Two great republics lost their final cadets from the “Class of 1940” in the past few days.
BG Paul D. Phillips
Born on March 9, 1918, Brigadier General Paul Phillips (USMA 1940), a red stripe from almost the moment he put on his butter bar, was recognized as the oldest living West Point Graduate earlier this year and was awarded the Ancient Order of Saint Barbara by the United States Field Artillery Association at 105 years old.
His WWII survival story was epic, having been part of the Philippine Defense Force during the Japanese invasion of those islands in 1941 and then enduring 39 grueling months of captivity in multiple camps of which he later said, “I expected the worst and that’s what I got”:
He fought in the Battle of the Philippines on Mindanao and was taken prisoner in 1942 after the Japanese invaded Cebu and General Sharp surrendered. As a POW, General Phillips traveled from Mindanao to Luzon, then to Japan in January 1945, to Pusan, Korea in April, finally ending up in a prison camp near Mukden in Manchuria. During one move he and his fellow POWs were loaded onto two different ships that were bombed by the U.S. forces, unaware that they contained their fellow servicemembers. The prisoners were rescued mid-August of 1945 in Manchuria by a 5-person team that included one of Phillips’ classmates, James Hennessy. After WWII, BG Phillips served as a gunnery instructor at the Field Artillery School and graduated from Command and General Staff College in 1951.
In March 2009 BG Phillips completed a Veterans History Project oral history interview and earlier this year conducted a second, longer, and more candid interview.
The last living graduate for the USMA Class of 1940, BG Paul D. Phillips (USA, Retired) passed away on August 27, 2023.
In 2010, BG Phillips donated his POW-worn West Point class ring to the Class Ring Memorial Program, its steel mingling with those of future members of the Long Gray Line.
Dernier cadet de Saumur
Also remembered this week is Chef d’Escadron (cavalry major) Yves Raynaud, who passed at age 104. He was the final member of the old École de cavalerie Saumur, the famed French cavalry officer’s school that dated to 1763 and once counted a young George S. Patton in attendance.
Raynaud was among an expanded class of 560 young reservists called up to train as officers (Elèves aspirants de reserve) and, during the hectic final days of the Fall of France in June 1940, took to the field to fight the oncoming Germans.
The Saumur cadets, ordered to retreat to the south on June 15th, instead joined a scratch force composed of a similar battalion of cadets from the infantry school at Saint-Maixent, some colonial troops of the 13ᵉ Regiment of Algerian Tirailleurs (13ᵉ RTA), the remnants of the 6ᵉ Regiment engineers, and a reconnaissance squadron of the 19ᵉ Regiment of Dragoons, totaling between 2,000 and 2,500 depending on whose accounts you read.
Their armament was laughable, consisting of just a handful of Panhard armored cars and Hotchkiss light tanks, five old 75mm guns left over from the Great War, and 10 light mortars as well as similarly scarce small arms– the Saumur cadets often had to share rifles as there wasn’t enough to go around and their only organic support weapons were a few St. Étienne Mle 1907 machine guns that the school had for training purposes.
Defying orders to fall back or at least stack their arms, the force of cadets and stragglers instead stood strong for two days –June 19 and 20– in a delaying action for a series of Loire River bridges between Montsoreau and Gennes now known as the Battle of Saumur or the Battle of the Loire.
Forming what was termed La Haie Sainte (The Sacred Line), and no doubt girded by the fact that the action was fought on the 125th anniversary of Waterloo, the French cadets prevented a much stronger German force (which ultimately grew to 40,000) from crossing the Loire and allowed other units to withdraw through them to the south, escaping to fight again another day.
Their commander, Saumur superintendent Colonel Charles Michon, said of their stand when the bulk of the defeated and demoralized French force was retreating and surrendering:
“There was hope in them. Their sacrifice, among others equally pure, will have maintained the soul of the country (aura maintenu l’âme de la patrie). They, dying, ordered France to rebuild itself, on their tombs, to the height of its immortal destinies”.
Of the 560 students from Saumur Cavalry School, 79 were killed and 47 wounded in the fighting.
Post-war, Saumur, no longer a horse cavalry school, reformed as the current armor school.
Raynaud, who later fought with the Resistance and retired from the Army in the 1960s, died in Toulouse on August 29.
His funeral, with full military honors, was conducted on Sept. 5 at the Saint-Hilaire church in Toulouse.
His was saluted by a guard drawn from the 14e Régiment d’infanterie et de soutien logistique parachutiste, the 1er Régiment du train parachutiste, and the 503e Régiment du train.
Gen. Pierre Schill, Chief of Staff of the French Army, closed the events with, “Sleep in peace my commander, the army pays homage to you.” (Dormez en paix mon commandant, l’armée de Terre vous rend hommage)
