Lee H. Phillips

He led a depleted squad up a strongly defended hostile hill.

Lee Hugh Phillips was born at Stockbridge, Georgia, on 3 February 1930. He attended school at Ellenwood and went to Atlanta to work as a teenager. He joined the Marine Corps Reserve in January 1948 and entered the Regular Marine Corps that July. Early service included duty in the Caribbean and Mediterranean before he joined the 7th Marines for deployment to Korea in 1950.

On 4 November, near Sudong, his squad was ordered to attack a strongly defended hill that other units had already tried unsuccessfully to capture. Phillips took the leading position and directed a bayonet charge up the steep slope under mortar, rifle and machine-gun fire.

The squad suffered heavy losses before reaching the crest. When the enemy counter-attacked, Phillips rallied the remaining men and led them forward with rifle fire and grenades. Only three members of the squad were left when he attacked the final rocky strongpoint. Climbing with one hand and throwing grenades with the other, he helped clear the position. He then organized the defence against another counter-attack.

He survived that battle. The Medal of Honor recognized his leadership on 4 November rather than the later engagement in which he disappeared. On 27 November, during the Chinese attacks around the Chosin Reservoir, he was killed while serving with Company E, 2nd Battalion, 7th Marines.

His remains were not recovered. He is commemorated on the Honolulu Memorial and by an in-memory marker at Marietta National Cemetery in Georgia. His mother received the posthumous Medal of Honor from Secretary of the Navy Robert Anderson at the Pentagon in March 1954. He was twenty years old at the time of his death.

Medal of Honor citation excerpt

“His great personal valor reflects the highest credit upon himself”