The cover of the commemorative World War II Medal of Honor stamp booklet issued by the U.S. Postal Service. The name of the late Maynard H. Smith, a Medal of Honor winner from Caro, is among World War II Medal of Honor winners listed in the booklet. (Photo by John Cook)
By Tom Gilchrist
Staff Writer
CARO — Some nicknamed him “Snuffy,” others called him “troublesome” and he’s said to have ridden a horse in one door of a Caro pharmacy and out the other.
It hardly sounds like a resume of someone whose name appears in a collector’s book of stamps issued by the U.S. Postal Service.
Yet the late Maynard H. Smith’s name is there. The Caro native is one of 464 World War II Medal of Honor recipients listed inside a philatelic booklet featuring 20 “Medal of Honor” stamps along with information about the nation’s highest award for valor in combat.
“In a sense, those names in the booklet are like a veterans’ wall — you know how they have the traveling walls?” said Caro Postmaster Bob Garske.
The Medal of Honor stamp booklet went on sale in November of 2014 and “sales have been good,” Garske said.
“I’ve had a couple veterans come in and ask for them,” added Garske, noting buyers may purchase the booklet for $9.80 at the post office in Caro.
“You’d be very surprised at the number of people that are very passionate about their stamps,” Garske said. “Some come in and want only American flags. Other people will stand there and mull over their stamps because they want something different.”
Smith, the only son among six children and nicknamed “Snuffy” and “Hokie,” was born in Caro and is buried at Arlington National Cemetery.
More than 16 million people served with the American armed forces during World War II, but only 464 were singled out to receive the Medal of Honor. The award is presented “for conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of life, above and beyond the call of duty.”
Staff Sgt. Smith’s inclusion in a stamp booklet impresses Joe Merchant, 65, of Tuscola County’s Elkland Township, who served with the U.S. Army in the Vietnam War.
“I think it’s a pretty nice tribute myself,” said Merchant, commander of Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 3644 in Cass City.
Smith, who died in 1984 at age 72, served in the U.S. Army Air Corps from 1941 to 1945.
In a 2014 interview, former Tuscola County resident Don Lotter, now living in Martin in western Michigan, recalled the consequences Smith reportedly faced for riding the horse through Cooper’s Drug Store in Caro.
“He was arrested and went before the judge — his father — who gave him the choice of jail or joining the Army,” Lotter said.
Smith chose the military over incarceration, though reports don’t list his age at the time of the drug-store incident.
The U.S. Air Force, in a video uploaded to YouTube about Smith receiving the Medal of Honor, stated Smith attended school in Caro but spent the last two years at Howe Military Academy, a private school in Indiana. The video, made from a 1942 promotional movie, describes Smith as a “government accountant” who enlisted in the Air Corps following the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941.
Smith, a turret gunner on a B-17 Flying Fortress bomber, received the Medal of Honor for his actions on his first combat mission on May 1, 1943. Thirty-six B-17s encountered enemy fighters before they could bomb Nazi U-boat bases on the coast of France.
“We wound up with four B-17s out of the original 36,” Smith is said to have told Wayland Mayo in a 1979 interview reported on the website b-29s-over-korea.com.
Smith’s bomber sustained heavy gunfire and damage, caught fire and the pilot ordered the crew to bail out, but Smith disobeyed the order and stayed, according to Lotter.
“The pilot ordered the crew to bail out and three did; they were never heard from again,” Lotter said. “Snuffy stayed on board, put out a fire, attended to the wounded and manned both turret guns. In addition, he assisted the pilot in landing the plane.”
Once the airplane landed, “Smith was busted to a private and placed on KP (kitchen patrol) duty (which is a punishment),” Lotter said.
Mayo, in his report about his 1979 interview with Smith, didn’t mention Smith’s demotion.
Lotter said Smith was in the middle of peeling potatoes when Secretary of War Henry Simpson arrived to present him the Medal of Honor in 1943.
Mayo’s report, relaying Smith’s recollection of the combat mission in Smith’s “own words,” describes Smith’s summary of the situation after the B-17 caught fire.
“The radioman became excited and jumped out the window without a parachute,” Smith reportedly told Mayo. “At this point we dropped our bombs. It was minus 50 degrees outside (thousands of feet above the ground).”
Smith recalls the bomber dropping to 2,000 feet “when one of the waist gunners panicked and tried to bail out” but died after getting caught on a .50-caliber gun and being struck by the aircraft stabilizer.
Smith reported using fire extinguishers and water bottles to put out the fire on the plane, according to Mayo, who quoted Smith as saying “I did the best I could while being shot at. They were coming at us from both sides.”
Eventually, Smith reported manning the workable waist guns, and gave several shots of morphine to a severely wounded tail gunner.
“By doing this, he lived. I am very thankful for that,” Smith reportedly told Mayo.
The bomber then began to go down and up when Smith reported finding the pilot and co-pilot “pretty well shot up.”
He recalled placing tourniquets on them so they could control the plane, and then repairing control cables to try to recover the aircraft’s tail control, before throwing ammunition out of the plane. He avoided being burned by wrapping a scarf around his face and hands, according to Mayo.
Smith recalled the plane being “all burned out in the center” with “nothing but the four main beams holding it together.” Somehow the survivors on board managed to get it back to its base, though the plane collapsed 10 minutes after it landed, according to Mayo’s report.
Merchant, of the Cass City VFW Post, said “I don’t know how those guys can function under that kind of stress, but some guys can handle it and take over.”
It makes sense for the U.S. Postal Service to honor Medal of Honor winners, Merchant added.
“I think it’s very fitting that they’re in a booklet of stamps,” Merchant said. “It makes people aware of what the price of freedom is.”