[4][5] In the 1930s, she worked in night clubs in the northwest U.S. and later joined a musical stock company that toured east Asia including Hong Kong and Manila.

While on tour in the Philippines, she met Filipino sailor Manuel Fuentes at a night club where she was performing.

Using the cabaret as a cover, Phillips was a member of the so-called "Miss U spy ring" that obtained information from the Japanese officers who patronized the club.

Some of the information she collected was transmitted to American forces in the Pacific and used to predict and counter Japanese military activities.

In addition to espionage, she worked extensively with Naomi Flores, Margaret Utinsky and anti-Japanese guerrilla movements to smuggle desperately needed food, medicines, supplies and information to the prisoners of the Cabanatuan prisoner of war camp.

On May 23, 1944, Phillips was apprehended by the Kenpeitai[7] (the Japanese military police) after one of the messengers she used to contact the POWs at Cabanatuan was captured, interrogated and killed.

[1] After the war, Phillips returned with her daughter, Diane,[3] to the United States, where she wrote Manila Espionage, a book about her experiences.

Her story was made into the Hollywood movie I Was an American Spy (1951), starring Ann Dvorak as Phillips.