Posted on 11/30/2020 12:03:53 PM PST by DUMBGRUNT
Maynard Smith doesn’t have much to commend him, but the military isn’t fussy in 1942. Army willingly takes him on when he is delivered to the induction center in handcuffs. (failed to pay child support, judge made him choose between prison and patriotism.) earns sergeant’s stripes at the end of his training, and finds himself in England as part of the nascent 8th Air Force
On his very first mission, Sgt. Smith runs into the worst sort of trouble, and for once he does everything right.
saves himself, the airplane and those still alive in it. For this, he is awarded the Medal of Honor, the first enlisted airman to receive America’s highest award for valor. Naturally, he will eventually lose those stripes and finish the war as a private.
radioman and two waist gunners parachute to seeming safety but actually to their deaths. Smith doesn’t jump. Instead he grabs an extinguisher and fights the fire that’s consuming the B-17 and severed communications with the men in the front. The tail gunner crawls out of his turret, shot through a lung; Smith drags him clear, jabs him with morphine, and rolls him over so he won’t drown in his own blood. returns to his fire extinguisher, breaking off from time to time to aim one or the other waist gun at the Fw 190s. fire starts “cooking off” the bullets stored in metal boxes; Smith pitches them through a burn-hole in the fuselage. he jettisons the waist guns and “anything not bolted in place.” To an observer, “the B-17 looks skeletal, like a fish on the beach after the gulls have stripped away . . . the meat.” lightened, the bomber stays aloft until the pilot can reach and gently land at a British airfield on the coast.
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
An uncle was a B-17 turret gunner, enlisted out of highschool, the war was over before getting to a unit, his USMC brother, Third wave Iwo. Both lived for a long and good time.
How did he “lose his stripes?”
when his superior officer takes time out of the war effort to write a “historically bad performance review” to take away his stripes.
Not exactly stated.
If he had and was assigned to Guam, he would have met my father, a radio mechanic for the B-17 and 25 (I don't think he ever worked on a 29).
Staff Sergeant Smith quickly gained a reputation as a stubborn and obnoxious airman who did not get along well with the other airmen stationed there, hence his nickname “Snuffy Smith”, possibly from the popular comic strip of the era, Barney Google and Snuffy Smith.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maynard_Harrison_Smith
How did he “lose his stripes?”
???Smith was assigned to KP duty the week that he was awarded the Medal of Honor as punishment for arriving late to a briefing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maynard_Harrison_Smith
A fun old quote, that I cannot source.
“Lopsided men run circles around the hills of success.”
What an amazing story!
Funny... I was “decorated” for ‘fun’ assignments - big stack of fruit salad - but was also given 3 Article 15s through the course of the career, reason I spent my last 10 years as an E-7 - were the Article 15s worth it, I’d say yes 👍 ..
big stack of fruit salad...
I once served with a ‘gentleman’, who claimed to be the oldest O-3 in the US Army.
WWII, Korea, RVN...He had the fruit salad and more.
He did NOT take crap well.
Other than that a very nice guy that liked to fight.
Even at a gin joint in town.
By all accounts, Smith was a real a-hole, and the Army came to regret making a hero of him.
THE AWARD CEREMONY took place at Thurleigh on July 15, 1943, and the Eighth Air Force went all out. Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson flew in from Washington, D.C., carrying Smith’s medal in his pocket, and the guest list included seven generals, two radio networks, an air force band, and a busload of reporters. There was just one problem: no Smith. A frantic search found him toiling in the mess-hall kitchen—a punishment for twice returning late from leave.
The privileges Smith was given—or took—grated on the other men. Matters came to a head in late 1944 when Major Thomas F. Witt, the 306th’s operations officer, recommended Smith be demoted to private because of what Witt called poor job performance—a humiliating slap in the face for a Medal of Honor recipient. Calling Smith’s attitude “insufferable,” Witt said Smith showed “no responsibility to his duties, or to his officers and fellow NCOs.” He often wasn’t available when needed, Witt wrote, and “repeated warnings and reprimands have been a necessity” to get any work from him. On December 17, 1944, the air force busted Smith, who angrily called his demotion “the rotten deal that lousy outfit gave me via the great judgement of Witt, and some of his cohorts.” That same day, a medical review board permanently grounded him, and on February 2, 1945, he was sent home to the States, ending what 306th historian Russell A. Strong called “a long and somewhat touchy relationship between those in command and Smith.”
https://www.historynet.com/the-checkered-life-of-snuffy-smith.htm
“But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate—we can not consecrate—we can not hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.”
I declared myself the “highest” ranking E-7 in the USAF - they went by time in grade - I had 10 years and 5 months as an E-7 when I finally called it quits...
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