*IN MEMORIAM*

Phil Reed passed away September 24, 2018 at the age of 98.

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98-year-old Phil Reed appears on episode #536 of Hometown Heroes, recorded in his vintage car museum in Santa Fe Springs, CA, and airing August 9-12, 2018. A native of Baltic, MI, Reed served aboard LCI-35 during World War II.

You’ll hear about his childhood in “Copper Country” on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula as one of 13 children, walking a mile and a half to school, back home for lunch, back to school, and then home, those two round trips adding up to approximately six miles per day. “No matter what it was, it could be a snowstorm,” he remembers. “You still had to go.” Proximity to Lake Superior meant lake-effect snow to the tune of 150-inches per year, so those frigid journeys to school and back were quite frequent. So were the hours spent working with his mechanic father on the family’s Model T Ford.

“I learned how to scrape bearings in and everything else you needed to do, he taught me a lot,” Reed recalls. “I was driving a Model T when I was ten, eleven years old.”

In the throes of the Great Depression, facing the reality that his father was losing his job, Phil quit high school after one year so he could help support the family, going to work at one of the more than 100 Civilian Conservation Corps camps on the Upper Peninsula. He served as a mechanic at a camp near Ishpeming.

“We got 30 dollars a month,” you’ll hear Phil explain, “25 went to your parents and you got to keep five dollars a month, and you had to buy your haircut and everything else with that five dollars.”

By the time Imperial Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, drawing the U.S. into World War II, Phil was working for Douglas Aircraft in southern California as a tool and jig builder. He and a friend wanted to enlist, right away, but were talked out of it by a foreman. Reed could have maintained a service exemption because of his work in a defense-related job, but the desire to serve his country in the military could not be held back forever. Nine months later, he bought a 30-gallon gas tank, borrowed gas ration stamps from friends, and drove his 1936 Plymouth back to Michigan, where he told his mother he’d be joining the Navy.

Phil’s younger brother had just graduated from high school, and he decided to sign up too. The brothers trained together at Naval Station Great Lakes (IL), remained together through stops in Virginia and New York, and headed overseas together on LCI-35. Check out this fact sheet from usslci.org to understand the purpose and deployment of the Landing Craft Infantry concept. They made it all the way to Biserte, North Africa together before their captain shared disappointing news. Because the death of all five Sullivan brothers on the cruiser USS Juneau prompted a change in Navy policy, the Reed brothers would have to be separated. Phil continued on LCI-35, while his brother transferred to LCI-188.

“He was just 18 years old. He didn’t want to go, he was just about crying to stay,” you’ll hear Phil remember. “He was a better sailor than me. He never got seasick.”

Phil was not so fortunate, having to endure persistent seasickness as he stood watch in the LCI’s sweltering engine room as one of eight mechanics aboard ship. Listen to Hometown Heroes to find out how Phil ended up in the engine room to begin with, and what he did to quickly climb the ladder to a first class rating.

His first promotion when he was the only mechanic to decipher a problem with the oil filters on the four port side engines. Another came when a crewmember’s mistake ruined the water pumps on all eight of the LCI’s diesel engines. You’ll hear Phil explain how he solved that problem as well, leading to a second promotion. By the time they finished their Atlantic crossing, he had reached his ultimate rank of Motor Machinist’s Mate, 1st Class.

“I guess I was born to be a mechanic,” you’ll hear Reed quip. Fixing a broken crankshaft aboard LCI-35 reinforced that sentiment, and he even had a mechanical snafu to unsort on June 6, 1944, when LCI-35 delivered British commandos to Normandy’s Sword Beach.

“To pull the ramps out for the soldiers to go down,” you’ll hear Phil detail, “It had a little gasoline engine, one on port, one on starboard. Well, nobody could get them things going, so I was up there, getting them started.”

In the video below, Phil uses a model of his ship to demonstrate where and how that pressure-packed situation unfolded. For additional information, please read this D-Day account from Stan Galik’s LCI-35 website for thorough details of the ship’s extensive action at Normandy.

You’ll hear Reed share memories from his LCI’s prior landings at Sicily, Salerno, and Anzio, where he developed first-hand experience with “Anzio Annie,” the infamous railroad gun that proved a thorn in the Allies’ side. You’ll hear about the time LCI-35 collided with a British cruiser, the occasion in which that small landing craft was credited with shooting down a German ME-109 fighter plane, and an extremely close call with a mine on the way back to Palermo.

“A mine went right by us, within two feet,” Phil explains. “I wouldn’t be here today if we would’ve hit it.”

He is still here today, and he’s still married to his wife of 70 years, Joy, whom he met at a dance hall in Brighton, England during World War II. Joy came to the U.S. to marry Phil in 1947, and supported him as he built Electronic Chrome and Grinding into a thriving business, now carried on by their children. Many of the Reeds adventures over those 70 years have revolved around Phil’s penchant for restoring vintage autobmobiles, even taking them (nine times) back to Joy’s hometown in the U.K., where they’ve participated in the famed London to Brighton Veteran Car Run with the Horseless Carriage Club.

His collection began with a 1923 Studebaker that he had actually ridden in as a child, continued with a Stutz, a Rolls Royce, several Fords, a 1902 Boyer that is the only one of its kind known to exist, and even a 1901 Winton, which he bought from Gene Autry. That Winton project was particularly challenging, but supremely rewarding once completed, and underscored the enviable reality that Phil has never met a mechanical challenge that he couldn’t conquer.

“I can fix anything,” you’ll hear him confidently declare.

He says he’d still be sliding under cars and tinkering on them if he wasn’t dealing with chronic back pain, but there is one more restoration project he’s contributed to that hasn’t yet reached completion. The LCI-713 is a museum ship in Portland, OR maintained by the Amphibious Forces Memorial Museum. Phil and Joy visit Portland every May for an amphibious forces reunion, so he knows the only thing separating that LCI from being seaworthy is the money or the means to complete its restoration. Click here for a list of the LCI-713 restoration wish list, or click here to donate to the project.

“All I’m hoping for,” you’ll hear Reed say. “I want to ride on that ship.”

He was born on Thanksgiving Day, 1919, and he’ll be not only thrilled, but also aboard ship if LCI-713 becomes seaworthy by his 100th birthday in November, 2019. In the meantime, check out the video below for more on his car museum, and keep your eyes open for the 98-year-old in the green Mini Cooper S on the southern California freeways. Phil says his back stops hurting when he’s behind the wheel.
—Paul Loeffler