Ships
- USS Lamson (DD-367) Captain, 23 June 1942 – 1 November 1943
Phillip Henry Fitzgerald was born in Nashville, Tennessee, on 11 August 1902, and Shepherd, Texas, was his home. He graduated from the United States Naval Academy in the class of 1925 and spent his career in the Navy. By the opening of the Pacific war he was a lieutenant commander. The wartime command that fixed his reputation was the Mahan-class destroyer Lamson (DD-367).
The ship had been in the Pacific since 1937. On the morning of the attack on Pearl Harbor she was at sea, and through the first half of 1942 she patrolled and escorted on the routes into the South Pacific under Preston Vigginius Mercer. Mercer left her on 12 June 1942. Walter Terry Jenkins held temporary charge until Fitzgerald assumed command on 23 June 1942. Lamson was still on the long escort and antisubmarine work that kept the supply line south from Pearl Harbor open. Fitzgerald was advanced to temporary commander on 1 August 1942.
In mid-October 1942 Lamson left Pearl Harbor with Task Force 16, headed for the fighting around Guadalcanal. On 19 October she and Mahan were detached to strike Japanese patrol craft south of the Gilbert Islands, on the line between the Gilberts and the Ellice Islands. On 22 October the two destroyers attacked in daylight, sank two enemy vessels, and drove off Japanese aircraft. Lamson finished the raid with her crew intact and the ship undamaged. Fitzgerald received the Navy Cross for the handling of that action: close maneuvering under air attack, and an aggressive blow against the patrol line.
The destroyer returned to the task force and moved on into the Solomons. On the night of 30 November 1942 she was with Rear Admiral Carleton H. Wright’s Task Force 67 off Tassafaronga. She had joined late and took station at the rear of the American column. Japanese destroyers put their torpedoes into the cruiser line. Northampton was lost, and three other cruisers were badly hit. Lamson, posted astern, came through the night. For about the next eight months Fitzgerald kept her on screening and convoy duty in the South Pacific.
In June 1943 Lamson steamed with Task Force 74, the Australian-led force built around HMAS Australia and HMAS Hobart, with HMAS Warramunga in company. Rear Admiral Victor Crutchley used that force out of the Flinders Group to cover operations toward the Solomon Islands. Fitzgerald was made a temporary captain on 20 July 1943. On 19 August Lamson reached Milne Bay and joined Destroyer Squadron 5 for the campaign on the New Guinea coast. Through the late summer and autumn she bombarded shore positions and covered landings there. Joseph Russell Rubins relieved him on 1 November 1943.