Howard James Phillips

Howard worked for Len German at Yelverton Dairy delivering milk. During the later part of the war he was delivering milk in the area, including Princetown where his future wife, Elsie Worth lived, its how they met ! Early on during the war Howard was stockman, again for Len German, at Bird Cage Farm which is on the outskirts of Plymouth next to Roborough airport and now a housing estate. He related having to take cover from falling Ack-Ack shrapnel during an air raid, under a culvert of Drake's Leat.

Howard was your archetypal, never caught poacher. Not for financial gain but for the pot, mostly rabbits. His family were abjectly poor and needed every scrap they could get. Even so, landowners jealously guarded all their 'game' and in later times he admitted he was always out and about to get any bunnies he could find. As such he was an ideal candidate, used to creeping about at night and avoiding seeking eyes and a good shot, he couldn't afford to waste cartridges. He was probably suspected as such by the local landowners through certainly never caught. He told a tale of one day meeting the wife of one farmer out riding. Suspecting he had a gun under his coat, she dropped a handkerchief thinking he would be unable to bend down to pick it up for her. No chance of catching him that way. It was a special .22 that broke up into small pieces.

He would always wear his lapel badge after the war. He later became an AA Patrol Man.

Howard would recall being taken in a truck to different places and being told to leave a “calling card” without being seen. He described the OB to his son. He would joke about the first issue of the Sten Gun being difficult to control and liable to go off and empty the magazine if shaken, so only the Sargent was allowed to carry it.