October 8, 2024 • 25 mins
In this episode I spoke with author Joe Pappalardo's regarding his book Inferno tells the true story of the men who flew the deadliest missions of World War II, and an unlikely hero who received the Medal of Honor in the midst of the bloodiest military campaign in aviation history.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:15):
Hello everyone, and welcome to the Ernie Pile World War
Two Museum Podcast, your podcast of Ernie Pyle, the voice
of the American soldier during World War Two. My name
is doug Hess and if you're tuning into the Ernie
Pile World War Two Museum Podcast, what we do on
this podcast is share with you pieces of Pile's life
from its humble beginning to an Indian on an Indiana
farm to becoming a potent, surprise winning American journalist and
(00:39):
war correspondent who is best known for his stories about
ordinary American soldiers during World War Two. And today we
have author Joel Popolaro am I saying that right, Papolardo Popolardo,
my apologies on his book Inferno. Joe, Welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
Oh it's a pleasure. Thank you for spending a few
minutes with us today to talk about your book. And
one thing that we always do with a lot of
our authors that come on, it's allowed them to really
kind of give an overview of what the book is about.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Yeah. Sure.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
In brief, it's the story of Maynard Smith, who was
a famous or infamous recipient of the medal of Honor
in World War Two. He was a ball ted gunner
and he flew five missions. On his first mission, he
basically single handedly saved the aircraft by putting out fires
and manning the other guns in the craft during a
(01:41):
horrible mission. And in subsequent life he was marked by
scandals and hoaxes and dubious sort of business practices.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
But you know his story of receiving medal.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
He was the first enlisted and to get that medal,
to receive the Medal of Honor, and he may have
been psychologically one of the worst people to bestow that
upon because he was not a great He was not
like the Memphis Bell crew where it was easy to
put him on a pedestal. He had a lot of
sort of personal clause that he indulged even during the war.
(02:17):
So he's a very interesting character study. It's a very
interesting time during the war as well, just because the
bombing campaign had changed so much from the precision bombing
and the daylight bombing campaign to what it became later
in the war, which is a lot more indiscriminate bombing.
So there's that in the backdrop, and he's sort of
involved in the early part of the war. So there's
(02:40):
a lot of aspects to the story beyond just a biography.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
But his story is very.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
Interesting, especially given your museum's focus on media and what
the media did to him, what the media was controlled
by the military. Certainly he brought him on the pedestal
and it sort of enabled him to act monstrously and
then cast them aside where the Memphis Bell Cruiser came around,
(03:05):
and then they cast the Memphis Bell cruise side and
just sent the planar around on the war bond drop.
It was easier to handle than the men. But so
that in and out tells what in front of who
tries to uncomb.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
This sure, you know, And when I was looking at
this book and then reading it, to me, this seemed
to be a book or a story that I thought
Pile would would enjoy because he was kind of that
ordinary soldier, if you will, he become an unlikely hero
and you kind of touched a little bit about that
as well, And to me, that's what kind of drew
(03:38):
me to this book. It kind of fascinated me with
it because I felt like, who knows that it kind
of felt right into what Pile would be writing about
and be interested in.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
He certainly saw himself and was presented as the everyday airman,
the enlisted guy who you know, he was a lot
older than the He was not a typical airman, but
by any stretch, he was only in the Air Force
to avoid a jail sentence for not paying his child support.
So I mean, he wasn't the quintessential sort of Medal
(04:12):
of Honor recipient by any stretch. And that's but that's
also why he became famous.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
I mean he was.
Speaker 3 (04:18):
Andy Rooney made him famous by or made him an
iconoclastic hero by pointing out that he was on punishment
KP duty when they arrived to present the Medal of
Honor to him, and I mean directly from peeling potatoes
to an airfield where he got the medal. So so
(04:39):
he was that he was cut in that mold, and
he was a pain in the ass to his superiors.
And the more you know, buttoned up you were, the
more he resented that. And that stemmed from his childhold,
childhood delinquent days all the way up to him post
war trying to sell fermomail enhancement cream and perpetuating you know,
(05:01):
hoax is where you rescue women who are going to
jump off of buildings and all this behavior. It all
is consistent with his character. Not that he didn't have
the bravery and not that he didn't have pluck and courage.
He did have all that, but it came with this
incredible ego and serve of narcissism, and that that was
(05:23):
interesting to put that into that World War II context
and Greatest Generation and all of a sudden you see
this other side of a very human human being in
you know, who wants to live and who wants to
do well and wants to chase women and make money
in the midst of you know, the greatest air campaign ever.
So the juxtaposition was was amazing too. As the more
(05:44):
I explored it, the deep recupe sure.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
And it seems to me that there was several different
aspects of this book. You know, you had the war hero,
you have his childhood trouble past. I don't want to
say trouble maker, but the troublemaker. It seemed like there
was just so many different moving parts. Was it hard
to condense it into one book?
Speaker 3 (06:07):
It was going to be a challenge, for sure, just
because of the you know, because the narrative Edmond Floyd
I wanted it to sort of time to say something
about the Air War as well, and what was he
reacting to at the time, you know, when he got
the medal, when he flew the missions after the missions,
(06:28):
and when I saw the war from that airman's perspective,
it started getting a lot easier, and it got easier.
So when I started talking to his family, and because
the aviation history part and the documenting all the missions
and documenting all that around him was one thing, but
candy canning his experiences in that was going to be
(06:49):
the challenge. And his personal story of how he met
his wife and everything that all tied in chronologically with these.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
Developments of the Air War.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
So you have these two very strange opposed storylines, but
they're happening at the same time.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
And that was the world he was living in.
Speaker 3 (07:04):
He was watching Glenn Miller and watching the air briefings
and watching the planning of the Normandy invasions from the
airpower perspective.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
He saw all of that, he was involved in all.
Speaker 3 (07:14):
At the same time, he was selling washing machines to
English people and chasing you know, teenage air wardens around.
So I mean it's an he's a fascinating character. And
his focus and what was important to him at the
time versus a military historian or a reader of these
books are very different. He was very focused on living.
(07:35):
He wasn't focused on sacrificing himself, and really who was.
These are human beings. That's what made them so brave
and amazing that they pulled this off. They weren't born
to die or born to be the greatest generation.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
We put that on them, and I think sometimes we.
Speaker 3 (07:50):
Sort of lose that when we rightly point out how
brave and here what they were. I mean, there's no
there's no diminishing of that. If anything, I think it
enhances it.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
But sure, how did you come about writing this story?
I mean, how did this come about for you to
want to write this story?
Speaker 2 (08:08):
I get there was two very fortunate breaks for me.
Speaker 3 (08:11):
One, I know the editor of American Way magazine and
he needed someone to cover a Medal of Honor flight
that they do. So I got to ride on, you know,
an airplane and attended banquet with Medal of Honor recipients
from you know, from from every war. So I got
to meet a lot of really cool people. And during
(08:32):
the banquet, someone had an offhand mention of Snuffy Smith,
and I thought, oh, who's that and he's like, oh,
that's the Medal of Honor, you know, reciple. We sort
of don't talk about that much though. Now here's someone
now this is definitely has been being captured, can never
be dared of them. So years later, so I look
him up and I think it's fascinating. There's no book
(08:54):
about him, but there's plenty of sort of material, a
lot of which is you know, mostly were partly accurate.
Rooney even sort of avidly sort of bismarched him later
in life. And that's the story that's stuck. And that
was it with Maynard Snuffey Smith. And then my agent
(09:14):
said that I got a new literary Sorry, this is
really in the weeks. I got a literate agent who said,
you know what, we need a World War two bomber book.
There's all the line up, and they said, you know
anyone who could write that? And I said, I could
write that, and I know exactly who i'd want, Maynard
Snuffery Smithling Mike said, how do you even know this?
It's this great, under undercovered story. I never had an
(09:37):
excuse to pursue it for anyone. And it's not the
kind of thing Smithsonian Air and Space Magazine bends over
to run, right, I mean, so what am I going
to do? So and the pitch worked, and I wrote
it really quickly, and it really just flew off the fingertips.
I got very lucky meeting the family, and they were
very cooperat extremely cooperative and appreciative that I explored his
(09:59):
combat record and I gave him a fair shake, and
they knew his flaws and his good characteristics better than
any so they and it's like that. I've been covering
the military a long time for magazines and trade magazines
as well before that. If you're fair, that is all
that they ask, you know, that's it. And I thought
(10:21):
it was a fair treatment of his life is But
it wasn't trashing him, certainly anymore than he had been
trashed by Andy Rooney and others. So I tried to
be definitive about it and give him the fair shape
of you know, including his or point of view of
what he saw, but while not shying away from his
negative side in the least.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
Was that tough to find that balance? To find that balance,
I mean, because you have to tell the story but
like you said, you want to make sure it's fair.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
Some of the most and I want to say damageing,
but sure damaging things came from the family, and I
don't mean sort of reputationally damaging although, but character building
wise like this. The anecdote about him selling washing machines
that he was taking from the base and selling to
English people came from his son and his wife's his
(11:20):
brother in law, and they both told me different sort
of sides of that story about he was selling these
washing machines and taking them from the base and just drifting,
you know, out driving around and he was unsuccessful at it.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
So I would never have gotten that anywhere else.
Speaker 3 (11:34):
So the family knew this guy, and he was so consistent,
and I think if you really want to honor someone's memory,
you don't cover up that stuff.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
You lean into it.
Speaker 3 (11:44):
And I don't think that the Maynard Smith senior, if
you know, would have a problem with the book. I
think he would say, ask me, because he was consistently iconoclastic.
He was the consistent outsider, and if it was a
glowing biography, he would love it. But I think he
would also secretly sort.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
Of hate it. Should think I was an idiot. He
would dislike me.
Speaker 3 (12:08):
I think he'd rather it be fair, especially when it
comes to what he did in World War.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
Two, when people accuse him of being put.
Speaker 3 (12:16):
On milk runs after you know, easy missions, after basically
his first one, and that isn't true.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
And I was very.
Speaker 3 (12:23):
Happy to at least dispel that that room where to
disservice all the people died on the missions that he
flew on. So and he did get taken off after
just five and that's that's inaugural. But the whole point
was that there was an airman who survived that you
could give the middle to. Because the casualty rates were
so appallingly hot, having him killed would have been a morale.
(12:44):
It would have been devastating. So I understand the decision
to take him off. And he was also very very
affected by what he had experienced, and he was not
as he was not the same gunner as when he started,
because those that first mission and subsequent ones very much
rattled him. So that so we became a danger to
himself and others. If you're not one hundred percent.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
It's interesting Joe that you mentioned that, because I was
going to ask you that is how how did that
affect him? You know, I'm sure he went in as
one person after that mission came out completely different. Did
it make him better or worse? And I use that
word loosely.
Speaker 3 (13:22):
I I have a whole theory about this in the book,
because it's not.
Speaker 2 (13:26):
My place to God for readers that one, right, I'm
trying to do it.
Speaker 3 (13:29):
Now, and I certainly was trying to do it with
I was in a conversation with a filmmaker and we
were trying to sort of condense journey or what what
have you.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
We're talking to us.
Speaker 3 (13:40):
Of Hollywood terms, right, yeah, And I thought, there is
the moment where what does he do that is truly
selfless during this entire book? What is that moment where
he does rise above stuff? And a truly uncharitable person
could say everything he did on board the airplane on
that P seven, you know, on May first, was to
(14:02):
save his own ass. I mean he really that was
self preservation. Okay, But at the end of the mission,
they're flying home, they're not entirely sure they're going to
make it because the plane is so shot up, but
it's not on fire anymore, and he's tending to his
wounded crewmate and is there and he's lying to him.
He's saying, yeah, it's okay, it's gonna be all right,
it's gonna be all right. That's the moment where he's
(14:25):
that's his most human self, like he he had a
chance maybe of maturing as a human, of saying, I
just experienced something very profoundly right, and instead of that,
he gets put into sort of the media military, media machine,
propaganda machine, and is just empowered to become this other
sort of monstrous celebrity. And then it's taken away from
(14:48):
him entirely and he's demoted all in the span of
it been a year. So psychologically, that is a you know,
the military is often accused of using people and using
them up and they're just general issue, but they don't
really think about that propaganda part of it that often.
You know, what it did to the Memphis Bell Crew,
you know, destroyed marriages, alcoholisms, and put all back on
(15:10):
the front line in Japan. It was just you know,
it's an interesting aspect of that, and I think that
he could have maybe been that it could have been
that transformative experience of going to war and rising above
being part of something big, and it could have bettered
him and he got completely or it could have killed him.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
Right just easily.
Speaker 3 (15:31):
But if you really want to look at his narrative art,
he never had a chance to experience that. And I've
seen that having you know, embedded and you know, in
Afghanistan with you know, with troops and talking to pilots
and talking with a lot of people about their military careers,
and people have dropped out, people stay in. You know,
you do have that, you have that chance to experience that,
(15:53):
and it was sort of taken away from him and
because of that hero designation, and he couldn't handle the
celebrit even been a little bit, and it warped is
the rest of his life as much as as a
form of PTSD. In a sense, it was strange to
look at it that way, especially when you're chronicling all
the people are dying and being maimed and the prisoners
(16:14):
of war and his friends who were getting killed and
taking prisoner. But to him that was as traumatic as
that may first mission was the reaction to it and
making him a hero, you know, not to say that
he wasn't, but I mean, one thing that you can
definitely say is anyone who stepped in those planes was heroic. Yeah,
(16:36):
even in training, I would I would go so far
to say, so, you know, none of this diminishes any
of them in my mind, you.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
Know, so, yeah, that's my strength.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
Joe, did anything surprise you during the research, interviewing of
the family, the writing of the book, anything really just
kind of sticks out that that really surprised you.
Speaker 3 (17:00):
There was a there was a lot of moments. There
was a lot of moments for me, some of the
a lot of which deal with the family and deal
with this sort of personal life and the artifacts that
he kept. And I think one thing that that definitely
surprised me was the transfer, how the transformation of Curtis
(17:22):
will may and how much he sort of personified how
the air tactics changed. I didn't know that much about
him as a proponent of precision air strikes because I
knew the you know, the strategic Air Command guy that
I never never looked at where he came from in
any sort of way, and narratively that became a big
part of of the book. And so he had a
(17:44):
transformation and Maynard sort of had one, and the Air
Force had one, and the warhead and so everything was
sort of changing and very and all the air tactics
and the equipment, all that's changing, and the Germans are changing,
you know, and so it made it very dynamic to
include that. And I didn't expect to pair so well
within the book. I thought that would be more of
(18:04):
a stretch. And I really liked how that all sort
of fell together. And as things ramped up and things
got bloodier casualty wise and inflicting the civilian casualties.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
You know, things were to cherry rat it from Maynard
in a way.
Speaker 3 (18:20):
It really you know, it became more extreme, both of
the narratives as they went along. I was not expecting
that until I was writing yet, and I wrote it
at the you know, chronologically.
Speaker 2 (18:31):
I didn't candy both narratives.
Speaker 3 (18:33):
I wrote those as they came through, which I wish
I had the discipline to do that now. But it
was just a white hot, you know, the key and
and so I was happy the way that got hung
together because you could get off balance, you know, if
there's a lot of great information but it doesn't fit
something Mainard Smith is doing, it's.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
You know what do you know what? Why are you
talking about that now?
Speaker 3 (18:55):
So his career as weird as it was, really did
carry through a lot of really good history of World
War two airpower, so I.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
Was I was very happy about that. I know we're
getting closer on time. But one last question. You know,
I'm looking at the book and I thought it was
really interesting. The last photo that you placed in the
book is talking about the eighth Air Force unveils a
plaque dedicating a portion of the headquarters to Snuffie Smith,
(19:23):
but his family was not notified. I just thought that
was kind of interesting that you threw that in there.
It's got a picture of the plaque and a couple
of servicemen there, but yet his family wasn't even notified for.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
Kind of an honor. I mean, not kind of an honor.
It is an honor.
Speaker 3 (19:41):
It's the interesting thing about that is not that the
family was mad, but that the family wasn't even surprised
that they weren't invented. There's any bitterness in that line.
It's kind of common from me. They were sort of non,
none chalant or nonplus. They sort of said, oh, yeah,
(20:02):
you know, they thought it was cool. They're like, oh
that that's nice, that's cool. So, yeah, you guys didn't
even know that happened, and they said, no, no, no one,
No one called us, who told us or reached out
or anything. And I thought, I'm kind of mad for
you guys, you know, but they that's the relationship. That's
they lived with Maynard Snuffy Smith and the rest of
(20:23):
it their whole lives. They knew better than I did
how they used him, and and they were still going
to use him. And they weren't surprised, and nowhere were
they disappointed. If anything, that they were happy that he
was recognized and that was and that was it. They
expected nothing from the Air Force, and I guess it's
(20:44):
interesting that I did expect more from the Air Force,
I guess. So you know, see, if you think that
the writer is a cynical one, you know that family
that they've been and they've been wonderful in touch with
with Maynard, are still on Facebook all the time, and
and he's just just a great guy and a great
(21:05):
resource and a great proponent for for his family, you know,
for his father, but for a lot of Air Force
veterans as well. So I really liked the association with
that family and so relieved that they took the book
in the spirit in which it was offered, which is,
this is the truth about about a person, a real
interesting character.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
And it sounds like they truly just embraced it.
Speaker 3 (21:29):
They leaned in and were very helpful, and they let
me into their home, let me into his archive, showed
me pictures, love letters, you know, and I'm not from
you know, from not from his mom, so you know,
stuff like that. They were very very candid. And when
you're an author, how do you reward that except by
really digging and getting every single piece of information that
they that they had never seen his mission records, you know,
(21:53):
and and then share that with everybody. You know, everyone
who wants to go to a library, wants to buy
the book or you know that that's a you know,
I tried to give it back to them with some faith,
but also by being honest and giving using the information
they gave me to tell people what they're what their
father was, like. I mean, it's a it was. It
was an honor to be able.
Speaker 2 (22:13):
To do that.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
Absolutely not everybody would have been as open and honest
about that either, I mean, I think it's I don't
I want to say this could be hard or easy
for people to take a slant one way or the other.
Speaker 3 (22:29):
Absolutely, and there was not much I offered them in
terms of trust. What can you say, trust me with
your memories? You know that's that's that's big. Oh look
I've done this for this magazine and that okay, what
does that mean for?
Speaker 2 (22:45):
You know?
Speaker 3 (22:45):
You chasing your book sales and the big it weighs
kind of heavy on you. And also every other airman
that I wrote about, and I write about a lot
of casualties, and that's a lot of family members who
might stumble across that. So you never want to be bossed.
You never want to ignore a tragedy or a triumph,
(23:05):
even if it's tangential too. And every time I would
point out, like Raymond Check, you know, people who touched
on Smith's career even a little bit, I gave special
attention to. And he has a horribly tragic ending. He
witnesses minute Smith's throwing of ammunition boxes outside of the
through the hole in the fuselage of the B seventeen,
(23:27):
which helps him you receive the medal, so he verifies
what this guy was doing.
Speaker 2 (23:31):
In the back of the plane.
Speaker 3 (23:33):
In a later mission, after Maynard is on the ground,
gets the medal and is enjoying his status check comes
up on a mission, he's going to get married, but
he gets killed, and his fiance is waited from the
land on his mission so that she can meet her
and congratulate him for finishing, and they land on a
different part of the airfield so they can get him
out of the pockit what's left of him. You can't
(23:55):
ignore that. You have to get that right too, So
every one of those stories kind of wait on me.
Did I get it right? That I have everything one
hundred percent? And my publisher helped a lot, like catching
one airplane name that I got wrong. It didn't match,
and I thought, you're checking the airplane names against the
serial numbers. Thank you so much thought that one and
(24:18):
it was very, very small, but that means the other
ones were right.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
And I had this huge wave of relief that I'm
not alone.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
Yeah, yeah, well, Joe, thank you so much for coming
on and spending some time with us today. I truly
enjoyed our conversation. I enjoyed the book into our audience.
Please go out and get a copy of Inferno. You're
going to be just as fascinated with the book as
you are with this conversation we've had here today and again, Joe,
(24:44):
thank you so much for coming out and spending a
few minutes with us today.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
It's my pleasure. I'm glad you guys are out there.
If you what you do.
Speaker 1 (24:51):
Yeah, well, thank you and thank you for listening to
this episode of the Ernie Powerworlward two Museum Podcast. Join
us next time for the latest edition. Thank you and
will see soon.
Hello everyone, and welcome to the Ernie Pile World War
Two Museum Podcast, your podcast of Ernie Pyle, the voice
of the American soldier during World War Two. My name
is doug Hess and if you're tuning into the Ernie
Pile World War Two Museum Podcast, what we do on
this podcast is share with you pieces of Pile's life
from its humble beginning to an Indian on an Indiana
farm to becoming a potent, surprise winning American journalist and
(00:39):
war correspondent who is best known for his stories about
ordinary American soldiers during World War Two. And today we
have author Joel Popolaro am I saying that right, Papolardo Popolardo,
my apologies on his book Inferno. Joe, Welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
Oh it's a pleasure. Thank you for spending a few
minutes with us today to talk about your book. And
one thing that we always do with a lot of
our authors that come on, it's allowed them to really
kind of give an overview of what the book is about.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Yeah. Sure.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
In brief, it's the story of Maynard Smith, who was
a famous or infamous recipient of the medal of Honor
in World War Two. He was a ball ted gunner
and he flew five missions. On his first mission, he
basically single handedly saved the aircraft by putting out fires
and manning the other guns in the craft during a
(01:41):
horrible mission. And in subsequent life he was marked by
scandals and hoaxes and dubious sort of business practices.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
But you know his story of receiving medal.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
He was the first enlisted and to get that medal,
to receive the Medal of Honor, and he may have
been psychologically one of the worst people to bestow that
upon because he was not a great He was not
like the Memphis Bell crew where it was easy to
put him on a pedestal. He had a lot of
sort of personal clause that he indulged even during the war.
(02:17):
So he's a very interesting character study. It's a very
interesting time during the war as well, just because the
bombing campaign had changed so much from the precision bombing
and the daylight bombing campaign to what it became later
in the war, which is a lot more indiscriminate bombing.
So there's that in the backdrop, and he's sort of
involved in the early part of the war. So there's
(02:40):
a lot of aspects to the story beyond just a biography.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
But his story is very.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
Interesting, especially given your museum's focus on media and what
the media did to him, what the media was controlled
by the military. Certainly he brought him on the pedestal
and it sort of enabled him to act monstrously and
then cast them aside where the Memphis Bell Cruiser came around,
(03:05):
and then they cast the Memphis Bell cruise side and
just sent the planar around on the war bond drop.
It was easier to handle than the men. But so
that in and out tells what in front of who
tries to uncomb.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
This sure, you know, And when I was looking at
this book and then reading it, to me, this seemed
to be a book or a story that I thought
Pile would would enjoy because he was kind of that
ordinary soldier, if you will, he become an unlikely hero
and you kind of touched a little bit about that
as well, And to me, that's what kind of drew
(03:38):
me to this book. It kind of fascinated me with
it because I felt like, who knows that it kind
of felt right into what Pile would be writing about
and be interested in.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
He certainly saw himself and was presented as the everyday airman,
the enlisted guy who you know, he was a lot
older than the He was not a typical airman, but
by any stretch, he was only in the Air Force
to avoid a jail sentence for not paying his child support.
So I mean, he wasn't the quintessential sort of Medal
(04:12):
of Honor recipient by any stretch. And that's but that's
also why he became famous.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
I mean he was.
Speaker 3 (04:18):
Andy Rooney made him famous by or made him an
iconoclastic hero by pointing out that he was on punishment
KP duty when they arrived to present the Medal of
Honor to him, and I mean directly from peeling potatoes
to an airfield where he got the medal. So so
(04:39):
he was that he was cut in that mold, and
he was a pain in the ass to his superiors.
And the more you know, buttoned up you were, the
more he resented that. And that stemmed from his childhold,
childhood delinquent days all the way up to him post
war trying to sell fermomail enhancement cream and perpetuating you know,
(05:01):
hoax is where you rescue women who are going to
jump off of buildings and all this behavior. It all
is consistent with his character. Not that he didn't have
the bravery and not that he didn't have pluck and courage.
He did have all that, but it came with this
incredible ego and serve of narcissism, and that that was
(05:23):
interesting to put that into that World War II context
and Greatest Generation and all of a sudden you see
this other side of a very human human being in
you know, who wants to live and who wants to
do well and wants to chase women and make money
in the midst of you know, the greatest air campaign ever.
So the juxtaposition was was amazing too. As the more
(05:44):
I explored it, the deep recupe sure.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
And it seems to me that there was several different
aspects of this book. You know, you had the war hero,
you have his childhood trouble past. I don't want to
say trouble maker, but the troublemaker. It seemed like there
was just so many different moving parts. Was it hard
to condense it into one book?
Speaker 3 (06:07):
It was going to be a challenge, for sure, just
because of the you know, because the narrative Edmond Floyd
I wanted it to sort of time to say something
about the Air War as well, and what was he
reacting to at the time, you know, when he got
the medal, when he flew the missions after the missions,
(06:28):
and when I saw the war from that airman's perspective,
it started getting a lot easier, and it got easier.
So when I started talking to his family, and because
the aviation history part and the documenting all the missions
and documenting all that around him was one thing, but
candy canning his experiences in that was going to be
(06:49):
the challenge. And his personal story of how he met
his wife and everything that all tied in chronologically with these.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
Developments of the Air War.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
So you have these two very strange opposed storylines, but
they're happening at the same time.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
And that was the world he was living in.
Speaker 3 (07:04):
He was watching Glenn Miller and watching the air briefings
and watching the planning of the Normandy invasions from the
airpower perspective.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
He saw all of that, he was involved in all.
Speaker 3 (07:14):
At the same time, he was selling washing machines to
English people and chasing you know, teenage air wardens around.
So I mean it's an he's a fascinating character. And
his focus and what was important to him at the
time versus a military historian or a reader of these
books are very different. He was very focused on living.
(07:35):
He wasn't focused on sacrificing himself, and really who was.
These are human beings. That's what made them so brave
and amazing that they pulled this off. They weren't born
to die or born to be the greatest generation.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
We put that on them, and I think sometimes we.
Speaker 3 (07:50):
Sort of lose that when we rightly point out how
brave and here what they were. I mean, there's no
there's no diminishing of that. If anything, I think it
enhances it.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
But sure, how did you come about writing this story?
I mean, how did this come about for you to
want to write this story?
Speaker 2 (08:08):
I get there was two very fortunate breaks for me.
Speaker 3 (08:11):
One, I know the editor of American Way magazine and
he needed someone to cover a Medal of Honor flight
that they do. So I got to ride on, you know,
an airplane and attended banquet with Medal of Honor recipients
from you know, from from every war. So I got
to meet a lot of really cool people. And during
(08:32):
the banquet, someone had an offhand mention of Snuffy Smith,
and I thought, oh, who's that and he's like, oh,
that's the Medal of Honor, you know, reciple. We sort
of don't talk about that much though. Now here's someone
now this is definitely has been being captured, can never
be dared of them. So years later, so I look
him up and I think it's fascinating. There's no book
(08:54):
about him, but there's plenty of sort of material, a
lot of which is you know, mostly were partly accurate.
Rooney even sort of avidly sort of bismarched him later
in life. And that's the story that's stuck. And that
was it with Maynard Snuffey Smith. And then my agent
(09:14):
said that I got a new literary Sorry, this is
really in the weeks. I got a literate agent who said,
you know what, we need a World War two bomber book.
There's all the line up, and they said, you know
anyone who could write that? And I said, I could
write that, and I know exactly who i'd want, Maynard
Snuffery Smithling Mike said, how do you even know this?
It's this great, under undercovered story. I never had an
(09:37):
excuse to pursue it for anyone. And it's not the
kind of thing Smithsonian Air and Space Magazine bends over
to run, right, I mean, so what am I going
to do? So and the pitch worked, and I wrote
it really quickly, and it really just flew off the fingertips.
I got very lucky meeting the family, and they were
very cooperat extremely cooperative and appreciative that I explored his
(09:59):
combat record and I gave him a fair shake, and
they knew his flaws and his good characteristics better than
any so they and it's like that. I've been covering
the military a long time for magazines and trade magazines
as well before that. If you're fair, that is all
that they ask, you know, that's it. And I thought
(10:21):
it was a fair treatment of his life is But
it wasn't trashing him, certainly anymore than he had been
trashed by Andy Rooney and others. So I tried to
be definitive about it and give him the fair shape
of you know, including his or point of view of
what he saw, but while not shying away from his
negative side in the least.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
Was that tough to find that balance? To find that balance,
I mean, because you have to tell the story but
like you said, you want to make sure it's fair.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
Some of the most and I want to say damageing,
but sure damaging things came from the family, and I
don't mean sort of reputationally damaging although, but character building
wise like this. The anecdote about him selling washing machines
that he was taking from the base and selling to
English people came from his son and his wife's his
(11:20):
brother in law, and they both told me different sort
of sides of that story about he was selling these
washing machines and taking them from the base and just drifting,
you know, out driving around and he was unsuccessful at it.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
So I would never have gotten that anywhere else.
Speaker 3 (11:34):
So the family knew this guy, and he was so consistent,
and I think if you really want to honor someone's memory,
you don't cover up that stuff.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
You lean into it.
Speaker 3 (11:44):
And I don't think that the Maynard Smith senior, if
you know, would have a problem with the book. I
think he would say, ask me, because he was consistently iconoclastic.
He was the consistent outsider, and if it was a
glowing biography, he would love it. But I think he
would also secretly sort.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
Of hate it. Should think I was an idiot. He
would dislike me.
Speaker 3 (12:08):
I think he'd rather it be fair, especially when it
comes to what he did in World War.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
Two, when people accuse him of being put.
Speaker 3 (12:16):
On milk runs after you know, easy missions, after basically
his first one, and that isn't true.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
And I was very.
Speaker 3 (12:23):
Happy to at least dispel that that room where to
disservice all the people died on the missions that he
flew on. So and he did get taken off after
just five and that's that's inaugural. But the whole point
was that there was an airman who survived that you
could give the middle to. Because the casualty rates were
so appallingly hot, having him killed would have been a morale.
(12:44):
It would have been devastating. So I understand the decision
to take him off. And he was also very very
affected by what he had experienced, and he was not
as he was not the same gunner as when he started,
because those that first mission and subsequent ones very much
rattled him. So that so we became a danger to
himself and others. If you're not one hundred percent.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
It's interesting Joe that you mentioned that, because I was
going to ask you that is how how did that
affect him? You know, I'm sure he went in as
one person after that mission came out completely different. Did
it make him better or worse? And I use that
word loosely.
Speaker 3 (13:22):
I I have a whole theory about this in the book,
because it's not.
Speaker 2 (13:26):
My place to God for readers that one, right, I'm
trying to do it.
Speaker 3 (13:29):
Now, and I certainly was trying to do it with
I was in a conversation with a filmmaker and we
were trying to sort of condense journey or what what
have you.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
We're talking to us.
Speaker 3 (13:40):
Of Hollywood terms, right, yeah, And I thought, there is
the moment where what does he do that is truly
selfless during this entire book? What is that moment where
he does rise above stuff? And a truly uncharitable person
could say everything he did on board the airplane on
that P seven, you know, on May first, was to
(14:02):
save his own ass. I mean he really that was
self preservation. Okay, But at the end of the mission,
they're flying home, they're not entirely sure they're going to
make it because the plane is so shot up, but
it's not on fire anymore, and he's tending to his
wounded crewmate and is there and he's lying to him.
He's saying, yeah, it's okay, it's gonna be all right,
it's gonna be all right. That's the moment where he's
(14:25):
that's his most human self, like he he had a
chance maybe of maturing as a human, of saying, I
just experienced something very profoundly right, and instead of that,
he gets put into sort of the media military, media machine,
propaganda machine, and is just empowered to become this other
sort of monstrous celebrity. And then it's taken away from
(14:48):
him entirely and he's demoted all in the span of
it been a year. So psychologically, that is a you know,
the military is often accused of using people and using
them up and they're just general issue, but they don't
really think about that propaganda part of it that often.
You know, what it did to the Memphis Bell Crew,
you know, destroyed marriages, alcoholisms, and put all back on
(15:10):
the front line in Japan. It was just you know,
it's an interesting aspect of that, and I think that
he could have maybe been that it could have been
that transformative experience of going to war and rising above
being part of something big, and it could have bettered
him and he got completely or it could have killed him.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
Right just easily.
Speaker 3 (15:31):
But if you really want to look at his narrative art,
he never had a chance to experience that. And I've
seen that having you know, embedded and you know, in
Afghanistan with you know, with troops and talking to pilots
and talking with a lot of people about their military careers,
and people have dropped out, people stay in. You know,
you do have that, you have that chance to experience that,
(15:53):
and it was sort of taken away from him and
because of that hero designation, and he couldn't handle the
celebrit even been a little bit, and it warped is
the rest of his life as much as as a
form of PTSD. In a sense, it was strange to
look at it that way, especially when you're chronicling all
the people are dying and being maimed and the prisoners
(16:14):
of war and his friends who were getting killed and
taking prisoner. But to him that was as traumatic as
that may first mission was the reaction to it and
making him a hero, you know, not to say that
he wasn't, but I mean, one thing that you can
definitely say is anyone who stepped in those planes was heroic. Yeah,
(16:36):
even in training, I would I would go so far
to say, so, you know, none of this diminishes any
of them in my mind, you.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
Know, so, yeah, that's my strength.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
Joe, did anything surprise you during the research, interviewing of
the family, the writing of the book, anything really just
kind of sticks out that that really surprised you.
Speaker 3 (17:00):
There was a there was a lot of moments. There
was a lot of moments for me, some of the
a lot of which deal with the family and deal
with this sort of personal life and the artifacts that
he kept. And I think one thing that that definitely
surprised me was the transfer, how the transformation of Curtis
(17:22):
will may and how much he sort of personified how
the air tactics changed. I didn't know that much about
him as a proponent of precision air strikes because I
knew the you know, the strategic Air Command guy that
I never never looked at where he came from in
any sort of way, and narratively that became a big
part of of the book. And so he had a
(17:44):
transformation and Maynard sort of had one, and the Air
Force had one, and the warhead and so everything was
sort of changing and very and all the air tactics
and the equipment, all that's changing, and the Germans are changing,
you know, and so it made it very dynamic to
include that. And I didn't expect to pair so well
within the book. I thought that would be more of
(18:04):
a stretch. And I really liked how that all sort
of fell together. And as things ramped up and things
got bloodier casualty wise and inflicting the civilian casualties.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
You know, things were to cherry rat it from Maynard
in a way.
Speaker 3 (18:20):
It really you know, it became more extreme, both of
the narratives as they went along. I was not expecting
that until I was writing yet, and I wrote it
at the you know, chronologically.
Speaker 2 (18:31):
I didn't candy both narratives.
Speaker 3 (18:33):
I wrote those as they came through, which I wish
I had the discipline to do that now. But it
was just a white hot, you know, the key and
and so I was happy the way that got hung
together because you could get off balance, you know, if
there's a lot of great information but it doesn't fit
something Mainard Smith is doing, it's.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
You know what do you know what? Why are you
talking about that now?
Speaker 3 (18:55):
So his career as weird as it was, really did
carry through a lot of really good history of World
War two airpower, so I.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
Was I was very happy about that. I know we're
getting closer on time. But one last question. You know,
I'm looking at the book and I thought it was
really interesting. The last photo that you placed in the
book is talking about the eighth Air Force unveils a
plaque dedicating a portion of the headquarters to Snuffie Smith,
(19:23):
but his family was not notified. I just thought that
was kind of interesting that you threw that in there.
It's got a picture of the plaque and a couple
of servicemen there, but yet his family wasn't even notified for.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
Kind of an honor. I mean, not kind of an honor.
It is an honor.
Speaker 3 (19:41):
It's the interesting thing about that is not that the
family was mad, but that the family wasn't even surprised
that they weren't invented. There's any bitterness in that line.
It's kind of common from me. They were sort of non,
none chalant or nonplus. They sort of said, oh, yeah,
(20:02):
you know, they thought it was cool. They're like, oh
that that's nice, that's cool. So, yeah, you guys didn't
even know that happened, and they said, no, no, no one,
No one called us, who told us or reached out
or anything. And I thought, I'm kind of mad for
you guys, you know, but they that's the relationship. That's
they lived with Maynard Snuffy Smith and the rest of
(20:23):
it their whole lives. They knew better than I did
how they used him, and and they were still going
to use him. And they weren't surprised, and nowhere were
they disappointed. If anything, that they were happy that he
was recognized and that was and that was it. They
expected nothing from the Air Force, and I guess it's
(20:44):
interesting that I did expect more from the Air Force,
I guess. So you know, see, if you think that
the writer is a cynical one, you know that family
that they've been and they've been wonderful in touch with
with Maynard, are still on Facebook all the time, and
and he's just just a great guy and a great
(21:05):
resource and a great proponent for for his family, you know,
for his father, but for a lot of Air Force
veterans as well. So I really liked the association with
that family and so relieved that they took the book
in the spirit in which it was offered, which is,
this is the truth about about a person, a real
interesting character.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
And it sounds like they truly just embraced it.
Speaker 3 (21:29):
They leaned in and were very helpful, and they let
me into their home, let me into his archive, showed
me pictures, love letters, you know, and I'm not from
you know, from not from his mom, so you know,
stuff like that. They were very very candid. And when
you're an author, how do you reward that except by
really digging and getting every single piece of information that
they that they had never seen his mission records, you know,
(21:53):
and and then share that with everybody. You know, everyone
who wants to go to a library, wants to buy
the book or you know that that's a you know,
I tried to give it back to them with some faith,
but also by being honest and giving using the information
they gave me to tell people what they're what their
father was, like. I mean, it's a it was. It
was an honor to be able.
Speaker 2 (22:13):
To do that.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
Absolutely not everybody would have been as open and honest
about that either, I mean, I think it's I don't
I want to say this could be hard or easy
for people to take a slant one way or the other.
Speaker 3 (22:29):
Absolutely, and there was not much I offered them in
terms of trust. What can you say, trust me with
your memories? You know that's that's that's big. Oh look
I've done this for this magazine and that okay, what
does that mean for?
Speaker 2 (22:45):
You know?
Speaker 3 (22:45):
You chasing your book sales and the big it weighs
kind of heavy on you. And also every other airman
that I wrote about, and I write about a lot
of casualties, and that's a lot of family members who
might stumble across that. So you never want to be bossed.
You never want to ignore a tragedy or a triumph,
(23:05):
even if it's tangential too. And every time I would
point out, like Raymond Check, you know, people who touched
on Smith's career even a little bit, I gave special
attention to. And he has a horribly tragic ending. He
witnesses minute Smith's throwing of ammunition boxes outside of the
through the hole in the fuselage of the B seventeen,
(23:27):
which helps him you receive the medal, so he verifies
what this guy was doing.
Speaker 2 (23:31):
In the back of the plane.
Speaker 3 (23:33):
In a later mission, after Maynard is on the ground,
gets the medal and is enjoying his status check comes
up on a mission, he's going to get married, but
he gets killed, and his fiance is waited from the
land on his mission so that she can meet her
and congratulate him for finishing, and they land on a
different part of the airfield so they can get him
out of the pockit what's left of him. You can't
(23:55):
ignore that. You have to get that right too, So
every one of those stories kind of wait on me.
Did I get it right? That I have everything one
hundred percent? And my publisher helped a lot, like catching
one airplane name that I got wrong. It didn't match,
and I thought, you're checking the airplane names against the
serial numbers. Thank you so much thought that one and
(24:18):
it was very, very small, but that means the other
ones were right.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
And I had this huge wave of relief that I'm
not alone.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
Yeah, yeah, well, Joe, thank you so much for coming
on and spending some time with us today. I truly
enjoyed our conversation. I enjoyed the book into our audience.
Please go out and get a copy of Inferno. You're
going to be just as fascinated with the book as
you are with this conversation we've had here today and again, Joe,
(24:44):
thank you so much for coming out and spending a
few minutes with us today.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
It's my pleasure. I'm glad you guys are out there.
If you what you do.
Speaker 1 (24:51):
Yeah, well, thank you and thank you for listening to
this episode of the Ernie Powerworlward two Museum Podcast. Join
us next time for the latest edition. Thank you and
will see soon.
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