Phillips, Barry J.: my Army recollections (October 31, 2007)

Phillips, Barry J.: my Army recollections (October 31, 2007)

Interviewee: Phillips, Barry J., b. 1942

An interview/narrative of Barry Phillips's experiences during the Cold War. Lieutenant Colonel Phillips served with 4 Canadian Mechanized Brigade Group. Interview took place on October 31, 2007.

ABSTRACT: LCol Barry Phillips Interviewed by: Natasha Taschuk 31 October 2007 MacPherson Library, Victoria, B.C. Name: Barry Phillips Birthday/Place: 25 September 1942, Mackenzie Island, ON When joined the military and why: Cadet Corps in high school; Father had tried to go into the military, others, everyone else, all in the military..."perhaps it's in my genes." "In those years, being in the military was something acceptable in society, I suppose." Went into reserves, Canadian Scottish Battalion, Victoria. Reg force, 1961- Royal Can Army Service Corps, largest corps in army. Provided trades to Can Forces, principally transportation support. Vehicles, movements- control and flow of large quantities of material, domestically or out of the country. Early on got into airborne, and was challenged because had a fear of heights. Really enjoyed the challenge of the airborne operational. "Band of brothers" The challenge physically and mentally was what the military offered me. Where stationed with 4 CMBG: North, principally Soest, in the British sector, part of 1 British Corps (already 4 CMBG). Went in 1967, and in 1970, the Brigade moved down to Lahr for political reasons, and became very independent and were cast to support either 2 German Corps or the US Corps..we could've gone up towards Frankfurt area or up towards the East. But the first three years we were in the British sector and we had essentially the largest brigade and the biggest capability in the British Corps at the time (5:50). Left Lahr in summer 1971. The rest of my time with NATO I was selected as an exchange officer to work with the British Army... Rank when joined: Went over as Lieutenant and was promoted to Captain. Rank when retired/when retired: 1995, after 34 years and 10 months of service. The military was downsizing drastically in those years, and they came up with something called the forced retirement/reduction plan and they had this magic formula- said that if you had x number of years of service or if you were of this age, they would offer you an early retirement at no penalty.. .it was all very confusing to me, but I took it to a pay sergeant in Camp Borden, and said, what do you think of this? And he looked at me and said, sign here, this was built for you. Kinds of weapons with 4 CMBG: (8:15) Personal weapons, individual weapons - we had a 9mm pistol and the F-10 rifle, and submachine guns, and on up from there. A lot of it was WWII type equipment or Korea War equipment. Crew serve weapons were things like the mortars - we had the 81mm mortar - we had anti tank rockets, we had an artillery regiment that was equipped with track 105mm howitzers and the armored regiment had Centurion tanks, quite old, capable of breaking down by looking at it... Training provided: (9:35) Working on ranges was something you did every year, more than once, and it was a range of things from going to the range and firing your weapons for annual qualifications to going out on exercises and handling your weapons in an operational scenario where you were issued blank ammunition, and you learned about fire and movement and how you were to avoid friendly fire casualties and that sort of thing. It was just an ongoing sort o{thing. Honest Johns/control/safety devices: (10:30) They were available and they were controlled by a joint American-Canadian thing...ultimately the decision to use tactical nuclear weapons in Europe was at the discretion of the Supreme Commander, which was invariably American...when it became a German, the decision to use nuclear weapons still rested with the senior American on site. But there were a number of units throughout NATO who had the ability to fire off nuclear weapons...so we had an Honest John battery and every time we went off on a major exercise in Canada and over there, they would fire a missile - very short range, they didn't fire at anybody in particular (11:30), we fired into a range area, and that usually signaled the end of a range exercise, so when you had been out in the field for a couple months and you were getting kinda antsy about the whole thing, tired of mud on the end of your nose, you waited for the huge rushing sound of the Honest John going off over your head, and you said, now we can go home, we've blown them all to hell [laughing]. (12:00) The nuclear warheads were kept in an extremely secure area, very few people knew where the location of the weapons was. If you did know, and you had a task to collect these things and deliver them to the battery, there were a whole series of hoops that you had to go through; papers that you had to present, certification you had to present, all of your drivers were hand selected, and you were always under escort, there was a high American presence. Americans really did keep a very tight control on nuclear weapons and even though we were allies and worked very closely together, the people who kept the strings on the nuclear weapons were a force apart almost. ..they had their own marching orders, and we had to abide by them. In four years, I was never tasked to go anywhere near the place (13:30). And the battery itself never really saw the warheads while they were there...they had the missiles, they went through their launch sequences continuously, and they knew all the hoops they had to go through. There was nothing on the missile, other than a nose cone, but there was nothing in it. When they fired this thing off there was nothing in it, it was like Halloween [laughing]. Fluctuations in emphasis upon conventional vs. nuclear: (14:40) Not really. The NATO policies that were in place at the time never really changed. It was the mutually assured destruction type of scenario. All of the military forces where there were British, German, American, Canadian, Belgian, it didn't matter, we all were out 50% of the year practicing conventional war tactics and strategies against each other, and the nuclear role was always in the back of your mind, that if things really got bad, we knew that these things were going to come into play (15:30), and so we practiced dispersion with great concealment, never really wanted to present a target. We were always out practicing conventional war...[NT: because of the discrepancy between the size of the Soviet conventional forces and the NATO conventional force, was it acknowledged that in the event of a Soviet advancement, nuclear weapons were a likely possibility?] That's what we always said, and I think we said that for the benefit of the Soviet and Warsaw Pact forces.. .if you come here, you're going to go across a number of tripwires, and those tripwires represent the nations you're going past, that you're now contravening...all the nations including Canada, etc...so while Canada maybe doesn't represent a very large part of this thing, we were there nonetheless...A series of tripwires that you're presenting an ever growing danger to us and the Western world. A consequence of that is us starting to use tactical nuclear weapons, and we're not going to wait for you to start using them first (17:25), so that was the threat, and I think if push came to shove, that's probably what would have happened. You present such a position of consequences to the other side, and if x, y, z, is not acceptable to the other side, nothing happens, and it worked, as crazy as it was. Weapons 4 CMBG vs. weapons other NATO members: (18:20) When we went on any major NATO exercise, the Canadian brigade was always chosen to act as the enemy force, because we were the most coherent, largest group there, and quite frankly, we were the best at the time- the best equipped and the best trained, when I first got there, for about three years. Notwithstanding some of the problems we were having with the Centurion and some other equipment, we were still the largest best trained fasted moving organization that there was. So they would say, ok Canada, we want you to get yourself right up against the East German border, and we're going to give you a Dutch and German regiment of tanks to make you armour heavy, which is what the Soviets looked like, and we'll give you an extra regiment of artillery, so now you really look like the bad guys, and the Canadians just went crazy...we'd take our helmets off and reverse the liner and put a red star in it; we'd take our combat jackets off and just wear the jacket liners which looked like a Russian jacket, so we played the part to the best of our abilities, and someone would blow the whistle and say start (20:00) and we would just go fast as we could and bash up against anybody that was around us and go around them, go through them, and play the Russian tactics...The capability of the Canadians was excellent. ..certainly in my mind we were the best trained...and with the Honest John capability along with everything else, we were a pretty good representation, and when we moved down to the South, into the American and German corps areas, then our role changed, we became the reserve (21:50), the people that they would hold in reserve and wherever a breakthrough was identified, we would be stuck in there for the counterattack...different tactics, different capability required of us. But the equipment improved over those years. Centurion tank was identified as the weak point of the brigade, and we started to get into the Leopard tanks, which at the time, were far superior to the Centurion. But even with the old Centurion, they used to have these multinational competitions over there; the infantry had a thing called Prix le Claire, where each nation would form an infantry team, there would be an obstacle course, a long distance run, and then an obstacle course, and then you move onto a range and fire your weapons at pop-up targets...Canadian battalions or teams usually won or placed 2nd or 3rd in those things forever, so it displayed the Canadian infantry capabilities very nicely (23:15). On the armored side, there was the Canada Cup, or Canadian Army Trophy, which was an armored competition, with the ability to move tanks around an area and move into a firing position and fire at targets on a range, and the Canadians with their old Centurions were always placing first or...and when we got the Leopards, no-one could touch us, because their weapons systems were just so much better. Leopard compared to Centurion: (24:20) Durability in the field The Centurions were constantly breaking down at the most inopportune time...just when you wanted to launch and do something...for the armored regiment to have a vehicle off road (VOR) rate of 60% or higher was not unheard of, so if you lose 60% of the armored capability because a tracks broken or the engine's gone, and quite frankly the gun system on the Centurion was starting to get really dated. So when we moved into the Leopard these things were on the road and not breaking down. It was like moving from a Jaguar and old Jaguar, to a brand new Mercedes...they don't break down, and they're very reliable. So suddenly our armored capability was improved dramatically. Replacement of Centurions in 1976 too late? (26:20) We were constantly saying we need more people, we need more trucks, we need more guns, we need more everything. You'd look at the threat in front of you, and say we don't have enough here. But then you'd look around at everyone else, and you'd say, we're not too bad...most of our stuff is old and clapped out, but we had this can-do attitude, so it didn't matter how often the Centurions broke down, we'd send teams out and they'd fix the damned things right on the side of the road, and off we'd go again. Every military commander, no matter what day it is in his career, is always going to ask for more...(27:25) The whole idea is you're trying to give yourself a capability that keeps your troops safer. The more military capability you have, the safer your troops are, arid the whole idea for a commander is, you're trying to keep your troops safe, so I want the best equipment to do that job. When I go into a theatre of operations, I want to come out of it with everybody I went in with. If I leave people there or if I send people home in body bags I'm not a happy camper, and if it's the result of not having a piece of equipment that I could've had, then guess who my anger is pointed at. .. Centurion and Leopard vs. Soviet tanks: (28:20) The Brits were using the Centurion, the Germans were into the Leopards, the Dutch had Leopards, the American had the beginnings of the Abraham...most of the European nations either had an American tank or a German tank...[compared to Soviet T-54, T-62] Technically superior, not as robust, I think the kill ratio of any NATO pact alliance tank against a Warsaw Pact tank, we would've won. NATO tanks were better than (30:00). Gunnery systems, again, varied, the Leopards were very good...the Centurion wasn't bad either...with a few little tweaks, the gunnery systems of all the NATO tanks were very similar, I think... Serviceability of weapons systems: From one year to the next, and almost from one day to the next [it was different] (31:10). Climate would have an influence on it. ..armored vehicles in the winter. ..hot dry summers, dust and dirt would play a role the VOR would go up. I think the Canadian armored regiment VOR rate was, I'd have to guess...I can't imagine anybody else being worse than us...the maintenance factor for the old Centurions was terrible.. .it was the biggest concern and heartache, and hitching point for almost the whole brigade...we've got to get a better tank, something that will stay on the road for longer than 5 minutes...and you couldn't go an engine out and an engine in the space of a morning like you can with a Leopard...oh no, Centurions are like old Jaguars, notoriously hard to keep on the road...elegant machines, perhaps, but a real • bugger to keep on the road. Aging process of weapons: (33:05) I just know that the Centurion was off the road far more than it was on the road, and the Leopard was a vast, vast improvement. Supplies: (1:06:40) when we were in the north of Germany we got our supplied through a British supply system and Canada would plug in our specific supply overseas, plug them into the British sector, and send it to that supply depot, because that's where the Canadian's drop it. ..[uniform coming from Canada] Leopards were routed through Canada (1:08:00), because we Canadianized them, we put this kit on them that nobody else was using. We made a good tank a little better. Role of Canada in defense of Europe: (34:05) Remember earlier I talked about the trip wire business, that was Canada's role. It wasn't simply the Brigade, we had an air wing there as well which also had a nuclear role, and they practiced that a lot as well. So while there were Maple Leaves on the ground, and Maple Leaves at sea, and but over in Europe, Maple Leaves in the air, we were seen quite a lot of in North and Southern Germany, and so throughout Europe, (34:40)it was recognized that Canada was there playing its role as part of NATO. And it was representational of what we were capable of, and we had this other force in Canada that was committed to NATO that we would deploy over to reinforce the brigade and make a division if we could. And we had another NATO role with AMFL in Norway. So I think in the eyes of Europeans, Canada was certainly there. I can certainly remember one those exercised where we backed ourselves up against the East German border sitting in the operations center waiting for the exercise to start, and I was sitting there with my commanding officer at the time, and this code word came across, and that told me that there was going to be some movement in this little village that we were hibernating in at the time (36:20), I said hey, come on, there's going to be some movement, let's go down there. So we hopped in my jeep down to this little intersection and this village which was sound asleep, this was about 2:00 in the morning. And suddenly from one direction I heard motorcycles coming and some German dispatch riders came into this intersection to do some traffic control. And from the same direction came the first squadron of an armored regiment (37:00), Leopards, came screaming up this road, just roaring about 40-50 miles an hour, and a squadron of Leopards going at 50 miles an hour is pretty...exciting! The earth moves. Then from the other direction came a company of the Canadian battalion, the Van Doos, and came up and linked in right behind this armored squadron. By this time, the whole of this village has come awake and they're all pouring out the windows and screaming and waving flags and cheering, nobody's booing them because they've been woken up at 2:00 in the morning, they're all happy and waving flags; some of them have got Canadian flags, some of them have got German flags, and I'm sitting there thinking, wow this is pretty impressive (37:56), and this thing went on for about half an hour. One squadron of tanks would pass and then a company of APCs with the Canadians and then another company....But the reaction of this little German village to this noise and chewing up their main street...when a regiment of tanks go by, the cobblestones don't hang around for very long. There was not one bad shaking of fists or anything like that going on, it was all cheering. When we were on the move, we either went into the woods to do our business, or we went into town (38:55), you didn't stay out in the open if you ever stopped for longer than 12 hours. And when we'd come into a town, we'd start to line up around sides of buildings, so you'd take over an entire town with your vehicles and equipment and generators...the closer we were to the East German border, the more friendly the locals were...they'd come out and say, are you comfortable, where are you sleeping tonight? Oh, I'm going to sleep under my truck. No you're not, you're going to sleep in my barn or you're going to come sleep in my basement, and by the way here's a couple of bottles of wine, or here's some cheese (39:40). The farther you got away from the border, the less that happened. Acceptance that you were there, understanding the reasons why you were there; but there was no more wine and cheese being handed out. (42:15) No matter where we went in Germany on major exercises, we were doing things that Canadians would not accept. Can you imagine an armored regiment roaring through the streets of Victoria and people waving little flags at us? I don't think so, we'd probably get more shot than anything else. But over there? It was just the way life was, and we were accepted, we were welcomed, and you felt you were a small cog in something much bigger, and you were appreciated. And Germans went out of their way to make you feel they were happy you were there. You knew you were doing a job and you were doing it well, and you were doing it well in the eyes of your peers [other nations] (43:15). The Americans were deeply involved in Vietnam, and the troops in Germany had been left to idle, and they were a very sad, down heartened group of folks, even though they had a major role to play and they had the biggest gear and they had all the toys, we could run circles around them. It was a rewarding part of the career. Action 4 CMBG prepared to take: (44:05) Unilaterally, none. As part of NATO, whatever was demanded of us. And the roles that we were given, both in North Germany and in South Germany, were pretty clear. South Germany was much more complicated and confusing because we were going to respond to either an American situation or a German situation, so trying to plug yourself into two slightly different tactical arrangements was complicating (44:45). But the actual action we were supposed to take was pretty clear and straightforward. We knew where we were supposed to go, and they practiced it at night. Somebody would decide it was time to exercise o:ur rapid deployment, so 2:00 in the morning, there would be a Canadian truck on the streets of Soest and other villages, beeping with a loud horn "snowball, snowball," and literally the Canadian brigade could be up, into the garrison, into their vehicles and equipment, and out into staging areas within about 6 hours. Completely loaded. Very, very impressive. Very difficult to accomplish unless you practiced it a lot. And then from the staging areas you're start to receive orders (46:00) trickling down through NATO and the lines of command, we want you to move here and do such and such. All of these various things were practiced when we'd go out on major exercises or they were talked about in study forms in garrisons...there was no question marks. [NT: were there any specific deployment areas?] getting into the staging areas was set, and deploying from there into a forward position, you waited for the orders to come down. If we were to go into immediate defensive positions, then those were known and identified. They weren't pre-established to the point of having your defensive positions dug in and all that sort of business, but the armored regiment knew that it was going to go from a garrison to a staging area to a deployment area. [NT: what is a staging area?] (47:40) It's an area usually midway between your garrisons and where you're going to deploy to. You can get everything out of the garrison and get everything formed up tactically... Close calls: (48:35) During Bay of Pigs; very tense, everybody was up on very high state of alert, all eyes were pealed to the east, what were the buggers over there doing. It was tense, but very controlled; there was no sense of panic or anything (49:45). Everybody knew what was expected of them. Ideological education by Canadian govn't: (50:15) Communist? Everybody had a general knowledge of communism, and certainly if you had any sort of military training at all, you were more aware of what the Soviet Warsaw Pact was about strategically and tactically...how were they going to come; where were they going to come; what were they going to come with; what were we going to do about it? That was drummed into us on almost a daily basis. Even down to the troops, the troops were aware why they were in Germany and what their role was (51:10). The troops had a specific job to do; the officers didn't have to turn a wrench or spit on their shoes, so they tended to sit down and think about things a little more...that's dangerous [laughing]. Comments on leave: (51:50) That depended on what alert status we were on. If everything was calm, cool, and collected...you'd start off with individual training, and then you'd get into a leave period in the spring, so some of your unit could go have a ski holiday or whatever...[more on this]. Trudeau brings military closer to home; comments: (54:00) Keeping the NATO tripwire intact. We were a large part of the NATO representation on the ground, and it was one for all and all for one type of approach to life, and if one of the partners said, I'm tired of this, I'm going home to worry about forest fires and avalanches, then the whole partnership said, excuse me, we've got these bad guys over here, did you forget them? There were some people in power at the time that had no use for the military (55:00), let alone the prestige and the place at the world's table of power that the military brought Canada within NATO. We had some of our bright lights sitting in some very powerful positions in NATO as a consequence of the role we had played in NATO. And suddenly if we're going to say I'm tired of this and go home, Canada's ability to have any influence on world affairs was going to be severely diminished in the eyes of all the other players, and I don't blame them. All these other nations are pouring in a lot more of the gst than we were at that stage of the game, and we were getting embarrassed about our abilities towards the end there (56:10). And so you'd go to the conferences you were supposed to go to, and you'd see everybody looking at you, saying what are you doing here, why don't you go home to fight your avalanches? And you'd sit there and fight for the rest of the conference. Other NATO members angry with Trudeau's lessened commitment because: Cold War no longer hot: (58:00) I don't know that he ever did, except until the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact fell apart...this little guy Lech Walesa stood up in Poland, and everything started to crumble (59:20), and everyone said, hey look at that, they're falling apart, the wall's coming down- I think we won! And then we realized that we could still play a part in NATO and not necessarily have troops in Germany anymore, and it was much more accepted at that stage in the game than Mr. Trudeau making his announcements...because the Soviet Union was essentially falling apart (1:00:07). So now we had one superpower, and the world's attentions were turned to other crises... Most significant changes with 4 CMBG: (1:00:52). What I witnessed was a steady decline in capability. When I first arrived there in '67, we were something to be reckoned with. By the time we got down to Lahr, our capability had been reduced. Morale levels were down. We knew we were important when we were in the North, and we knew that we were less important when we moved to the South, and the government paid less and less attention to our situation, and the equipment just kept getting older and older and we could see other people getting better and better, and knew that the political masters were not interested in keeping us at pace with anybody, let alone being better than anybody (1:02:00). That's what I witnessed, certainly in the 4 years I was there, and then you could see it continuing on at home, the capabilities at home were reduced, reduced, reduced. There's a certain critical mass in terms of military in terms of numbers of people that you have. So you do all of these formulations and you say, ok, to do what you folks [government] want me to do, I need a force of this many, and you see, I've got this much (1:03:10). It's like watching a strong man being withered away by cancer, but still being asked to do what he was asked to when he was superman, and seeing how that impacts upon a guy who is skin and bones...you say, I'm: tired, you're pissing me off, parts of my body are leaving me because they're pissed off. ..(1:04:25). Trends in govn't support: (1:05:00) I place it solely at his [Trudeau's] feet.. .I'm a military man, I hate what happened to the military under the succession of liberal governments. So many good men and women came into the uniform with hearts on fire and did good work, but were just left out on the end of the vine, and you can only stick that out for so long, so when FRP came along and they said, this was build for you Phillips, I didn't have any problems saying, I've fought the good fight, I've had enough of you assholes, and so I got out. Changes in perception: (1:09:00) [NT: the Soviet Union was the enemy right until it collapsed?] We wouldn't allow ourselves to think otherwise, because that's putting your guard down, and that's detectable from within but people watching us. It wasn't until you saw the first cracks appearing in the Warsaw Pact and you saw the Kremlin falling apart, that's when you said, they've got a few problems to sort out themselves, so I think we're reasonably safe now. [talks about the Cold War being predictable, 1:10:00-1:12:00].

Interviewer: Taschuk, Natasha

Rank: Lieutenant Colonel. Medals and Honours: Canadian Forces Decoration; United Nations Special Service Medal; NATO Medal; United Nations Protection Force Medal; United Nations Disengagement Observer Force Zone Medal; United Nations Mission in Haiti Medal

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Canadian Military Oral Histories

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October 31, 2007

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University of Victoria (B.C.). Library

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October 31, 2007

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Phillips, Barry J.: my Army recollections (October 31, 2007)

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