When Shirley "Smitty" Smith joined the Navy in 1940, all he wanted was a decent living and job security. His $21 monthly salary wasn't much by
today's standards, but it was good money in those days. As for job security – Smith had more than he wanted. On Dec. 7, 1941, Smith was in the frigid North Atlantic on a Navy ship headed for Newfoundland when the ship's
captain broke the news of the attack on Pearl Harbor. Many sailors died in the bombing raid.
"We were dumbfounded," Smith says.
Slightly less than four years later, Smith would pocket a little bit of history: A card
certifying he was on the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay when the formal Japanese surrender was signed.
In between the two events, Smith would see action aboard ship in the Aleutian Islands, Tarawa, Iwo Jima and Okinawa. The
young Duplin-county farm boy would work in the shadow of giants like admirals Halsey, Spruance and Nimitz. In later years, he would shakes hands with former U.S. Army general and current Sec. of State Colin Powell. All-in-all,
Smith's life's journey has been both satisfying and meaningful.
Smith's parents, Norwood and Bessie, had five children. Shirley was the first born and says he has no idea what his mother was thinking when she named him.
"I got into a lot of fights because of that name," he said.
He grew up tough, though, and credits his father's strict sense of discipline with giving him a strong understanding of right and wrong. But, although the
family wasn't starving by any means, there was little money for other things. So Smith joined the Navy.
It wasn't easy to do in 1940. Seamen recruits were expected to conform to certain height and weight standards, as well
as have perfect hearing and eyesight. Smith filled the bill and thought he was one of the luckiest men alive when the Navy accepted him.
Six years later, he'd reevaluate that notion when he determined he'd been on U.S. soil
only once in all that time – and the occasion was a trip to report for duty aboard the newly commissioned Missouri, the last battleship built by the United States.
The Missouri was also the final ship upon which Smith
served during World War II. When Pearl Harbor was hit, he was aboard a cargo ship running supplies to a new base.
"When we got the word, it was around 1 PM and we had to do something and do it fast," Smith said of the
approaching darkness.
Although German ships were already attacking England, America was just entering the war and the vessel that carried Smith wasn't battle ready. The crew had to paint all the portholes and unscrew light
bulbs so that when night fell the enemy couldn't find them.
Once that run was finished, Smith found himself in the Pacific for the remainder of the war. Classified an engineer, he says he hated being below the water line
and tried repeatedly to change his job classification, volunteering for every school that came along. But he was a good engineer and they were at a premium, so his crew chief refused to let him go.
Although Smith wasn't
terribly happy about it, he was a dedicated sailor. He worked hard and was trained as a firefighter to handle incidents aboard ship. That training would later come in handy in Okinawa.
Okinawa was only one of three major
Pacific battles in which Smith participated as off-shore support for the Marines and soldiers who landed there. He remembers Tarawa – one of the bloodiest and most hard-fought battles of the war – with particular clarity.
"They screwed up and went in at low tide," Smith said.
Indeed, history has not been kind to the Tarawa landing. Marines were forced to ditch their landing craft and wade ashore – right into enemy hands. Japanese
soldiers were behind nearly impregnable concrete bunkers, secure from Allied assault efforts, but perfectly positioned to pepper the wading Marines with machinegun fire. Marines died in droves wading through the surf to the beach.
"An old Japanese admiral boasted that we couldn't take it with a million men in a thousand years. We did it in 72 hours at a terrible cost," he said.
But Okinawa stands out most clearly in Smith's memory. He was
serving aboard the Missouri, known as the "Mighty Mo" and the flagship of Admiral William Halsey. It was a protracted battle plagued by Kamikaze and Thunder God attacks.
Both types of attacks were perpetuated by Japanese
pilots who willingly forfeited their lives by flying their aircraft into the target. One of those targets was the Missouri.
"The plane cartwheeled and caught the whole side of the ship on fire. It was a living hell," Smith
said of the incident that killed many of his shipmates.
After the protracted battle for Okinawa, the Missouri was sent to Tokyo Bay to accept the Japanese surrender. In addition to Halsey, Admiral Chester Nimitz and Gen.
Douglas McArthur were present. Smith says there were over a hundred Allied ships in Tokyo Bay at the time of the surrender and dozens of aircraft overhead as a precaution.
"We didn't know if we were in a jug and they were going to put a cork in it or not," he said.
Smith says he was stuck below deck for most of the ceremony, but he remembers that the officers wore khakis and open
collars with no tie and the enlisted wore non-dress whites. McArthur wanted the Japanese – who were dressed formally – to understand how little regard he held for them.
A beautiful mahogany table was sent over from a
British ship, but it proved too small to hold all the documents, so someone grabbed a table from the crew's mess quarters. They covered it with a green table cloth and spread the documents on it. Smith and most of the other 3,000
crew members sneaked glimpses of the arriving Japanese delegation. He says when they first came aboard it was overcast and ugly, but after the signing the sun lit up the sky.
"It was all over in 21 minutes," he says of this pivotal moment in U.S. history.
During clean-up after the signing they took the table and tossed it back into the crew's mess hall, where it was mixed back in with the
other tables. Smith says it finally occurred to someone that the table was a piece of history and they went looking for it. Since all those tables looked alike, Smith says someone grabbed one and said, "This is it" and sent it to
Annapolis where it's now housed behind glass.
Following the war, Smith said much of the crew of the Missouri was finally sent home, but he still had a year of active service to pull. He remained shipboard until his
enlistment was up, then left the Navy and married a Philadelphia girl named Barbara. Eventually, the couple would have two children – Nancy and Al, each of whom is the parent to two children of their own. Barbara died of cancer two
years ago and Smith continues to travel and run both his general contracting business and small used car lot.
Still a formidable physical presence, Smith looks people in the eye when he talks. His hands float through the
air, fingers stabbing home a point. And he makes a lot of points – this is an opinionated man and he doesn't care who knows it. He's proud of his Naval service.
Recently, Smith took his rumbling Carolina drawl to Hawaii,
where he saw the Missouri, anchored in her new home at Pearl Harbor, only yards from where the USS Arizona was sunk on Dec. 7, 1941, the day the U.S. went to war. The memorial now houses both the place where America entered World
War II and where it ended.
Smith hopes future generations who view the memorial will recognize the sacrifice made by the men who served aboard both ships.
"We were motivated out of patriotism and a sense of duty and
I wore my uniform with pride," Smith said.
