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The war stories of
M/Sgt Philip Ingraham

Part VII: The War Winds Down; Phil Goes Home

Although the war moved closer to Japan, Phil remained in the South Pacific, continuing his work with the AACS. But it was clear that the tide of battle would never again favor the Japanese. In October of 1944, the largest air-sea battle in history, the Battle of Leyte Gulf, had destroyed most of the Japanese fleet.
Leyte meant we were on the move again, and maybe just a little bit closer to the end of the war.... It just seemed that for the first time since being in this whirlwind, things were kind of settling down. There was a feeling in the air that the war was going to go the other way from here on out. And it did, too. It did go the other way. Not as fast as you'd have liked to have seen it, but it did.

Phil's hard work resulted in another promotion:

One day I was walking by the orderly room and Johnny Lindquist came out —the Colonel's boy there—and he handed me this manila envelope. 'Here's something for you,' he said. I'd been promoted to Master Sergeant.

One of the documents that has survived the decades since the war is a fragile telegram from Bea congratulating Phil on his promotion. It was sent from Clovis, New Mexico, where Bea was visiting her mother and stepfather; her mother was a nurse at Clovis Army Air Field, her stepfather a driver stationed at the air field.

The telegram has a receiving mark which appears to be a circle date stamp (CDS) cancellation from the New Caledonia post office, dated November 2, 1944. Civilian telegraph lines were often administered by postal administrations. Click on the image to see a larger image of the telegram.



Only one letter from Phil has survived from his tour of duty in the Pacific. It's a V-Mail letter written to my grandparents on March 16, 1945.

To read the complete text of Phil's V-Mail letter, and learn more about the interesting story of wartime V-Mail, click on the image at the left.


When Phil mailed his V-Mail letter, my grandparents were were living at the Monterey Hotel in Silver City, while they waited to move into a house in Hurley, where my grandfather was working at the Kennecott copper smelter. They were new residents, having moved to the Southwest from New York in hopes of curing my grandmother's tuberculosis.

West Broadway Street in Silver City, New Mexico. The red dot shows the location of the Monterey Hotel, although it was the Clark Hotel when this photograph was taken. (It's difficult to date this postcard precisely. The newest automobile in it appears to be a 1938 Chevrolet. Click on the image to see an enlarged view of the hotel and the cars parked along the right side of the street.)

Events were moving swiftly in the Pacific. On the same day in March that Phil sat down to write to my grandparents, the Americans declared the island of Iwo Jima to be secure. They had lost 6,821 soldiers and sailors, but the island's three airfields, previously used by the Japanese, were now available for American fighters escorting B-29 bombers on their incendiary raids over Japanese cities.

I knew that pretty soon now we were going to go home. And sure enough. I went to a movie one night, an outdoor movie. You want to remember that the war had long gone by — well, it had at New Caledonia some time ago, to all intents and purposes — and we could sit there and enjoy a movie. They got all the latest movies. They'd come over by ATC — Army Transport Command. We'd get the movies sometimes before the movie houses back in the States.

The U.S. stamp shown at the left, issued in 1944, commemorates the 50th anniversary of motion pictures. It shows U.S. troops watching a movie in the South Pacific.

The stamp's design appears to be based on a photograph, but there apparently is no record about who the troops were, or what movie was shown.
A fellow sat next to me, and he said, 'Hey, Phil, I dunno, but I'm pretty sure you'd better be prepared to go home.' I said, 'What!?' He said, 'Yeah, I think you're on a list over there.'

Oh, this was fast. I went back after the movie about eight o'clock in the evening and the orderly came in and said, 'Throw everything you've got in a barracks bag. If you've got something you can't carry, give it away or sell it. You're on your way home.' Well Ho-ly Cow!.... There was a big push to get people home.

Phil's luggage tag for flight back to the U.S.

Home at Last

Well, anyhow, I flew home to California, met my wife at my folks' home in Hurley, New Mexico, near Silver City. Bea and I had a great time up and down the old State of New Mexico and out to some resorts there and so on.

On the day that victory over Japan was announced, VJ Day, Phil and Bea remember celebrating at the Casa Loma nightclub on the highway between Fort Bayard and Silver City.

Phil and Bea Ingraham in 1945
M/Sgt Philip Ingraham and his wife, Bea. The photo was taken following Phil's return to the United States.