By
Jan Biles
Created October 30, 2009 at 10:23pm
Updated October 31, 2009 at 12:48am
Halloween doesn't conjure up images of ghosts and goblins for Topeka resident Edward "Smitty" Smith. This time of year, his mind wanders back to a bloody battlefield in Marieulles, France, where he was injured not once but twice on Oct. 31, 1944.
"The Lord was with me," Smith, 93, said, recalling the battle.
Smith grew up in Pottawatomie County on his parents' farm, four miles east of Westmoreland. After school, he worked in a blacksmith shop and for the Civilian Conservation Corps before entering the Army on July 13, 1942. He was 26.
He was stationed at Fort Leavenworth, where he was trained as a rifleman, and at Camp Swift and Fort Sam Houston, both in Texas, before finding himself in a tent on the Mojave Desert, where he and his fellow soldiers learned to navigate the dry terrain.
"We walked 30 miles in the sand in one day," he said. "We were sore and stiff for two days. We could hardly move."
His training continued at camps in Louisiana and Pennsylvania before being transferred in the fall of 1944 to Camp Miles Standish in Massachusetts, where he joined other troops on a ship headed to England and then a month later on a plane to Omaha Beach in France, where 2,200 American troops had been killed earlier that year during the D-Day invasion.
When volunteers were sought to drive supply trucks, Smith raised his hand. He hauled ammunition, clothing, gasoline and other items to Rheims, France, for about a month.
"We hauled a load of paratrooper boots one time," he said.
The relative safety of Smith's tour of duty came to a halt when he and other members of the 95th Division were sent to relieve troops fighting on the front lines at Marieulles. His days in battle were short-lived.
On Oct. 31, Smith said he, another soldier and a lieutenant were sent ahead of his platoon -- 1st Platoon, Company E, 378th Infantry -- on a combat patrol to check the location of enemy troops.
"I saw what looked like spider webs in the trees," he said. "They were booby traps."
He also saw a trench with German soldiers and a minefield a short distance away.
A newspaper clipping announcing the awarding of a Silver Medal to Smith by Maj. Gen. Harry Twaddle, commanding general of the 95th Division, describes his wartime actions:
"At this point, you displayed great and courageous initiative by rushing forward and pointing out booby traps to enable members of your squad to proceed safely. Reaching the edge of a clearing you dashed into the clearing and emptied your rifle point blank into the nearest enemy foxhole. You then ran behind a large tree, reloaded and repeated this action on a second enemy foxhole.
"You returned and for the third time rushed an enemy position, throwing grenades in the foxholes.
"All this action was done under heavy enemy small arm and machine gun fire and returning from your third gallant raid you were seriously wounded in the left arm by enemy rifle fire. You then jumped into a foxhole for cover, setting off a booby trap, which wounded you the second time (in the left leg). But even after this second wound, it was only at your squad leader's order that you went to the rear."
Smith said he secured his wounded arm to his jacket with some clean socks he was carrying and then walked back to the Army camp. After being patched up at a field hospital, he was flown to England, where he recovered for 2 ½ months before embarking on a ship to New York City.
After spending about a year rehabilitating in Palo Alto, Calif., Smith was honorably discharged as a buck sergeant on Oct. 8, 1945. In addition to the Silver Medal, Smith received a Purple Heart, Combat Medal, Victory Medal and European Campaign Medal, as well as other medals and citations.
Smith said he returned to Kansas and lived on his parents' farm near Holton. He worked as a welder at the Case dealership in Holton before moving in 1956 to Topeka, where he worked for Kaw Paving Co. and then Quality Excavating Inc. He retired in the early 1980s.
