Joe McPhail

Joe McPhail was a Marine corps Pilot during WWII and the Korean war.

Interview 1 on LOC.gov

- Alice Braud Jones, with the Sam houston chapter DAR, Fort Virginia point chapter, UDC, Anne smith, and Hellen Stein in both chapters, interviewing Colonel Joe McPhail on 20 January 2014, Dickenson Texas.

- Joe McPhail served in the Untied States Marine Corps from 18 October 1941 to 10 October 1981.

- He was born in Grand Saline Texas, on highway 80 between Dallas and Freeport, pop of 1200, something like that pretty small town

- Fathers occupation was railroad commission, had to travel quite a bit, Joe ended up going to Corpus where he was working where he graduated from Highschool in 1939. The family moved to Corpus at the time

- He had a sister, she was about 11 years older than Joe, she was born in 1910, he also had a younger brother who was born in 1930, 20 year difference. Their mother didn't worjk outside the home, she worked inside the home

- Before entering the military, he just graduated from Junior college in Corpus in 1941, and that summer he enrolled into CPT Civilian Private trianing, government program, a neat thing for him because he got exposed to planes the first time and got to fly for about thirty for fourty hours that summer of 41, and he really knew then that he wanted to be an aviator, but the Navy that time, and the reason he chose the navy because at Corpus they had a Naval air station, and when he was going to junior college he saw all these guys in uniform in town and everything, and so he thought that would be all for him. But in 1941 in the Navy you had to be 20 years old and have sixty hours ofg college. He had the sixty hours of college, but he wasn't 20, so he had to wait until he was 20 and on 10 October 1941, eight days after that he was sworn into downtown Dallas. He joined in rather than being drafted, never had a draft number. He joined the Navy because he wanted to be a pilot, still having around 40 hours of flying experience from CPT flying Piper cubs, they were tail draggers, not a lot of peopole knowing about that

- 4:00 Early days in the military. He was first stationed at naval air station in Dallas. They called him to be there on 4 December 1941. Pearl Harbor was Sunday three days later, he got in just under the wire. He remembers about it, it happened about noon time, they heard about it, most people didn't know where pearl Harbor was. It was funny, they kind of had them patrolling the perimmeter of the air station, they wouldn't give them any bullets. THey were just walking the fence line while patrolling. They were patrolling but couldn't defend theself.

- His father wasn't in the military though, he passed away in 1940. He was only 53 years old. He had cancer and Joe thinks that he also had TB, they thoght it kind of was TB, but nowadays we didn't know about Cancer. His mother didn't resist when he enlisted, wasn't upset about it. It wasn't because he was the eldest brother his other brother was born in 1917. And his brother Gale? was born in 1930, sister was born in 1910, there were actually four children, three boys and one girl.

- Right after Pearl Harbor, he had only been there for a short [eriod of time. The base reacted, they were really concerned more on security they were afraid the Japanese, the ones that were here int he states were gonna rise up against them. They stayed busy at the base, they had two marine sergeants who kind of influenced Joe he thinks that were taking care of the aviation cadets. Incidently they called Dallas Naval Air Station E Base, Elimination Base, and they wanted to see if you could fly before they sent them to Corpus. The ymeant Elimination base, they wanted to see which ones could fly,a nd so were testing their capabilities, see if they could be a pilot. There weren't too many that had the CPT, so Joe had the rung up on the guys that never flew before, it was pretty easy for him. He wasn't flying a Piper in Dallas, there they flew N3Ns, built by the Naval Aircraft Factories, which didn't make too many planes, these were twin cockpit trainer planes, biwings tail draggers. They were pretty easy to fly for Joe, big wings, a stick instead of a wheel. But then when Joe went to Corpus they were flying Steermans, big strong airplane sure is. But then he flew a lot of different kinds of airplanes.

- 8:55 A flying day consisted of, they generally went to grad school for half a day, and then fly half a day. But they had a syllibus they would go through, start out elementary things, then do more compllicated things. Joe liked doing Acrobatics, was fun for Joe. He tells everybody that the war was fun for Joe. He really liked to fly. He attributed that to staritng out in that summer of 1941, June 1941.

- 9:50 After his training was finished, he got his wings in October 1942, then went to Opalaca Air Station in Miami, what they called Preoperationals training. They flew AT6s the Air Force calls, the Navy calls SNJs, but he had flown them in Kingsville in fighter training. And thats another thing he started out as a Seaman's second class in the Navy when he wwent to Dallas, then he went to Corpus and he was a Aviation Cadet then. And his pay at Dallas was 36 dollars a month, but then when he did fly, got his four hours, he got a 18 dollar raise, 54 dollars, 50% increase in salary. But then as Aviation cadet he would make 75 dollars, he had money he couldn't really buy or even spend on much aorund, no place to spend it. But yeah Corpus it was pretty interesting for Joe, started the steerments at Broadfield, then moved to Cabinets, then got to fly an OS2U, was a first line observation plane, they even had them on cruisers, would catapult them off and recover them with a kind of a sled like thing and then reel it in. He was doing water ladning. They had land planks too, fixed landing gear, but he thought it was pretty neat. One time he climbed to 9000ft and thought boy is this something. After that he went through instruments school. Then he had to decide I want to fly fighters, always wanted to fly fighters, but everyone wants tot fly fighters. He thiught that going into the Marine corps he would stand a better chance of getting into a fighter plane since they didn't have as many scout planes as the Navy did, and so he chose to go into the Marine Corps.

- 12:45 So was that just a paper transfer, yes it was basically just a paper transfer. There wasn't any formality or anything like that. From there he went to Miami opalak Naval Air Station, and there they did some field carrier landing practice they called some FCLP, like going aboard a carriers, was a different kind of landings. They did fly other, the N2, Joe got to fly what they were calling the F2A, which is a Brewster Buffalo, kind of a weird airplane, didn't ahve a hydraulic system, around six or seven ways to get the landing gear down, and one of them there were a pair of dykes to cut a cable as a last resort, if the crank doesn't work then you would use that. He did fly a Wildcat overseas, whole time he was overseas he flew them.

- 14:10 Those carrier landings, youree coming to land you're coming in on something thats not moving, meanwhile on a carrier that ship is moving the whole moving in different directions and have to be precise about it. He got to fly off a carrier during the Korean war in a Corsair

- 14:45 From Miami he went to San Diego California, waited to go overseas and got there December. He went to Samoa, American Samoa, deep in the Pacific, Pago Pago, a town there. He joined the Marine fighter squadron 441 who had Wildcats. Then their job was more training but then they ended up moving to different islands to keep the Japanese off of them. The job was keeping the Japanese from penetrating further. They had already gone into the Marshall and Gilbert Islands, in the Phillippines. They moved to a little island called Funafutti, no one has ever heard of it. At the moment of this interview he is reading a book called "Aviators", and its about Rickenbacher, Doolittle, and Lindberg, and Rickenbacher, they wanted him to go overseas as a kind of consultant and they shipped and got lost in the Atlantic, was int he raft for 26 days, well the little Island called Funafutti, they found him from OS2Us, found him in the rafts, they hada tough time, no food no water, they called a seagull and ate it, and used the insides for baits, they had some fishhooks. He finds it interesting to read about those guys. He thinks they were tough. Joe stayed overseas for 13 months didn't really do anything. They moved up to another island called Nanamia, and they were, Funafuti was about 700 miles below Tarawa, Nanamia was about 500 miles, no way for a Wildcat to fly there and back, but they were just there to keep the Japanese from getting it. it was the same reason to take Iwo Jima start flying the planes, they started flying the P-51s to escort the B29s to Japan. But nwo the Japanese had already that was home land for them and they had two airfields on Iwo, they had thousands of miles of trenches dug under the volcanic soil, one of the bloodiest battles of the war, so was Guadalcanal. A battle that nobody had heard about was Peleliu, they told the marines, the marine general said it would only take them two or three days, but took a month, and then they went some place else and the army came in and took over and heck they lost people too. Those tunnels and stuff, bloody nose ridge they talked about, they just couldn't get them out, burn them out mostly. The airfield was real close to the bloodynose ridge, the guys would come in, drop their bombs, go back, rearm, it wouldn't take them fifteen minutes. It was that close. It was tough at Peleliu.

- 19:27 How long was he in the Pacific? Joe was there for 13 months, then came back and instructed in a fighter training unit in El Toro California and then Jacksonville Florida, and then he went back overseas, volunteers, they came into the readyroom one day, they said they needed two Captains to go overseas, and it was Joe and his friend John Ralphus, and Joe said we were ready, and so John felt like Joe did and they didn't do anything that 13 months, but anything they went overseas and joined a new Fighter Squadron in the New Heberdees. in a place called Spridle Salas, that was in January 1945. And From there that squadron had been overseas for six months when they joined and so they were new, and we know they were going to Okinawa, the old guys got to fly airplanes on the way there, Joe and his friend had to go on an LST to get there, from Spridle Salas to Okinawa, took 38 days. Joe thinks in the interview thats a heck of a way for an aviator to get into war, a long ride it sure was. Had he had been an aviator they would have been there in a couple of days. It was a long long ways. Spridle Salas was about 500 miles east of Guadalcanal, took him a month and a half. And the invasion was 1 April 1945, which was Easter Sunday, the invasion of Okinawa, didn't have much opposition. They were down to a bunch of little islands. There were so many ships the most you had ever seen in your life, they couldn't get up to the beach, and so they had to sit down there for six days, and so they gott ashore on 7 April. Everything was prety primitive, they were still working on the runways, the airplanes haddn't shown up at all. And They were living in tents and eating out of mess kits, no bmess hall, they just had an outside, flies and everything were so bad

- 22:35 Did he have any indications at all of the atomic weapons that the united states was building at that time? No, it was a well kept secret, probably a good thing too since the Germans were working on it, trying to develop a bomb as well, and so they needed to keep a secret.

- 23:00 Where were you when they first dropped the bomb? He remembers that day, they all knew about it. They kind of stopped them from dropping any ordinance at that time, but they still kept flying some. He was on Peleliu, after Okinawa, he got to do a lot of flying up there. First flight on Okinawa was 12 April 1945, and he saw his first Japanese airplane, a Zero, he shot it down. But then the squadron did real well they had a lot of pilots and they shot down about 124 planes in that April, may and June area. And he shot down two, but had 140 combat missions. He had a lot of those missions in the first time he went overseas, not a lot, he had about 40 that time, then about 100 done a second time after Okinawa and Peleliu, and then 100 during the Korean war

- 24:40 He had heard that that the US had dropped the atomic bomb, he was on Peleliu. he was not able to see any residue, thousands of miles away. And his reaction was that he realised the enormity of it, they made him and others stop bombing and such that they had been doing up until that point, so he knew that something was going up. They heard that they dropped the atomic bomb, they were all happy that it happened, maybe this would end it. He was in peleliu when he heard the war was ending. The people reacted by celebrating some on the island. They claimed that on Okinawa that even some guys were injured celebrating firing guns, bullets going up they gotta go down. Alice Jones the interviewer had talked to one of the Navajo Code talkers doing an interview and he was on Iwo Jima, and he said when they heard the news, the Americans started jumping up and down, but the Japanese hadn't heard the news, and so they were still firing at that point. And so it took some time for the Japanese to stop firing, and some of them that did were so embarrassed that they just hid out for a long time. Joe says that in the Phillippines there was a Japanese guy in 1948 taht resisted for three years.

- 26:35 The war is over now...

19 October 2023 - Interview in his own home by Paul Sidle of the WWII Archives

15:12

- 00:45 Joe McPhail no middle name, born 10/10/1921 in in little town of Grand Saline Texas, between Dallas and Freeport Highway 80. Homer and Fally McPhail parents. He didn't fully grow up in Grand Saline, he moved to Tyler when he was in 1937, stayed there and graduated from High School in Tyler, which is in East Texas kind of between Dallas and Streetport.

- 2:11 He had a brother and a sister, Hugh McPhail and Claydmine McPhail, they were all over the isl...?

- 2:35 when he was in Grand Saline, he wasn't a very good student, always having trouble remembering things in high school, bad test taker that sort of thing. He didn't get into much trouble in school, tried to be honest and do the right thing. He wasn't personally fond of going to school.

- 3:35 Did you have any friends going to school? He did have some, can't think of any right now, Lloyd Ray was a cousin of his in Tyler, he was a little younger than Joe was.

- 4:25 his father was a grocerman, worked for a company in Grand Saline, he also ran for Taxes assessor collector, but the county of Vans Ant, was elected and spent four years as Tax collector, after that he had a grocery store and stayed with it for a while, finally he went to work for the state, and they sent him to Corpus Christi Texas, and so when he graduated from high school in 1939, they moved to Corpus Christi.

- 5:49 What was life for you like in Tyler, Joe liked to play sports, wasn't really good at it. Played Baseball. Was it because there wasn't much else to do? Yes it was there wasn't anything else to do. He was first baseman in Baseball. Did he ever really get far in Baseball competing against other teams? No he didn't. Him and his team would just play locally.

- 6:53 What kinds of other things of entertainment did they ever have. He liked to fish. The biggest thing he caught was an 11 lb Black Bass, biggest thing he caught, caught it around Tyler. Did you ever get into mischevious trouble, no he never did.

- 7:50 Do you remember anything about your neighbors and friends outside of school, he did, they had neighbors there good friends of theirs in Shepard was their name, played Baseball with them, fished and did all that.

- 8:25 Did you ever have a radio, no he doesn't think he ever did. There was the Tyler morning telegraph was the newspaper, always delivered it around the..., was one of his jobs. He wasn't paid too much since it was during the Depression times.

- 9:20 How hard did the Depression hit his family? It was pretty tough, they didn't have a lot of money, made the ends meet. What kinds of things, any other jobs, he mowed lawns. They owned a car back then, when Dad was county tax assesor, he had a Chevrolet, had wheels on the fenders, kind of extra two of them. They didn't travel that far with them, didn't go outside of Texas, pretty big state.

- 11:03 What was the decision for yall to move from Grand Saline to Tyler? Well it was because of his Dad's job, he was a county worker and so he had a cousin who was a pretty big in county politics, and so he went to work for his cousin, thats when he got into the county business.

- 11:55 Any fond memories of your dad? He was a hard worker, he remembers killing the hog in the fall, it was good to see the hog meat that you got out of it. What about your mom? She was just a home body, didn't do much else. She cooked good food. Siblings fond memoreis? They were quite a bit older than Joe was, so he always looked up to them. But they didn't bother Joe, and he didn't bother them, never in any particular kinds of fights.

- 13:35 Typically people when they move away miss friends, he did miss some friends from when they moved from Grand Saline to Tyler. He doesn't remember who they were.

- 14:10 Remember holidays from that time? Well Christmas was always a big deal for them, always got presents for the christmas tree, They would get their tree from places that would grow pine trees. He wished for guns and thing like that. stuff like fishing equipment and stuff like that

- 15:10 For 4th of July they didn't do much, some fireworks and that was about it.

- 15:45 Before you got into the service, future hopes and dreams. He graduated in 39 and he went to junior college, he was wanting to be a pilot so he enrolled what they called CPT, Civilian Pilot Training the government sponsored, flying that summer 1941, got about 40 hours, really got hooked on flying, wanted to continue and so he went to the military and they said to go to flight school, he had to be 20 years old and have 60 hours of college, he had the 60 hours of college, but wasn't 20 yet. 8 days after he was 20 he was sworn into the Navy. He wasn't called up until, that was 18 October 1941, and was called up on 4 December, 3 days before Pearl Harbor. Reported to the Naval air Station in Dallas, started flight school, took about 10 months of training, got his wings in October 1942, and so he reported to San Diego California and was at the North Island Naval Air Station and they just were kind of waiting to go overseas, and so overseas in January 1943.

- 19:02 Backtracking, what initially got interest in becoming Pilot. Joe thinks that being around Airplanes, there was an airfield nearby, Tyler pounds field Corpus.

- 19:55 What was CPT like for you? It was really good Joe enjoyed it flying Piper Cubs, it didn't have any breaks, and so we would taxi, park up on a hill. He never did, he got about 40 hours that summer of 1942, really summer 1941.

- 20:55 Remember anyone from, instructors? Frinefruk was his last name was an instructor, this was in Tyler, that summer of 41. When he was done he went to Corpus.

- 21:40 When you were in Corpus, leading up to the war, backtracking, what were some of your political opinions of the time. Joe didn't really have any. Dad was Tax censor of Vans an county for 4 years.

- 22:20 Remember the programs back then? Joe wasn't involved very much was only 9 years old. What do you remember about Geopolitics of the time before got into war. He didn't think about it, having the war like that. So leading up to, while getting into the war, there was no expectation of you that there was any sign of war? No there wasn't. Did anyone else between 4 and 7 December believe anything was happening? No.

- 23:30 What remember of hearing news of Pearl Harbor? Well thought that got myself in a mess here. Getting in in time for war. Joe enjoyed the trainign that he got the 10 months. You know Bus, Piper built were pretty built primitive airplanes, you had to spin the prop to start it, like an old automobile. Remember any incidents during training? Not too much, didn't have any accidents. Other people had accidents, there were some guys ground loop. Anyone from CPT that foloowed you into service. There were some guys, guy name Ralphus, he and Joe were together quite a bit, John Ralphus. He was at San Diego in North Island, and Joe was his roommate, so they were both good friends. They went overseas the same time, and was in the same squadron overseas, came back to the state, instructed together, and went overseas again but went into a different squadron than he did. They did keep in touch afterwards.

- 25:20 What was Dallas Naval Air station like? It was pretty much a regular you know, this was during the war in all this. And we were anxious to get overseas and do some fighting. That was a reaction to the news of Japan going across the pacific. They did have a dislike for the Japanese people, they kind of thought that they, did Pearl Harbor wrong, and part of the first war.

- 27:45 When y'all went to San Diego, that was after Pearl Harbor, the whole west coast was locked down. Joe and others would go into town, and be tourists, but it was pretty I think everybody was ready behind the war, especially over there. Never had heard about the Battle of LA. There was blackout in San Diego, there were guards posted around the city, a lot of them sure did. Joe and others had to have ID cards to get in and out of the base. It was an airfield they were staying at, North Island they called it. They were just training there just to get in time, in the airplanes.

- 30:00 What did y'all start using after you were getting in training in the service. They had what they called an N3N, which was a Naval Aircraft factory built airplane, was a lot like a steerplane fabric biplane. It was an older model, but weren't actually using it just for training. They even flew Cubs again some in North Island. Remember anything particular about N3N, was an open cockpit, two cockpit, was a good airplane, acrobatics, rolls, loops, things like that you could do. What was the most complicated maneuver you learned. 31:40 Probably, you would wheel up at the top and then you roll over at the top of the loop, pulled a lot of G's at that point. He did almost black out before form that many G's. He has blacked out before, but they were high enough to recover and didn't have any accident. Was that during training or during the war. Actually during the war, they had Grumman Wildcats, Crank the gear up and crank the gear down, charge the guns cable running out to the guns in th wings. Pretty primative airplane.

- 33:05 They were itching to fight, anxious to get into battle. Any indication during training there was no indication they were about to get into battle. First time overseas they didn't do anything, nearly a year and they didn't see any airplanes, they bombed us at night. This was in the central Pacific, to an island called Funafutti. What did it feel like to be bombed for the first time? its kind of scary, not much you could do, we had Foxholes we got in them and till it was over with, but they didn't have very good range witht eh Wildcat, it was 700 miles to Tarawa, and they couldn't go up and back. The Japanese controlled Tarawa at the time, it would have been a one way mission. They never went up there. They even moved up closer within 500 miles of Tarawa in a place called Nanamia. They weren't able to go up there and back.

- 35:15 The name of his squadron he was in? The 441 was the Wildcat squadron. Whe he was bombed, was there anyone new that got killed, no, there was no casualties. His plane did get destroyed so they had to send a replacement Wildcat. He never named his Wildcat, not a relationship with it or anything. He ran out of fuel in a Wildcat. What happened was they were towing a banner for someone to fire on, and in order to get the sleet in the air, they had to lighten the load on the Wildcat, so they took the reserve fuel out and one time we got the guys fired on it, and Joe was towing the airplane, and we missed the island, Funafutti wasn't a big island, finally were able to get in touch with radar, 80 miles passed the island, so Joe knew they weren't going to make it back, turned around headed back, got within 20 miles of Funafuti before landing in the water, pretty rough landing, big big waves, but he got out got in the raft, and was able to put down a marker in the water so they could find him. He wasn't in the water for very long, 3 hours. The water wasn't cold, it was warm.

- 38:20 Any other incidents while training? Not any incidents that he could think of right now. The second time he went overseas in 1944 I guess it was, we, I shot down a Japanese airplane first flight out of Okinawa, 12 April 1945. First tour through the pacific he never entagled up with a Jap at all.

- 39:35 Any time y'all came close to an area where you might have engaged some? Well yeah, well at Okinawa they were coming from japan, Kamikazis, we were always looking out for them.

- 40:10 Experience like on nanamia? It was a pretty primative, we didn't have any accomidations at all when we first landed there, everything was pretty open, we'd eat outside no mess hall or anything, but they finally got what they were building stuff.

- 40:45 Remember any officers from that time? Well yeah there was a guy named Schaeffer, Rared Schaeffer, he was a Texan, he was in the squadron, Joe has pictures of the squadron and can look at the picture and can remember their name but not now.

- 41:30 Did you form a kind of bond or comraderie within your squadron? Yeah we're pretty good friends, all doing the same thing, and Schaeffer was in the 441, same squadron. Do you remember any friends, comrades from time, any particular ones? Its been a long time ago, remember this guy named Bowland, California guy good friend of his, was in a training squadron in California with Joe. That was after Okinawa, came back in states and instructed in El Toro south of LA. Even lived in Lagoona Beach Hotel, was a nice Hotel. Was about 12 miles and they had a bus that would run us back and forth. They had a pool and that kind of stuff, for the time pretty nice.

- 44:05 Okinawa was first ever engagement. Really they were in combat in the 441 but you know it wasn't actual engagement, they couldn't fly far enough to get any action. They in the squadron was kind of disappointed they weren't getting into action, were wanting to get into action, meanwhile everyone else was out in action. It was in August 1943 Guadalcanal, and they were getting a lot of airplanes, 45:55 Joefalls?, and all that bunch. During that time they didn't fly anything else than the Wildcat. But next time overseas he flew Corsairs. They flew them in El Toro in training, Corsairs. The Corsair was a muchc better plane than the Wildcat, had a lot of power, and it was a good airplane, he never did break one.

- 46:55 Did you ever have any near run incidents that you almost got shot down. Yes, after the escond flight out of Okinawa, we just took off and there bunch of Jap planes were letting down from altitude were up faster than we were and, Joe got in behind and tried to shoot him down and outran him. Those were zeros. Most of the Japanese pilots were inexperienced at that time.

- 48:10 What caused you and I guess other memebers of the 441st, to get sent back to the states? Well it was just about a year overseas and you got rotated back to the states. And then Joe was in that training squadron in El Toro and he went back overseas again about a year, stayed until the war ended.

- 48:50 Did anyone during that time ever explain to you why you were never able to go into a real engagement? Well you know it was a real engagement in Okinawa. In the 441 they never did, we just realized that we couldn't fly 700 miles and couldn't come back.

- 49:45 Do you remember anything specific while training in El Toro. Well not much it was good duty right there on the coast, always plenty of action, liberty action, a lot more freedom to do some stuff. The restrictions in California had been aleviated by that time

- 50:30 Reaciton to Japanese interment? Well it wasn't much of a deal, they had them all in camps so we never did get involved with them.

- 51:00 Did you continue to fly Wildcats in, not Wildcats, when they went back to California thats where they gave them the Corsairs. There were live ordinance trainings. Napalm, rockets, .50 cal, 1000 lb bombs, all pretty destructive.

- 51:55: What was the decision to go back overseas, and did you change squadrons? Yes he was in the 323 Death Raddlers they found a raddler in a tent so thats where they got the name, it was before they got there. But 323 was a good squadron. It had 50 something pilots. When they went back to California the 441, they were all dispersed.

- 53:20 First mission in 323 was 12 April 1945, first flight out of Okinawa, climbed to 20,000 fleet and thats when they met the zeros. Using the ordinance training, they would do close air support, the guys on the ground. Generally you were talking to a guy, fighter director on the ground tellling you where to hit. Did you know for sure you scored any hits? Yeah they would tell you you did something good. That happened probably 3 times. It wasn't that easy, having to know where its going. Did they ever tried to shoot at you, yes they did, never hit him, not a single time. They probably were using 20mm. Well they were in generally in open areas.

- 55:45