Tribute to a Hero:
WWII Veteran
Philip H. Robertson

A Tribute from a Son to a Father, Veteran and Hero.

By: David Robertson

My dad, Philip Hermann Robertson, was born in Aberdeen, South Dakota on November 29th, 1924. He had just turned 17 when Pearl Harbor was bombed. My Dad volunteered for the U.S. Army Air Corp, hoping to become a pilot or navigator. He went through basic training in Texas, and then navigational school at Jefferson Barracks in St. Louis. 

My Dad was 49 when I was born – most people my age would have grandfathers who served in World War II, while I had a father who did. 
My Dad was assigned as a navigator for a B-24 Liberator bomber. Twice he saved the lives of his crew: once by employing a rarely-used navigational technique to locate the Azores Islands on their flight from St. John’s, Newfoundland, and a second time when he located a dry river bed in Northern Italy where the B-24 could crash land after one of the plane’s engines had been disabled by German flak on a bombing run over Munich. My Dad was based in Foggia, Italy. He was told during his training to look to the left and the right – the statistics were that one of you will not make it through the tour of bombing missions. Those were the risks involved. 

After my Dad’s B-24 crash landed, the crew was taken prisoner by the Germans. My Dad was sent to Stalag Luft Eins, a German prison camp for Allied air prisoners of war on the Baltic Coast of Germany. My Dad spent eight months in that camp and almost starved to death (he normally weighed 200 lbs but was 120 pounds as the end of the war). One day in the winter of 1945 the German guards were gone, and two weeks later the Russian Red Army liberated the camp. 

My Dad was a World War II veteran and hero who risked his life to fight for liberty, not only for the citizens of the United States, but for all mankind. My Dad went on to attend Michigan Law School and became a well-respected trial attorney. I am honored to have him as my father.