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Plot Twists From History That Still Surprise People

Khalid Elhassan May 15, 2022 38 min

Michael Rockefeller surrounded by New Guinea aborigines. Smithsonian Magazine

23. A Plot Twist That Transformed the Tale of a Jerk Into the Saga of a Hero

Plot Twists - Staff Sergeant Maynard Harrison Smith after his first mission — Staff Sergeant Maynard Harrison Smith after his first mission. US Air Force

Maynard Smith had his hands full tending to the wounded comrades while fighting off an inferno, when things took yet another turn for the worse. German FW-190 fighters spotted Snuffy’s stricken B-17, and fell upon the bomber to finish it off. Snuffy was the only crewman physically able to man the machine guns and try to fight them off. So he alternated between firing bursts from the B-17’s left and right waist guns, fighting the flames, and comforting injured crewmen. Over the next ninety minutes, Smith put on a virtuoso multitasking performance, as he exerted himself more frantically than a one-legged man at an ass-kicking contest.

Snuffy Smith the hero was a plot twist nobody saw coming. Eventually, the bomber reached England, landed at the first available airfield, and broke in half soon as it touched down. It had over 3,500 bullet and shrapnel holes in it. The pilot wrote that Snuffy was “solely responsible for the return of the aircraft and lives of everyone aboard“, and he was recommended for a Medal of Honor. On July 15^th, 1943, the Eighth Air Force arranged a ceremony covered by two radio stations, for Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson to personally present Smith with the nation’s highest award.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.