Scott Phillips: Yellow Shirt Aboard the ‘Tico’

By Wendy L. Ellis, Honor Flight Chicago Veteran Interview Volunteer

“I had the best time of my life. I would do it all over and I wouldn’t change nothin. I got to see the world and I’ve got brothers.”  Those are the words of Scott Phillips 50 years after serving aboard the USS Ticonderoga in the early 1970s. For a young man who grew up an only child at Belmont and Western in the shadow of the old Riverview Amusement Park, serving in the military opened up a whole new world.  And it was definitely more his style than going to college.

After graduating from Luther North high school in 1969, he did a brief stint at World Book Encyclopedia, before deciding to enlist in the Navy when his draft number came up. “I knew I wanted to be on a ship, but I also wanted something to do with aviation,” says Phillips. He got his wish when he was assigned to the USS Ticonderoga, a World War II aircraft carrier reconditioned to be an anti-submarine carrier for its final years at sea. 

“You start out as a blue shirt,” says Phillips. “You tie down aircraft and you do launches. They’ve got all these aircraft-helicopters, fighters, jets. They give you a map where they want them and then you launch ‘em.  It’s crazy.”  It took only three months for Phillips to move from Blue Shirt, to Crash and Salvage, to Yellow shirt, his ultimate goal. Yellow shirts are the aircraft directors, responsible for the safe movement of aircraft in the hangar bays and on the flight deck. 

“I wanted to be a yellow shirt,” says Phillips. “There were a lot of guys who didn’t want to do anything. They’d just sit in the locker room.  But that’s how you got promoted. You showed some enthusiasm, you showed you cared. That’s how I was brought up. If you’re gonna do a job, do it right, you know?”

Twice the “Tico”, as it was nicknamed by its crew, was sent to the waters 12 miles off the coast of Vietnam, to become “home base” for aircraft flying sorties into Vietnam. “You usually worked 12-to-15 hours and there were times during flight operations when you missed breakfast, lunch and dinner. Because when you’re in the midst of flight operations you just can’t get up and go,” says Phillips.  “There were times when it was pouring rain, in the middle of the ocean, and you were so tired, you just crawled into a helicopter that was tied down for the night to go to sleep.” 

Long days and months at sea taught these sailors to be creative with some of the more mundane tasks of their daily lives. “Your jeans were dirty for a week. Because if you gave your dirty clothes to the ships laundry, there was a 90% chance you weren’t gonna get ‘em back. You’d get somebody else’s back.  Sometimes my buddy and I would find these big laundry bags with a hole in it and we’d put a rope through it and put our clothes in and toss it into the ocean, let it flop around for an hour. Get it back, pull it up and basically it was clean.” 

One of the most memorable events for Phillips was on April 27th, 1972. The Tico had been called off their second Vietnam duty and sent to the Pacific Ocean, where they were to pick up the crew of Apollo 16 after their successful moon landing. 

“When we found out we were doing the Apollo recovery, it was one month of cleaning the ship. We painted every white and yellow line on the flight deck. We painted the sides, and we’d just do practice runs landing helicopters. We had to land them right on the lines because we knew we were gonna be on TV. They wanted to come out on a red carpet.”

The entire crew lined up to spell out APOLLO 16 on the flight deck as a welcome sign.  And in fact, Scott Phillips was the yellow shirt that eventually guided the NASA crew’s helicopter to a successful landing on the deck of the Ticonderoga. Quite a memory.

His time on the Tico was not without accidents. They lost two pilots when their plane caught fire and it was unable to land on the first approach. They attempted to go around, but crashed into the ocean off the starboard bow before it could reach the landing deck. Some of the planes launched into Vietnam never returned at all.  And there were onboard mishaps as well.  

“I had two guys walk right into props, right out of boot camp. Both of them. One dead instantly. The other I saw him coming, and I’m waving him off, but there was nothin’ I could do. He walked right into the prop and cut his arm off. I grabbed him and took him downstairs. The captain put out a call for blood. But he didn’t make it.”

In October of 1972, Phillips finally came home for good. One night his mother handed him a telegram from World Book Encyclopedia, his first stateside employer.  World Book said his old job was his if he wanted it, he’d get a raise and they would even pay him $700 for serving in Vietnam.  It was the beginning of a 52-year career with World Book Encyclopedia that only ended with his retirement a year and a half ago. Phillips went from the loading docks to fulfillment manager and on up the ladder, ending his career as Director of Operations.  

“I only had two jobs really. World Book and the Navy,“ says Phillips. “They both treated me well.” And both gave him a chance to see the world. The Navy took him to Hawaii, the Philippines, Guam, Japan and beyond.  World Book sent him to cities all over this country and Canada, and even Australia. 

In 1990 he was at a convention in Austin, Texas, when he looked up another old yellow shirt from the Ticonderoga and they began looking for the rest of their unit. Since then, they have found, and lost, several fellow seamen, but they continue to reunite somewhere every year.  In fact, he is in daily contact with some of his shipmates on social media, so they never really lose touch. His two years in the Navy gave him much to be thankful for. “I learned so much about respecting people. About friendship,” says Phillips.” I love meeting people.” 

This Honor Flight Chicago trip will not be Phillips’ first visit to the memorials in Washington, but it will still be a special moment in his life. “I’ve been blessed to see them,” says Phillips. “But to go with ex-military people will be the honor of my life.”  

The honor is ours, Scott Phillips. Enjoy your day.