Jim Phillips, a World War II veteran, knows what vets need

A hero helping heroes
Jim Phillips, a World War II veteran, knows what vets need

By Ann Sperring
Correspondent

Published: Sunday, April 24, 2011
Building the destroyer USS Luce in 1942 took more than nine months. She sank in less than six minutes, a victim of Japanese kamikaze pilots, trapping more than 120 of her crew of 312 men in a blazing coffin.

Commissary Petty Officer Jim Phillips was among the injured who jumped overboard or were blasted by the ship's exploding bombs into a South Pacific sea full of hungry sharks.

“It was just around breakfast when they hit. The Japanese pilots flew their planes into us and in just a few minutes I was in the ocean holding onto some empty aluminum casing to stay afloat,” said Phillips, of Ocala.

In combat situations, he commanded the 20-millimeter cannon at the bow of the ship and his was the last gun to have a chance of blasting a diving plane away.

The force of bursting bombs and his ship's ammunition knocked Phillips out of his shoes. His uniform in tatters, he struggled for survival as salt water washed into his burned body.

“All around me I could hear shipmates pleading for help. The worst part was the sharks attacking,” he recalled. “I would hear a buddy screaming, a lot of thrashing and in a few minutes there was nothing left but bloody water.”

Phillips was rescued after a full day under the blazing sun. At one point, an enemy plane strafed him.
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A hero helping heroes