25. A Mission That Started Easy, Before the Plot Changed
Andy Rooney had a good take on people like Smith: “In the real military such men are the misfits that cannot be changed, only tolerated; until they can be transferred elsewhere and become someone else’s problem. They are certainly not the kind of soldier one expects to become a genuine hero as had Sergeant Maynard Smith. Perhaps no one in the 306th Bomb Squadron was more surprised that Snuffy Smith had become a hero to the Air Force and a household name back in America, than the disheveled little man himself”.
Because of his attitude, few aircrews wanted Smith. It took six weeks before he flew his first combat mission, on May 1st, 1943, as a ball turret gunner. That day, 78 B-17 “Flying Fortress” heavy bombers targeted German U-boat pens in Saint-Nazaire, in occupied France. The mission went well at first, with no German fighters encountered en route. Flak was lighter than expected above the target, and the few German fighters that took to the sky – after the bombs had already been released – were easily evaded when the B-17s flew into cloud cover. Then the story’s plot changed, because such good fortune was too good to last, and it didn’t.
