PHILLIP D. SCHLOSSER
Age: 85
Born: Aug. 25, 1924
Hometown: Dairy farm near Durand, Wis.
Residence: Indian Wells
Military branch: U.S. Navy (World War II); U.S. Army (Korean War)
Years served: January 1942-February 1946
Rank: Machinist mate first class on USS Stockton, DD-646 (World War II); first lieutenant (Korean War)
Family: Wife Elaine; three children, Roberta Dennis of Glendora, Jeffrey Schlosser of McKinleyville and Jean O'Connell of Indian Wells; four grandchildren.
About this series
Staff writer Denise Goolsby will profile desert veterans from World War II through the end of 2010 — the 65th anniversary of the end of the war. Contact her at (760) 778-4587 or via e-mail at denise.goolsby@thedesertsun.com
Coming tomorrow
U.S. Navy veteran Raymond Schneider of Rancho Mirage.
LEARN MORE: Read about other Coachella Valley residents who served in World War II at www.mydesert.com/WWII
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During World War II, Phillip Schlosser was at his station down in the engine room of the USS Stockton when he — then a U.S. Navy machinist mate first class — received a frantic order from above.
“The captain starts to scream, ‘Back her down! Back her down hard!'” Schlosser said. “I grabbed those throttles and put her in reverse.”
The destroyer, sailing off the coast of Iwo Jima, was on a collision course with a burning battleship, the USS Saratoga.
That night, the Japanese sent suicide bombers to attack the fleet. The USS Stockton and the other ships tried to fight off the kamikazes.
“The guns are just a-blazing up there but no one's looking where we're going,” Schlosser said. “Five kamikaze planes hit the Saratoga that night and it's burning in front of us finally someone looks up and we are headed right at the USS Saratoga.”
The destroyer, traveling at 27 knots, was pinned in on the sides by two big U.S. Navy cruisers.
“I put the reverse engine on as hard as I could with the steam from the boilers,” he said. “I thought the gear boxes and bolts holding the turbines were going to come right off their foundations.”
The machinery held up under the strain and disaster was averted.
But it was a closer call than Schlosser imagined.
On deck, a 40 mm gunner from Delaware gave the machinist mate kudos for his actions, but added, “‘However, I saved your butt again,'” Schlosser said, recounting the gunner's comments. “‘A (Mitsubishi) Betty bomber came in low right off our port side, 50 feet from the deck.'”
The gunner stopped the suicide bomber before it hit the ship.
“He was coming right at my engine room,” Schlosser said.
In mid-December 1944, the USS Stockton had another close call — but this time, Japan wasn't the enemy.
“We were off the Philippines when ‘Halsey's typhoon' hit the fleet,” Schlosser said.
Admiral William “Bull” Halsey unwittingly led Task Force 38 into the heart of the typhoon while the fleet was attempting to refuel after conducting raids on Japanese airfields in the Philippines.
The tropical cyclone, officially designated “Typhoon Cobra,” damaged or destroyed about a third of the nearly 90-ship fleet.
“We didn't have weather forecasting,” like today, Schlosser said. “He made a mistake and we drove right into the eye of the storm.”
Nearly 800 lives were lost as 100-mile-plus winds — accompanied by torrential rainfall — whipped up the sea, pummeling the ships as they attempted to navigate the churning surf.
Three destroyers were capsized and lost in the typhoon.
“We watched the inclinometer as it would check the list of the ship,” Schlosser said. “It would list to 68 and 69 degrees. If it went to 70, we would capsize.”
“That was the only time I was ever scared in the war,” he said.
The USS Stockton managed to remain upright, but the pounding waves broke her main beam and the ship returned to the Tacoma Shipyard for repairs, he said.
Schlosser was born and raised on a Wisconsin dairy farm and by the time he joined the military, the family still lacked many of life's modern conveniences.
“About the time I left, the old man bought his first tractor we did not have electricity or a phone on the farm. We studied by kerosene lamp. If you wanted to talk to somebody, you got on a horse,” and rode out to see them, he said.
“I was 17 years old and in high school when the war broke out,” he said. “December 7th we were on the farm. I remember the day very well. It was cloudy and dreary in Wisconsin.”
The airwaves delivered the news through the family's Philco radio.
“We turned it on and listened to the report,” Schlosser said. “My father was reading the newspaper and he said, ‘I wonder if they know what they started.'”
Schlosser immediately enlisted and was sworn into the Navy by early January 1942.
“I already had three brothers in the Navy,” he added.
Schlosser was in awe when he first set eyes on the U.S. fleet in the Pacific — a massive assembly of battleships, aircraft carriers, landing craft, minesweepers, destroyers and other Navy ships.
“I looked at all of that iron and that Navy power and I thought, ‘Pop, you sure knew what you were saying,'” Schlosser said.
