LTC Philemon A. "Phil" St. Amant (USA, Ret.)

1918 - 2019

Colonel St. Amant was born on 3 February 1918 in Natchitoches, Louisiana, the fifth of the six children of Alfred D. St. Amant and Lucy Clifton Andrews St. Amant, and died on 13 August 2019 at the Baton Rouge General Medical Center in Baton Rouge. After his family returned to Baton Rouge, he attended public schools, graduating from Baton Rouge High School in 1935. He went on to graduate from LSU in 1939, and was commissioned a second lieutenant of field artillery through the ROTC program. Intending to pursue a military career, he requested (and was granted) service in the active army, where he was initially assigned to train National Guard units at Camp Shelby, Mississippi, in anticipation of World War II. Following the attack on Pearl Harbor, Colonel St. Amant deployed with a field artillery regiment in Northern Ireland, in preparation for further engagement on the continent. Because of his proficiency in French, he was recalled to the United States in 1943 and trained for redeployment to Europe with the newly formed Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the forerunner of the CIA. He landed with the OSS in General Bradley's First Army on Utah Beach in Normandy, and was assigned several missions involving operations in occupied France. Following the war, he served with a parachute field artillery regiment at Ft. Bragg, NC, until becoming a student at the Counterintelligence Corps School in Maryland, where he studied Japanese, followed by a year studying Polish at the Army Language School in Monterey, California. From 1949–1952, he was a counterintelligence officer and then course director of the Intelligence and Military Police School with the Army of Occupation in Germany. Returning to the United States in 1952, he commanded the Counterintelligence Corps region headquartered in Kansas City, Missouri. Reassigned in 1956 to Ft. Bragg, he served as an artillery battalion commander, and then as the intelligence officer for the Third U. S. Army Missile Command. He retired from that assignment in 1959, with more than 20 years of commissioned active service, spanning a career that began with horse artillery and ended with missiles. Upon retirement from the military, Colonel St. Amant opened a small business consulting practice, Simplified Business Services, which he operated with his wife, Corinne, for more than 60 years. In 1962, he ran unsuccessfully for the US Senate seat held by Senator Russell B. Long. Colonel St. Amant was a member of the Baton Rouge Optimist Club, Inc., where he served for many years as the chairman of the Youth Appreciation Program. He was also a member of American Legion Post 38, Zachary Taylor Post 3784 Veterans of Foreign Wars, The Committee for Jeffersonian Principles of Government, and was a Perpetual Member of The Military Order of the World Wars (MOWW), from which he received the Silver Patrick Henry Award for Patriotic Service. Colonel St. Amant is survived by his wife of more than 78 years, the former Corinne Lockamy, of Raleigh, N. C. by their two sons and their spouses, Colonel (USA, Ret.) Philemon A. St. Amant II (Harriet) and Alexis A. St. Amant II (Floris), by eight grandchildren, six great-grandchildren, and three great-great-grandchildren. He was predeceased by his daughters, Suzanne Corinne St. Amant Thomas Carson and Jeanne Yvette St. Amant Phillips Harvey, and by a grandson, Philemon A. St. Amant III. Visiting will be at Rabenhorst Funeral Home, 825 Government Street, from 5:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. on Tuesday, 20 August, and again from 9:00 a.m. on 21 August until religious service at 10:00 a.m., followed by interment immediately afterward in Roselawn Cemetery.