Phillip Kenneth Winter (December 24, 1898–December 22, 1945)
By Nicole Taggart
Early Life
Phillip Kenneth Winter was born to Phillip and Mary Rose Winter on December 24, 1898, in Baltimore, MD, where his father worked as a tailor.1 By 1900, Phillip and Mary lived in a rented home with their eight children: Bessie (1876), Beulah (1879), Allan (sometimes also spelled Allen, 1885), Marion (1889), Wilmot (1892), Edward (1896), and Phillip Kenneth. They all lived together with Mary’s mother, Louisa Fountaine, in a multi-generational home.2 The four oldest children could read and write by 1900, with Marion in the ninth grade.3 Sometime after the turn of the century, the family moved to Jacksonville, FL. They gained a new son, Lyall (1901), and by 1910 a few of the oldest children, Beulah (31), Allan (24), and Wilmot (17), had moved out.4 Beulah and Allan each lived with their own families in Jacksonville. Wilmot worked as a messenger at Armour Fertilizer Works, a meat processing and packing plant also located in Jacksonville.5 The eldest child, Bessie, remained in the family home until after 1910 when she moved in with her husband, Ernest Harrison.6 In 1917, Phillip worked as a clerk at the Jacksonville hub of the Southern Express Company, a transportation company founded in 1861 to service the southeast via railroad, steam boat, and stagecoach.7
Military Service
When the US declared war on the Axis powers on April 6, 1917, the Navy began preparations to expand its personnel and supplies, calculating an increase from 60,000 to half a million men.8 Just one week later, on April 14, 1917, Phillip Kenneth Winter began his service in the US Navy at the age of eighteen, enlisting in Atlanta, GA.9 Phillip first served as an apprentice seaman, which meant he performed a variety of exercises intended to increase his physical stamina and to prepare him for life at sea. The Navy, however, like the other military branches, was chronically underequipped in the early stages of the war effort, and not all new recruits received proper training.10 Ships, engines, and guns were necessary for both training and for the active fleet, and the fleet took precedence. This shortage of training material meant that seamen went into active service with little to no practical experience, forcing them to learn on the job.11 Phillip’s first duty station was the Norfolk Naval Hospital in Portsmouth, VA. The hospital, today known as the Naval Medical Center Portsmouth, sat near the Norfolk Naval Shipyard on the west bank of the Elizabeth River, roughly fifteen to twenty miles from the coast.12 When the US entered the war, the Norfolk/Portsmouth area experienced a boom in response to the Navy’s increased training needs.13 The area exploded with activity, as both banks of the river housed various training and naval stations.14
From June 1917 through July 1918, Phillip served on the USS Orion. A fleet collier, or a bulk cargo ship, the Orion refueled the Navy’s coal-burning warships under operational conditions.15 She also served as part of a defensive chain in the Azores, an archipelago, or chain of islands, over 900 miles east of Portugal in the Atlantic Ocean. Here, she successfully drove away a German U-boat.16 On July 21, 1918, Phillip transferred to the USS Helvetia. During the war, the USS Helvetia, a three-masted schooner or a sailing vessel, pictured here, served as a tender/decoy ship.17 The tender/decoy ship’s mission was two-fold. It carried supplies for accompanying US submarines and baited German submarines into point-blank range. At that stage, the decoy disassembled its guise and fired upon the enemy sub with the aid of its own sub.18 Operating out of Norfolk, VA, the Helvetia patrolled the coastline of the Fifth Naval District which encompassed Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, and North Carolina.19 The Navy sent the Helvetia out disguised as a peaceful merchant ship on two decoy missions in August and September 1918 with submarines E-2 and N-6 respectively. The Helvetia, however, did not encounter German submarines during either of its missions.20
Post-Service Life
After leaving the Navy on December 18, 1918, Phillip Kenneth Winter moved back to Jacksonville, where he moved between jobs as a messenger and a clerk.21 By 1926, he returned to work in the railroad industry as a “sergeant police” for the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad.22 During this time, Phillip met his wife, Mary Jeanette (Janie) Roberts, a native of Alabama, who he married on August 15, 1921.23 Mary gave birth to their daughter, Martha Rose Winter, on August 5, 1922.24 On May 1, 1925, at thirty years old, Mary passed away after a two-year struggle with pulmonary tuberculosis. She is buried at the Evergreen Cemetery in Jacksonville.25
On July 27, 1929, Phillip married his second wife, Harriett Rhynard.26 By 1930, Phillip worked as a salesman for an oil refinery and Harriett worked as a beautician.27 In 1934, Phillip and Harriett divorced.28 Eventually, he moved to Clearwater on Florida’s west coast. It seems he was unable to find employment while in Clearwater.29 In November of 1940, he gave permission for his daughter, Martha, to marry, which she did in January 1941.30 She required her father’s permission as she was eighteen at the time and thus considered a minor.31 Then, on April 1, 1942, at the age of forty-three, Phillip registered for the draft, as we see here.32 If he had been just two years older, he would have qualified for the Old Man’s Draft, which registered men between the ages of forty-five and sixty-four to help on the Homefront.33 The government did not call upon Phillip to serve in the Second World War.
On August 31, 1945, Phillip entered the Bay Pines Hospital, with the Tampa Bay Times noting that he was “a member of the barracks.”34 While it is unclear why he was admitted, he died there on December 22, 1945, just two days before his forty-seventh birthday. He is buried in the Bay Pines National Cemetery at Section 11 Row 1 Site 10.35 His headstone bears no emblem.36 He was survived by his daughter Martha, who remained in Jacksonville for her entire life.37 She and her husband, Dewitt, divorced in 1985.38 They had no children. Martha passed on January 19, 2006 at age eighty-four.39
Endnotes
1 “Draft Registration Cards for Florida, 10/16/1940 – 03/31/1947,” database with images, Fold3.com (http://www.fold3.com/: accessed March 27, 2019), entry for Phillip Kenneth Winter, Clearwater, Pinellas, FL; “1880 United States Federal Census,” database, Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com/: accessed April 17, 2019), entry for Philip Winter, Baltimore, MD; “1900 United States Federal Census,” database, Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com/: accessed March 24, 2019), entry for Kenneth Winter, Baltimore, MD.
2 “1900 United States Federal Census,” Ancestry.com, Kenneth Winter.
3 “1900 United States Federal Census.”
4 “1910 United States Census,” database, Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com/: accessed March 24, 2019), entry for Lyall H Winter, Jacksonville Ward 9, Jacksonville, Duval, FL.
5 “1910 United States Federal Census,” Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com: accessed April 17, 2019), entry for Beulah M Crevasse, Jacksonville Ward 9, FL; “1910 United States Federal Census,” Ancestry.com, (http://www.ancestry.com: accessed April 17, 2019), entry for Allen C. Winter, Jacksonville Ward 9, Duval, FL; “U.S. City Directories, 1822-1995,” database, Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com/: April 17, 2019), entry for Wilmot A. Winter, Jacksonville, FL, 1909; The National Archives of the United States, “Notice No. 596,” Federal Register 29, no. 25 (February 1964): 1771, https://www.loc.gov/item/fr029025/.
6 “1910 United States Federal Census,” Ancestry.com, (https://www.ancestry.com/: accessed March 24, 2019), entry for Bessie M Harison sic, Jacksonville Ward 9, Duval, FL; “1930 United States Federal Census,” database, Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com/: accessed July 30. 2019), entry for Bessie Harrison, Jacksonville, Duval, FL.
7 “U.S. City Directories, 1822-1995,” Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed March 24, 2019), entry for Phillip Kenneth Winter, Jacksonville, FL, USA, 1917; Dudley S. Johnson, “The Southern Express Company: A Georgia Corporation,” The Georgia Historical Quarterly 56, no. 2 (Summer 1972): 224-42, https://www.jstor.org/stable/40579773; Alfred M. Richardson and Evans & Cogswell Walker, Map of the Southern Express Company (Charleston, S.C.: Walker, Evans, & Cogswell, 1884), https://www.loc.gov/item/gm71000842/.
8 John K. Ohl, “The Navy, the War Industries Board, and the Industrial Mobilization for War, 1917-1918,” Military Affairs 40, no. 1 (February 1976): 17-22, https://www.jstor.org/stable/1986844.
9 “WWI Service Cards,” database, FloridaMemory.com (https://www.floridamemory.com/: accessed February 10, 2019), entry for Phillip Kenneth Winter.
10 John R. Cox, “Training in the Navy,” in Scientific American 98, no. 25 (June 1908): 440, https://www.jstor.org/stable/26123433; Michael D. Besch, A Navy Second to None: The History of U.S. Naval Training in World War I (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2002), 25.
11 Besch, A Navy Second to None, 21.
12 Besch, 58; “Home,” Naval Medical Center Portsmouth, accessed July 9, 2019, https://www.med.navy.mil/sites/nmcp/SitePages/home.aspx#.
13 Besch, “The Training Division and Associated Affairs,” 21-22.
14 Besch, “St. Helena and Norfolk,” 58-64.
15 “WWI Service Cards,” FloridaMemory.com, Phillip Kenneth Winter; “USS Orion (Collier #11, later AC-11), 1912-1933,” Naval Historical Center, December 31, 2004, accessed March 24, 2019, https://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/OnlineLibrary/photos/sh-usn/usnsh-o/ac11.htm.
16 “Orion I (AC-11),” Naval History and Heritage Command, published on August 17, 2015, accessed July 9, 2019, https://www.history.navy.mil/content/history/nhhc/research/histories/ship-histories/danfs/o/orion-i.html; Frank A. Blazich, Jr., “1917,” in United States Navy and World War I: 1914-1922 (Naval History and Heritage Command), 62, https://www.history.navy.mil/content/dam/nhhc/research/library/online-reading-room/war-and-conflict/wwi/pdf/us_navy_wwi_chron.pdf.
17 “NH 78920 USS Helvetia (SP-3096),” Naval History and Heritage Command, accessed July 9, 2019, https://www.history.navy.mil/content/history/nhhc/our-collections/photography/numerical-list-of-images/nhhc-series/nh-series/NH-78000/NH-78920.html.
18 “Decoy Ships for Submarines,” Scientific American 120, no. 4 (January 1919): 77, https://www.jstor.org/stable/26038506; Edward F. Beyer, et. al., “U.S. Navy Mystery Ships,” Warship International 28, no. 4 (1991): 323, https://www.jstor.org/stable/44895248.
19 “Fifth Naval District,” Naval History and Heritage Command, November 10, 2016, accessed July 15, 2019, https://www.history.navy.mil/research/library/research-guides/lists-of-senior-officers-and-civilian-officials-of-the-us-navy/district-commanders/fifth-naval-district.html; Beyer, et. al., “U.S. Navy Mystery Ships,” 324.
20 Beyer, et. al., “U.S. Navy Mystery Ships,” 324-326.
21 “U.S. City Directories, 1822-1995,” Ancestry.com, (http://www.ancestry.com: accessed March 24, 2019) entry for Phillip K Winter, Jacksonville, Duval, FL, USA in 1919; “U.S. City Directories, 1822-1995,” Ancestry.com, (http://www.ancestry.com: accessed March 24, 2019), entry for Phillip K Winter, Jacksonville, Duval, FL, USA in 1921.
22 “U.S. City Directories, 1822-1995,” Ancestry.com, (http://www.ancestry.com: accessed March 24, 2019), entry for Phillip K Winter, Jacksonville, FL in 1926.
23 “Florida, County Marriages, 1830-1957,” database with images, FamilySearch.org (https://www.familysearch.org/: March 24, 2019), entry for Phillip Kenneth Winter and Mary Janie Roberts, August 15, 1921, Duval County, FL.
24 “U.S. Social Security Applications and Claims Index, 1936-2007,” database, Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com/: accessed June 26, 2019), entry for Martha Rose Winter.
25 “Florida Deaths, 1877-1939,” database with images, FamilySearch.org (https://www.familysearch.org/: accessed June 26, 2019), entry for Mary Jeanette Winter, May 1, 1925, Jacksonville, FL.
26 “Florida Marriages, 1830-1993,” database with images, FamilySearch.org (https://www.familysearch.org/: April 15, 2019), entry for Phillip K Winter and Harriett Rhynard, June 29, 1929, Duval County, FL..
27 “1930 United States Census,” database, Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com/: accessed March 24, 2019), entry for Phillip Winters, Jacksonville City, Duval, FL.
28 “Florida Divorce Index, 1927-2001,” database, Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com/: accessed March 24, 2019), entry for Phillip Kenneth Winter, Jacksonville, FL.
29 “Draft Registration Cards for Florida,” Fold3.com, Phillip Kenneth Winter.
30 “Florida Marriages, 1820-1993,” FamilySearch.org, entry for Dewitt C Dawkins and Martha Rose Winter, January 20, 1941, Duval County, FL.
31 The age of majority in Florida fell from twenty-one to eighteen in 1973, two years after the ratification of the 26th Amendment of the US Constitution. Fla. Stat. § 743.07(1) (1973); U.S. Const. amend. XVI.
32 “Draft Registration Cards for Florida,” Fold3.com, Phillip Kenneth Winter.
33 “The Old Man’s Draft,” The Newberry, July 21, 2012, accessed July 30, 2019, https://www.newberry.org/old-mans-draft.
34 Wilford F. Wright, “Bay Pines Canteen Manager Returns From Seabees,” Tampa Bay Times, August 31, 1945, https://www.newspapers.com, page 10.
35 “Winter, Phillip K,” National Cemetery Administration, accessed July 1, 2019, https://gravelocator.cem.va.gov.
36 “U.S. Headstone Applications for Military Veterans, 1925-1963,” database with images, Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com/: accessed March 27, 2019), entry for Phillip K Winter, Clearwater, Pinellas, FL.
37 “U.S. City Directories, 1882-1995,” Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com: accessed September 19, 2019), entry for Martha M Dawkins, Jacksonville, FL, 1960.
38 “Florida Divorce Index,” Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com: accessed September 19, 2019), entry for Dewitt Clinton Dawkins Jr.
39 “U.S. Social Security Applications and Claims Index,” Ancestry.com, (https://www.ancestry.com: accessed September 19, 2019), entry for Martha Rose Winter.
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