Things we never know, never saw this in any history books,,,but now you know.
The American destroyers Wilkes and Truxton and the supply ship Pollux were on their way to the Argentia Naval Base when they went off course and smashed on the rocks in Lawn Point and Chambers Cove on the Burin Peninsula on February 18, 1942.
The Truxton and Pollux were a total loss. Two hundred and three officers and crew (203) lost their lives. Their life jackets which were not equipped with crotch straps slid off on impact with the water.
Residents of nearby St. Lawrence and Lawn managed to rescue 186 survivors.
At this time the US Navy was segregated. Of the 46 survivors from the USS Truxton, one was black: Lanier W. Phillips.
While growing up in the segregated South, Phillips witnessed the terror of the Ku Klux Klan and was taught to fear white people. “[N]ever look a white man in the eye. ... If you do you'll get a whipping, or maybe lynched,” his great-grandmother once warned him.
In order to escape the South, Philips joined the Navy in 1941. Although the Navy was still segregated and blacks were confined to duty as mess attendants, Phillips considered this the lesser of two evils.
When Lanier Phillips was rescued by residents of St. Lawrence they treated him the same as they treated the white survivors. He woke up in a room surrounded by a group of white women who were bathing him — many of the rescued sailors had jumped into cold ocean waters covered with a layer of heavy black bunker C oil, which then coated the men. All were in need of cleaning. Phillips noted that if he had woken up in his home state of Georgia, naked and surrounded by white women, he would have been lynched (and the women branded and run out of town).
One of the women helping with the rescue had never before seen an African American and was puzzled that the crude oil seemed to have soaked his skin to the point of colouring it. She was determined to scrub it off, and Phillips had to tell her, "no m’am, that’s the colour of my skin." Phillips later found himself sitting at the family table, using the same china cups and plates that the family used, and was dazed (and appalled) to find himself in one of the family beds, looked after by the lady of house who didn’t seem to be afraid of being in the same room with a black man. He said he didn’t sleep all night, it terrified him.
This experience in St. Lawrence galvanized the Navy Mess Attendant to fight racial discrimination within the US Navy. He later became the Navy’s first black sonar technician. After completing a 20 year career in the navy, Lanier Phillips joined the exploration team of Jacques Cousteau. He helped find and uncover a sunken atomic bomb, became active in the civil rights movement, and traveled speaking to young men and women in the U.S.military about the destructiveness of bigotry and racism.
Dr. Lanier Phillips received an Honorary Doctor of Laws Degree May 31, 2008 from Memorial University of Newfoundland. The university cited what it called ‘his resistance to and capacity to rise above repression’. In 2011, Phillips was given honorary membership into the Order of Newfoundland and Labrador for his work in civil rights in the U.S.
Phillips died on March 12, 2012, at the Armed Forces Retirement Home in Gulfport, Mississippi.
Also noteworthy in this tale is the role that the SS Kyle played in rescuing stranded sailors. The Kyle was waiting out the stormy weather in St. Lawrence, and upon news of the accident they immediately set out to aid the imperiled sailors. The U.S. Navy declared, "This spirit of cooperation and self-sacrifice in the face of danger is in keeping with the highest traditions of seafaring men. Please transmit to the master of the KYLE... the sincere appreciation of the survivors of the grounded ships for his prompt and willing offers of aid."
The American destroyers Wilkes and Truxton and the supply ship Pollux were on their way to the Argentia Naval Base when they went off course and smashed on the rocks in Lawn Point and Chambers Cove on the Burin Peninsula on February 18, 1942.
The Truxton and Pollux were a total loss. Two hundred and three officers and crew (203) lost their lives. Their life jackets which were not equipped with crotch straps slid off on impact with the water.
Residents of nearby St. Lawrence and Lawn managed to rescue 186 survivors.
At this time the US Navy was segregated. Of the 46 survivors from the USS Truxton, one was black: Lanier W. Phillips.
While growing up in the segregated South, Phillips witnessed the terror of the Ku Klux Klan and was taught to fear white people. “[N]ever look a white man in the eye. ... If you do you'll get a whipping, or maybe lynched,” his great-grandmother once warned him.
In order to escape the South, Philips joined the Navy in 1941. Although the Navy was still segregated and blacks were confined to duty as mess attendants, Phillips considered this the lesser of two evils.
When Lanier Phillips was rescued by residents of St. Lawrence they treated him the same as they treated the white survivors. He woke up in a room surrounded by a group of white women who were bathing him — many of the rescued sailors had jumped into cold ocean waters covered with a layer of heavy black bunker C oil, which then coated the men. All were in need of cleaning. Phillips noted that if he had woken up in his home state of Georgia, naked and surrounded by white women, he would have been lynched (and the women branded and run out of town).
One of the women helping with the rescue had never before seen an African American and was puzzled that the crude oil seemed to have soaked his skin to the point of colouring it. She was determined to scrub it off, and Phillips had to tell her, "no m’am, that’s the colour of my skin." Phillips later found himself sitting at the family table, using the same china cups and plates that the family used, and was dazed (and appalled) to find himself in one of the family beds, looked after by the lady of house who didn’t seem to be afraid of being in the same room with a black man. He said he didn’t sleep all night, it terrified him.
This experience in St. Lawrence galvanized the Navy Mess Attendant to fight racial discrimination within the US Navy. He later became the Navy’s first black sonar technician. After completing a 20 year career in the navy, Lanier Phillips joined the exploration team of Jacques Cousteau. He helped find and uncover a sunken atomic bomb, became active in the civil rights movement, and traveled speaking to young men and women in the U.S.military about the destructiveness of bigotry and racism.
Dr. Lanier Phillips received an Honorary Doctor of Laws Degree May 31, 2008 from Memorial University of Newfoundland. The university cited what it called ‘his resistance to and capacity to rise above repression’. In 2011, Phillips was given honorary membership into the Order of Newfoundland and Labrador for his work in civil rights in the U.S.
Phillips died on March 12, 2012, at the Armed Forces Retirement Home in Gulfport, Mississippi.
Also noteworthy in this tale is the role that the SS Kyle played in rescuing stranded sailors. The Kyle was waiting out the stormy weather in St. Lawrence, and upon news of the accident they immediately set out to aid the imperiled sailors. The U.S. Navy declared, "This spirit of cooperation and self-sacrifice in the face of danger is in keeping with the highest traditions of seafaring men. Please transmit to the master of the KYLE... the sincere appreciation of the survivors of the grounded ships for his prompt and willing offers of aid."
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Lanier W. Phillips
Lanier W. Phillips was a survivor of the wreck of the USS Truxtun off the coast of Newfoundland, a retired oceanographer and a recipient of the U.S. Navy Memorial's Lone Sailor award for his distinguished post Navy civilian career. Wikipedia
Born: March 14, 1923, Lithonia, GA
Died: March 11, 2012, Gulfport, MS
