Forgotten Hoosiers: Profiles from Indiana's Hidden History

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INTRODUCTION

How quickly we forget the number of Hoosiers who have done important things in our culture. Part of the forgetfulness is generational; as the aging die off, youths find the recollection of past Hoosiers growing dimmer. More than the passing of torches consigns many Indiana luminaries to the dustbin of yesteryear. Hoosiers have touched so many developments—especially during the period of relatively slow progress before the space age—that remembering all of them is challenging.

Past Hoosiers have contributed to government, science, health, industry, arts and letters, music, the military and sports, and the list goes on and on. None of this takes into consideration the many movers and shakers who were not born in Indiana but rather came here during their productive years. This is offset, in its own way, by the many Hoosiers who spent precious few years in Indiana before going to prominence elsewhere. Abraham Lincoln, to use an extreme example, is a viable candidate for the Hoosier label; before rising to fame, he spent his youth in Indiana. Even Abe himself sometimes mentioned his Indiana period as formative.

Countless others made fleeting imprints on the Hoosier spirit. Kenesaw Mountain Landis, the man who cleaned up baseball as its first czar, was a high school dropout at Logansport. But Landis was born in Ohio. Dr. John R. Hurdy, although instrumental in the organization of the Indiana Board of Health, also was an Ohioan. Author Rex Stout was born in Indiana. The Nero Wolfe creator only lived in Noblesville until he was one year old. He joked that he left because I was fed up with Indiana politics. Herb Shriner—generally associated with Indiana by those who still remember that droll comedian—was not a native; he said he came here as soon as I heard about it. Clearly, deciding who among the former notables should be jogged into memory is a subjective task.

This volume tries to tiptoe through the maze of Hoosier accomplishments by choosing a few Hoosiers. Clearly, fame and accomplishment are close calls in many cases. Also clearly, no compilation of noted forgotten Hoosier could be considered remotely complete. Some of these Hoosiers have well-known names; the fact that they came from Indiana in the first place has lapsed in Hoosier memories. Whatever the reasons, all of these Hoosiers are worth remembering. You are welcome to make your own list of people from Indiana, beyond these, who should not be allowed to fall from the public consciousness.

AMERICAN (HOOSIER) BULLDOG

General Walter Bedell Smith

I am lost in admiration of your patience, ability and skill.

–note from General Dwight D. Eisenhower to General Walter Bedell Smith

Perhaps no Hoosier had a more pivotal role in World War II and is so widely forgotten as General Walter Bedell Smith. General Dwight D. Eisenhower called him the manager of the war. He represented Eisenhower at the surrenders of both Italy and Germany. An Indianapolis native, Smith had risen from private to four-star general without ever having attended West Point Military Academy or college. Even before the war, he was instrumental in a major army decision, although perhaps few realized its implications until later.

Smith, affectionately known as Beetle, was General Eisenhower’s chief of staff. He was such an integral part of the Allied effort that, had there been television in those days, World War II might have been known as The Ike and Beetle Show. But before the war started, Smith was secretary for General George Marshall, chief of staff in the War Department. At one point during the job with Marshall, Smith recommended that the army purchase forty vehicles from the Bantam Motor Company. The vehicle became the jeep. Untold numbers were later purchased and used by the army.

The jeep was a mainstay of quick transportation for everyone from top officers on down in the war and for years afterward. Its name was later transferred to civilian vehicles, too.

A graduate of Emmerick Manual High School in Indianapolis, Smith had little public recognition, some say, because he never had an army field command. He labored mostly as an administrator, organizer, troubleshooter and expediter. The military gives more accolades to martial leadership as opposed to managerial skill.

Walter Bedell Smith was wounded overseas in World War I but, as a general, supervised the surrenders of Italy and Germany in World War II.

Aside from that, though, Smith also was uncompromising, petulant, wrathful, stubborn and irritable. He was short tempered with underlings in his office, although he could be diplomatic with fellow officers.

Eisenhower called Smith the best chief of staff ever. It may have been an exaggeration, but few had Smith’s military experience. As Eisenhower’s representative, Smith signed the Italian surrender document in September 1943, and in May 1945 he headed the group accepting the surrender of Germany in a schoolhouse in Reims, France. Smith’s refusal to budge on complete surrender helped force the Germans to speed up their capitulation.

Immediately after the war, Smith was ambassador to Russia. He served a short time as director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) (named by President Harry S. Truman), and Ike named him undersecretary of state in 1953. He was bitter, although he seldom publicly complained, that he had not received his fifth star as general nor had been named chief of staff or given public recognition.

The military always had been Smith’s dream, but perhaps in the end it wasn’t enough. I always wanted to be an Army officer. I never thought about anything else, and my folks didn’t have the money or the political contacts for me to go to West Point, Smith was quoted as saying.

Smith was born on October 5, 1895, to William L. Smith and Ida Frances Bedell, whose maiden name became his middle name. Smith attended Manual High School; later it moved to south-side Indianapolis. At Manual, Smith was trained as an engineer.

Smith joined the guard probably at the age of sixteen, though some sources say he was seventeen. He worked at several jobs: at a soda fountain for six dollars per week or as a mechanic. He enrolled in Butler University for a short time, but his father’s illness caused him to leave. By the time he was eighteen, he was a sergeant in Company D of the Indiana National Guard.

One of his early assignments was to guard a bridge endangered by 1913 floodwaters. When Smith’s uncle approached, curious about what his nephew was doing as a guardsman in the neighborhood, Smith barred him from the bridge. This firm obedience to orders helped gain Smith a recommendation to officer training camp at Fort Benjamin Harrison in Indianapolis, established with the onset of World War I to provide desperately needed officers.

On a short assignment overseas during World War I, Smith was wounded in the third battle of the Marne when shell fragments struck him during a machine gun attack. He came out of the war a second lieutenant. Between the world wars, Smith held staff and educational assignments in the military. And, as always throughout his career, he read widely, especially on military subjects. In 1925, Smith was assigned to the Bureau of the Budget as liaison between it and the U.S. Army. After four years there, he was sent to the Philippines for two years. When he got back in 1931, he was sent to infantry school at Fort Benning, Georgia.

In 1933, Smith asked to be assigned to Command and General Staff school at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. At the school were such later World War II military figures as Mark Clark, Matthew Ridgeway and Maxwell Taylor.

His graduation from there in 1937 ended Smith’s formal education. Two years later, Marshall was made chief of staff in the U.S. War Department and sought a secretary. Omar Bradley, whom Smith had known at infantry school, recommended Smith for the job. Smith quickly became known for his skill at running headquarters and for being a master of detail. He made himself indispensable to Marshall. He also began to learn diplomacy, acting as Marshall’s liaison with the White House. Some considered Smith the toughest son-of-a-bitch in the War Department. He was, said one observer, tougher than a 15-minute egg or a 25-cent steak, but a son of a gun who gets things done. He became Marshall’s troubleshooter, decisive and tireless.

Smith liked hunting. He had a hunting dog named Sport and liked tying flies and, of course, fishing. He played poker and bridge and became, according to some, one of the best chess players in the army. Later, while coming out of a restaurant in Washington, D.C., while on Marshall’s staff, Smith began to vomit. It was the first sign of an ulcer that would plague him the rest of his life.

With the dawning of World War II, Marshall chose Eisenhower as a field commander. Ike wanted a chief of staff and said that only four men in the army had the ability, and one was Smith. From the moment of his appointment, Ike planned to have Smith as his chief of staff, said a biographer. Ike overcame Marshall’s reluctance to part with Smith. He is a natural-born chief of staff and really takes charge of things in a big way. I wish I had a dozen of him, Ike said.

In 1942, Smith’s ulcer flared up, and he was hospitalized in England, but he checked himself out early. It was an example of his devotion to duty. At first, Eisenhower and Smith concentrated on the campaign in the Mediterranean. With the war winding down there, President Franklin D. Roosevelt began considering whom to make commander of the Allied drive against Germany, named OVERLORD. Roosevelt named Eisenhower. During the start of planning for OVERLORD, even before he was made commander, Eisenhower was required to be away from his Mediterranean headquarters for months; he left Smith in charge.

Throughout the war and especially as the European invasion neared, Smith was in constant meetings with Allied leaders, including Winston Churchill and Charles de Gaulle. It was Churchill, due to many instances in which he saw Smith’s tenacity, who dubbed Smith the American bulldog.

Smith set up the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Forces in London in 1944 while Ike was in Washington. Smith liked the British officers but did not care for the French. He disliked public speaking and press conferences.

Eisenhower gave Smith wide latitude. He also called him Beetle, a nickname picked up by everyone during the war. How that came about is obscure. As a child, Smith had been ill, and his family feared for his survival. He gained stoutness in his recovery. As a result, the family, which had always called him Bedell, began calling him Boodle. Somehow this later became Beetle.

Obviously, Smith was among the officers meeting with Eisenhower as they tried to decide whether the weather would break for the June 6 invasion date in 1944. The Allies were poised, and the weathermen said that a break was possible but uncertain. Said Smith, as one of the officers discussing the invasion, It’s a helluva gamble, but it’s the best possible gamble. As the world later learned, Eisenhower took the chance, and the strike was made successfully at Normandy.

When it came time for the German surrender, Smith was an old hand at it. Smith signed the Italian surrender on Ike’s behalf. As for the Germans, it was Beetle’s show, Ike said. Smith had become as indispensable to Ike as he once had been to Marshall. At first, the Germans did not want to surrender on both the western and eastern fronts at the same time. They didn’t want to surrender to the Russians. Eisenhower had already told Smith that the surrender had to be immediate and unconditional. Smith stood fast, and at 2:30 a.m. on May 7, 1945, total surrender was made. Smith then conducted German Field Marshal Alfred Jodl, the signer, into Eisenhower’s presence to confirm the event.

Walter Bedell Smith served as ambassador to Russia. It serves those bastards right, said President Dwight Eisenhower, who appointed Smith to the post.

In June 1945, Smith flew to Paris to be decorated and then flew to Bermuda. On a twenty-four-hour stopover there, he went fishing. On June 18, 1945, Smith flew to Washington and to a reunion with his wife, whom he hadn’t seen since 1943. She was Mary Eleanor Cline, who had lived about three blocks from the Smiths in Indianapolis. The homecoming ended with a celebration in Indianapolis, which