Italians, Canadians gather to honour living legend: VC winner Smoky Smith
http://start.shaw.ca/Start/enCA/news/NewsStory.htm?type=n&src=n102963A.xmlCESENA, Italy (CP) - If he had a choice, Ernest (Smoky) Smith probably would opt not to have had to do it all. But if he had to do it again, Canada's most famous soldier and last living winner of the Victoria Cross surely wouldn't change a thing.
On a rainy October night beside an Italian river in 1944, the feisty British Colombian unleashed a few minutes of fury that saved untold lives and changed his own forever, singlehandedly fighting off German tanks and dozens of enemy troops.
Sixty years later, Italians and Canadians gathered beneath the walls of an 800-year-old castle Friday to honour Smith, where his actions on that road in a place he'd never heard of were hailed as an inspiration to all his countrymen for time immemorial.
To Smith, it was simple: kill or be killed. He was scared but he couldn't let his fear gain the best of him or he would die.
"If you're not afraid, there's something wrong with you," he said this week in an interview with The Canadian Press.
"You've got to do it. Don't worry about it."
"Do it."
In a warm ceremony filled with tales, tears and tributes, officials unveiled a plaque commemorating that night of Oct. 21-22, 1944.
Gov. Gen. Adrienne Clarkson, Veterans Affairs Minister Albina Guarnieiri and the mayor of the ancient town by the Savio River all spoke of Smith's incredible solo battle against overwhelming odds.
Clarkson, who has developed a rapport with the 90-year-old Smith over four Remembrance Days and other ceremonies since her swearing in as governer general, said his feats that night resonated far beyond the moment into the hearts of generations of Canadians.
"Someone once said that courage is rightly esteemed as the first of human qualities because it is the quality that guarantees all the others," she said.
"It is the underlying, rock-like base on which we can live truly human lives."
"(It is) something he did not only in one battle, not only in the campaign of Italy but for all of us. We are more human because one of our members is capable of such a thing."
Sixteen Canadians have won the VC, three of them in Italy; 307 died in the battle for Cesena, where on Friday, Smith received a standing ovation as the plaque destined for the Savio riverbank where he fought was unveiled.
Irreverant, sharp-witted and something of a trouble-maker, Smoky Smith and his deeds that night are the stuff of legend.
Already wounded once in Sicily, he had returned to cross the Savio River with his Seaforth Highlanders, the spearhead of an attack aimed at establishing a bridgehead in the push to liberate Cesena and ultimately break through the Germans' Gothic Line.
But the rains were so heavy the river rose two metres in five hours. The banks were too soft for tanks or anti-tank guns to cross in support of the rifle companies.
As the right forward company consolidated its objective, the Germans counter-attacked with three Panther tanks, two self-propelled guns and about 30 infantry.
"The situation appeared hopeless," said Smith's citation announcing he had received the Commonwealth's highest military honour 60 years ago.
A 30-year-old private at the time, Smith led his three-man anti-tank group across an open field under heavy fire. Leaving an anti-tank weapon with one of his men, he led Pte. Jimmy Tennant across the road for another.
"We got hit with grenades," Smith recalled.
"We got grenades thrown all over us."
"I don't know how I didn't get hit. He (Tennant) got hit in the shoulder and arm."
"So I said: 'Get in that ditch and stay there. Don't move."'
"So we stayed right there and I never got a mark."
Smith had a tommy gun - a close-range submachine-gun - a Bren gun machine-gun and a PIAT, or Projector, Infantry, Anti-Tank gun.
He also had hundreds of rounds of machine-gun ammunition strung around his neck and hanging off his body.
"We had tried to get a German bazooka, which we figured was twice the weapon we had," he said.
"But they wouldn't let us have it. You know why?"
"It wasn't British."
The pair were no sooner into a ditch when a Panther came toward them, firing all the way.
Smith waited until the 45-tonne vehicle was less than 10 metres away before he jumped out from his cover, laid down and fired back.
He scored a direct hit, disabling the tank.
"I hit it in the side or the track," said Smith.
"A tank is pretty hard to hit. Sometimes the round would just bounce off it."
"I could see it face on."
Immediately, 10 German Panzergrenadier troops jumped off and charged him.
"I killed four of them with my tommy gun. That scared them off."
"They were up close - about 10 feet or so."
Another tank opened fire. More enemy began closing on Smith's position.
Smith grabbed more magazines and "steadfastly held his position," said the citation.
"It was just a bunch of rocks," Smith said.
"You're not fighting on the prairies, you know. You try and keep out of sight."
"You find yourself a hunk of ground you can hang onto. That's the way you win wars, I think."
He fired another round at an approaching tank. It turned away. As each German neared him, Smith fired them.
The rest eventually turned and withdrew "in disorder," the citation said.
"Even Germans don't like to be shot," Smith said.
From a distance, a tank continued firing. Smith helped a badly bleeding Tennant up and the two of them made their way back across the road to a church, where Smith left his buddy in the care of some medics.
Dead Germans lay strewn all over the road.
"I don't take prisoners. Period," Smith said.
"I'm not paid to take prisoners. I'm paid to kill them."
"That's all there is to it."
Smith heard he'd won the Victoria Cross about seven weeks after the fight. His reputation as a party animal preceded him. Military police were sent to take him to the ceremony with King George VI in London.
"They picked me up in Naples or somewhere and they put me in jail," Smith recalled with his impish grin.
"Don't let him loose in this town. Don't let him loose."
"He's a dangerous fellow."
"I liked to party. I'd have a big goddamn party and they'd say: 'Where is he now? Oh, he's drunk downtown."'
After the war, Smith worked a couple of years before he rejoined the army to go and fight in the Korean War.
"After I got in the army, they wouldn't let me go. They said: 'You got a VC, you're not allowed to fight any more."
"I said: 'Why didn't you tell me before I rejoined?"
He was promoted sergeant, then retired with full pension at 50. He also became a newspaper photographer before starting his own travel business.
He chuckles.
"I've never had a job. Never."
"Even before the war, I never had a job. I worked for Smoky Smith."
"He's the only boss I know who's good to me."
He retired at 82. He's 90 now and pretty much confined to a wheelchair. He has a bad cough. His beloved cigars and scotch have taken their toll.
Jimmy Tennant survived the war. Smith helped him find a job with the Workers Compensation Board when they returned to Canada. Tennant had lost a chunk of bone in his arm so it was shorter than the other by about five centimetres.
Tennant lived a long and happy life, not far from Smith in Vancouver. The two remained friends until Tennant died of lung cancer years ago.
"He was a good guy," Smith said.
Smith's life was never the same again. Strange women kiss him. Countless men want their pictures taken with him. Children smother him with affection. He's met kings and queens and prime ministers and presidents.
He loves the attention.
On Friday, he clutched a picture of the tank he knocked out, lying tilted on an embankment by the roadside in front of a ruin, its gun cocked leftward.
Later, he privately returned to the site where it all happened. It was barely recognizable. The church is long gone and the road has been paved over.
The war, he said, didn't darken his soul and weigh on his heart the way it does some veterans.
"Once it's over, it's over," he said.
"It was a good life."