, the volunteers continue to raise money with an eye toward the future. The fourth annual Lyndon Veter-ans Memorial Ride is planned for July 26. At a cost of $10 a person, anyone can ride a vehi-cle of choice from Village Hall to the Lyndon Pub. Signup is from 10 a.m. to noon, and the party at the pub should begin at 5 p.m.
“There will be lots of food and raffles – it’s always a good time,” Moore said.
Lyndon site has continued to grow since 2010
Alex T. Paschal/[email protected]
In Prophetstown Eclipse Square Veterans Memo-rial Park on Washington Street, donations helped build several stone mon-uments that honor local veterans, as well as EMS, police officers and fire-fighters. White crosses with the names of those killed in war border the park.
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HONORING OUR NATION’S HEROES | A SURVIVOR’S STORY
STAFF REPORT
Editor’s note: WW II Navy veteran Roy Phil-lips Sr., of Como, west of Sterling-Rock Falls, was among the survivors of the Dec. 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor. Follow-ing is his story, as told by Phillips, and culled from Sauk Valley Media archives.
COMO – Roy Phillips sat inside the steel belly of a U.S. Navy destroyer-turned-minesweeper. He had a stomach full of scrambled eggs, and no idea that dozens of other ships and bar-racks already were under attack.
The USS Trever, the 20-year-old Kentucky sailor’s home for most of his 4-year enlistment to that point, was moored at Pearl City, a military landing on the other side of a narrow channel from the primary target of the Japanese Imperial Army: the naval air base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, home to the U.S. Pacific fleet.
It was Dec. 7, 1941. A Sunday. Boilermaker 2nd Class Phillips’ favorite day. The Trever galley served all the eggs sailors could eat at breakfast and all the cold cut sand-wiches they could handle for dinner.
“I’d never go ashore on Sunday,” he said, his drawl still evident, nearly seven decades later.
That day, “we never made it to dinner. I just went above deck to get some air. ... It was a real nice day, ... when I saw the Japanese planes fly-ing all over. It wasn’t much longer when they
called us to battle sta-tions,” said Phillips, who’s lived in the Sauk Valley the past 50 years, since ‘64.
Although the USS Trever sat far across the harbor, the carnage was unobstructed.
Seeing bombs drop-ping spurred Phillips into action. He scurried to his battle station – Boiler Number One – where he remained during the rest of the attack.
“It’s like being in a sub-marine,” Phillips said.
He went from the top deck through a manhole. The fire room, Phillips said, was pressurized. Without the pressure, opening the portal would have caused a backdraft.
There were four men stationed in the boiler room – two burner men; one water man; and one man in charge. They took turns seeing what was going on.
“That lasted like what seemed like an eternity,” Phillips said. “It’s some-thing out of this world. It was like a horror movie or something.”
Watching that horror unfold, he said, “kind of puts you in a trance.” So the death and destruc-tion didn’t have an immediate impact. But Phillips couldn’t quite acknowledge how the events affected him.
“I don’t think it both-ered me,” he said. “It never hurt my mental capacity.”
Remembering that day, though, is important to Phillips, who for many years made it his mission to speak publicly about “the date which will live in infamy.” Although he always came to speaking
engagements armed with laminated index cards, his words came naturally.
“I’ve been doing it so long,” he said at an American Legion event in Sterling in Decem-
ber 2010, “I know it by heart.”
Phillips is one of about 84,000 Americans, mili-tary and civilian, who were attacked by the Japanese at 7:55 a.m.,
in an act of aggression most historians say precipitated the United States’ entry into World War II.
About 2,400 sailors, Marines and soldiers
were killed at Pearl Har-bor and other military installations on the island of Oahu in the attack.
‘There was no time to be scared’Como man lived through the bombing of Pearl Harbor
Alex T. Paschal/[email protected] boilermaker 2nd Class Roy Phillips, then 88, holds a picture of the USS Trever, the ship he was sta-tioned on during the attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.
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Nearly 1,200 were wounded, as were more than 1,000 civilians, most of them by U.S. anti-air-craft artillery shells land-ing in residential areas.
Only about 2,000 to 2,500 of the tens of thou-sands of survivors are still alive.
A Shaker upbringing
Phillips’ childhood was an unlikely one for a man who would one day enlist amid the largest conflict in global history.
He was born to farm-hands in a Shaker village in central Kentucky. The Shakers’ religious teach-ings emphasized hard work, a simple, celibate and communal lifestyle,
and pacifism.The Shakers died out
in 1923, his father lost the farm, his grandfather died, and Phillips went to live with his mother in Lexington, Kentucky.
It was there that Phil-lips went to high school and, right after, in 1938, decided to join the Navy. There, he found work he was good at.
He made boilermaker by shimmying down into massive oil-burning fire-boxes. He got promoted by being eager to learn.
The morning of Dec. 7, the Trever, which made regular trips between Hawaii and San Diego, had been tied up just off the Pearl City peninsula for a couple of weeks.
The USS Wasmuth, the USS Zane and the USS Perry, also destroyer/mine sweepers, were docked nearby.
The USS Curtis, a battleship, was anchored a short distance away, and a little farther south, along the north shore of Ford Island, were the battleships USS Utah and USS Raleigh.
On the other side of Ford Island, less than a mile away, Phillips reck-oned, was battleship row. Here were anchored the USS Arizona, the USS Nevada, the USS Vestal, the USS West Virginia, the USS Tennessee, the USS Maryland, the USS Oklahoma, the USS Neo-sho and the USS Califor-nia. On Ford Island was a Naval air station.
A cousin of Phillips’ was assigned to the Curtis, and the two had made plans to visit a mutual friend aboard the Arizona.
Phillips was about 3 months from being discharged
Alex T. Paschal/[email protected] Harbor veteran Roy Phillips (left) of Como reads a poem during an American Legion ceremony in 2010 in Sterling marking the 69th anniversary of the attack on the Hawaiian naval base. Past Sterling American Legion Cmdr. Dick Cox holds the microphone. For many years, Phillips made it his mission to speak regularly about “the date which will live in infamy.” Although he always came to speaking engagements armed with laminated index cards, his words came naturally. “I’ve been doing it so long,” he said during the event pictured, “I know it by heart.”
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HONORING OUR NATION’S HEROES | A SURVIVOR’S STORY
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‘No time to be scared’
Phillips was about 3 months from being discharged when the bombs fell. Although he could hear the sound of explosions and Japanese airplanes zooming over-head, he felt no fear or dread.
“To be honest, I really didn’t think about it,” he said matter-of-factly. “There was no time to be scared.”
Holding a picture of the Trever, Phillips pointed to different parts of the ship. There was the boiler room where he was assigned, there were the three large smoke stacks, there were the guns near the bow, and there were the depth
charges near the stern.“That ship was really a
war dog,” he said.In the end, the Trever
sustained minimal dam-age, as did the other ships lined up along the peninsula. The Raleigh was damaged but remained afloat. The Utah sank. Across the channel, the Curtis was moderately damaged. Phillips’ cousin wasn’t hurt.
On the other side of Ford Island, along bat-tleship row, though, the destruction was terri-ble. Their friend aboard the Arizona went down with the ship and, along with 1,176 other Ameri-cans, was entombed on the bottom of the harbor.
All told, eight battle-ships were sunk or badly damaged, 10 other major ships were heavily dam-
aged, and 165 airplanes were destroyed.
The Japanese lost 185 airmen and sailors, 29 aircraft, one large and five mini-submarines.
Phillips said he had once applied to be a diesel mechanic in the Navy, but hadn’t
received the assignment. Many small diesel crafts were destroyed at Pearl Harbor, and many of the men assigned to them were killed.
He could very easily have been one of them. “Everything happens for a reason,” he said.
After Pearl Harbor
For several weeks after the attack, the Trever was sent out into the Pacific on submarine patrol. In March 1942, after re-enlisting, Phil-lips was assigned to the USS Rigel, a repair ship. He had risen to the position of boiler-maker.
The Rigel was sent to Midway in June of that year, and although the ship wasn’t involved in the battle of the same name, “it was in the area,” he said.
Phillips spent the rest of the war at such places as Australia, New Zea-land and New Guinea. He was discharged from the Navy in September 1945.
In 1987, he retired as a pipefitter at North-
western Steel and Wire. In addition to the increased pay, the move to Illinois in 1964 had been a blessing in other ways. “I met my wife here,” he said. Beverly Phillips died in 1997.
When asked how he would assess his ser-vice during the war, Phillips referred to a story told about Harry Truman.
Truman, who was a major during World War I, a judge, a U.S. senator, a vice presi-dent and a president, said the greatest epi-taph he ever saw was on a grave at Tombstone, Ariz.: “He done his damnedest.”
That, Phillips said, is how he wants to be remembered.
“Is there anything bet-ter?”
Phillips’ ship, the USS Trever, sustained minimal damage
Alex T. Paschal/[email protected] Phillips keeps a leave pass with a picture of his ship, a U.S. Navy destroyer-turned-minesweeper, the USS Trever.
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HONORING OUR NATION’S HEROES | THE STARS & STRIPES
BY CHRISTI [email protected]
MORRISON – Almost 3 years to the day after Pearl Harbor was bom-barded by enemy fire, the USS Whiteside was right there, ready to ship out on her maiden voyage as a newly commissioned naval ship.
It was Dec. 6, 1944, and, having arrived in Pearl Harbor from San Francisco about a month earlier, the Whi-teside, an attack cargo ship, was on its way to participate in naval exercises in Maui.
On Sept. 2, 1945, when Japan formally sur-rendered to the allies at Tokyo Bay, the Whiteside was there.
Named after White-side County, she served from 1944 until she was finally decommissioned in Astoria, Oregon, on Jan. 30, 1958. The last flag to be flown on the ship now rests in Mor-rison, a gift from Arlo Ericson, a man who served on the ship dur-ing its Korean War ser-vice.
Ericson, now 86, was aboard the Whiteside for 16 months. He and his wife made the trip to Whiteside County at the end of June all the way from St. Joseph, Mis-souri, a town about 50 miles north of Kansas City.
Ericson has been put-ting together reunions for his crewmates for the past 10 years, and part of that duty also means tak-ing care of – and holding on to – the last flag. Until now.
Before being decom-missioned, the Whi-teside made routine voyages back and forth from the West Coast to Japan, frequently stop-ping over in Pearl Har-bor.
Her final round-trip voyage to Asia from the West Coast was complet-ed on Feb. 28, 1957.
After being decom-missioned in 1958, the Whiteside remained in the Pacific Reserve Fleet, often endearingly called “The Mothball Fleet” until serving one last final mission in the spring of 1971, when she was sunk as a training target.
During the Whiteside’s years of service, she earned six battle stars – two for World War II and four for the Korean War.
After a reception during which Ericson donated the flag, the memora-bilia was presented at the Whiteside County Board meeting.
County Administrator Joel Horn said he’s very excited to have this piece of history coming home to the county.
“We’ve been talking about it for months,” he said.
The flag and photo-graphs will be hung somewhere in the court-house, Horn said, while the rest of the logs and artifacts will be stored by the county.
Battle-starred ship took name from countyFinal flag flown on USS Whiteside comes home
Photos by Philip Marruffo/[email protected] Ericson (right) speaks with Whiteside County Board member and Army veter-an Bill McGinn during an reception June 17 at the Odell Public Library in Morrison. Ericson donated the last American flag to fly on the USS Whiteside, along with maps and record books from the ship, to Whiteside County during the reception.
Arlo Ericson holds a record book from the USS Whi-teside. Ericson, who served on the Whiteside for 16 months, has been organizing reunions for crewmates for the past 10 years.
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