William H. Phillips:

The First to sound the alarm at Pearl Harbor

It was a Laurel man, William H. Phillips, who sounded the first general alarm announcing the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor!

Master Sergeant William H. Phillips, formerly assigned to the 1705th Periodic Maintenance Squadron had Quartermaster watch aboard the USS Tangier on the morning of December 7, 1941. At exactly six minutes to eight, the Sergeant saw a lone plane pass over Forde Island, Pearl Harbor, and drop a bomb. The aircraft rolled out to the right after dropping its load and it was at this time that Sergeant Phillips realized what was happening. Natural instincts caused him to sound the general alarm which in turn literally awoke the fleet. He was the first to have sounded the alarm at Pearl Harbor!

"I had the eight to twelve watch that morning." he related. "At 7:45 a.m. you're on, if your watch begins at eight. Then there were colors (a ceremony traditional in the Navy at that hour). It was just five minutes to eight when I heard this explosion over by Forde Island. The battleships were tied up on one side and we were tied up on the other. When I heard it, I ran to the port gangway. At first it looked like it might have been an exploded hangar. But then I saw this plane. I was in the right position in order to spot those big red balls on the plane!"

Phillips was better prepared than most of his crew to believe what he saw that this was a Japanese plane. He'd seen them before, in 1937 during a Navy operation that took stranded Americans from Tsingtao when the Nipponese started in on China, and again in 1938 when the emboldened invaders of the Asian continent sank the American gunboat, Panay, creating an international incident. Phillips "had known most of the guys" on the Panay. "So I was strictly operating from habit," he remarked. "Right away our crew moved to battle stations. That fixed us up pretty good." But he recalled, "a good part of the Navy at the big Hawaii base failed to size up the first explosion as a Japanese attack. Instead of General Quarters, the Navy's call to battle, they were calling for fire rescue and first aid. Only you don't fight sneak aerial attacks with fire hoses!"

"After the first plane went away," Phillips went on, "nothing happened for about three minutes. Then a regular wave of Japanese planes came over. There was a lot of confusion about how many of the enemy planes were in the air. I think there were about thirty, but that doesn't entirely agree with the official record.

"Well, this flight rolled along on line of battleships. We were already starting to shoot. We got away with a pretty good range. Two minutes after, a couple of torpedo planes came in over the hill and dropped a Fish (torpedo) on the Utah. Then another, and the Utah rolled over and was on the bottom in eight minutes!"

Phillips' outfit was credited with two aircraft. "It was pretty confusing. At last some of the ships got out. Just ahead of the Monaghan, which was going out to sea, was one of the Japanese midget subs. It was about 800 yards from us. Somebody on the forecastle spotted it. We laid into it and the Monaghan ran over it!"

Phillips said his crew got credit for half a sub, plus the two planes, which was a fair set of trophies for a day of such general disaster for the Americans. "We threw everything at the midget sub, including a magnesium star shell that happened to be around. When some of the boys spotted the smoke from the shell, a guy hollers out, The...are using gas! They really weren't."

The first raid was over about 8:15. Pearl Harbor got a breather for a little while. "Then another twenty or thirty came over," Phillips said. "That makes the sky look full, but it ain't. At 9:30 a.m. things were cooled off, but nobody really knew what was going on."

Phillips, (with his wife and three children) retired on May 31, 1956. He was maintenance supervisor with the 1705th Periodic Maintenance Squadron.

The article above and below was taken from the Laurel Outlook dated May 30, 1956:

Retirement for William H. Phillips comes at the early age of 38. But twelve years in the Navy, eight years in the Air Force and eleven of those years in areas of battle-that ought to be enough to expect of a man who fought at Pearl Harbor and won commendation from the Secretary of the Navy for diving in shark-infested waters to save a buddy. Thirteen medals, and twenty years after, civilian life looks good to him again.

The Sergeant's decorations include the Navy Unit Citation, Commendation Ribbon, China Service Medal, American Defense Fleet Clasp, Asiatic Pacific Campaign Medal with five battle stars, American Area Medal, Philippine Liberation Medal, Philippine Independence Ribbon, Korean Service Medal with three battle stars, United Nations Service Medal, National Defense Service Medal, Good Conduct Medal (Navy) and the Good Conduct Medal (AF) with three loops. Sergeant Phillips graduated from Laurel High School in 1935, and was a member of the school's football team.

A group of Laurel's service clubs and business firms arranged on Wednesday, May 30, 1956, immediately after the word of retirement was received, to send Mrs. Julia Phillips to McCord to attend the ceremonies. When notified that his mother would be arriving, Sergeant Phillips said that he deeply appreciated the action taken and added, "that the people of Laurel could send him no finer gift than his mother!"

Johnston, E. P. (1979). Laurel’s story, a Montana heritage. Laurel Historical Research Committe