Ships
- USS Bush (DD-529) Captain, 12 June 1943 – 30 May 1944
Thurmond Augustus Smith (28 October 1904 – 19 December 1992) was a United States Navy officer, a graduate of the Naval Academy in the class of 1928, who commanded the Fletcher-class destroyer Bush from 12 June 1943 to 30 May 1944. In that year the ship went from the Aleutians to the war in New Guinea, bombarding Cape Gloucester, Madang and the Admiralty Islands. A history of the ship records that he also worked in Washington as a naval cryptographer during the war. He retired as a rear admiral and died at eighty-eight.
The sources examined here give his birth date as 28 October 1904. They do not name his parents or give a confirmed birthplace. The 1928 Lucky Bag gives his home as Anniston, Alabama; a compilation of officers' biographies lists Texas as his state of birth. The yearbook is the stronger source for where he was living when he went to Annapolis.
The 1928 Lucky Bag calls him "Smitty," "T. A." and "Thermite," and opens: "A product of the sunny South, 'T. A.' set forth with a worthy ambition of becoming an old sea-dog. His career so far has been rather erratic, for one day he becomes a qualified boat handler and the next day gets sea sick in a cutter." He had "the original 'Body Beautiful' and a not too brutal face," his classmates wrote, which "caused many a young heart to flicker and flare up," although he was "more or less of a red mike, dragging only occasionally." His habit was to acquire "a new hobby every other day": he "drifted from pipes to fruit diets, on to scalp massages, and so on endlessly." The writers did not take this for weakness: "It is not lack of ability to stay with a thing, but a desire to investigate new fields, that makes 'T. A.' an authority on so many subjects." Wrestling and soccer kept him busy, but "any startling success that might have been his was nipped in the bud by a strong desire to stay sat." The academics, they said, "have not been a source of worry to Smitty." The sketch closes: "All in all 'T. A.' has all of the essentials of an officer and a gentleman. He is a real shipmate; one can say no more." The quotation under his name is the sentence "Sweep out? Who, me? Nothing doing; it'll raise the dust." His activities were soccer, wrestling with class numerals, and three stripes.
He was commissioned an ensign with the class of 1928, at twenty-three. The Navy's registers, as compiled by uboat.net, give him the rank of lieutenant on 1 July 1936, temporary lieutenant commander on 1 January 1942 (confirmed as lieutenant commander on 1 March 1942), and temporary commander on 15 September 1942. His service number was 62117. The sources examined here do not give his ships or stations between 1928 and 1943, apart from the later note that he served as a cryptographer at the Navy Department in Washington.
On Saturday 12 June 1943, at one o'clock in the afternoon, at the destroyer base at San Diego, the Bush held a change-of-command ceremony. The deck log records: "Lieut-Cmdr., Thurmond A. Smith, USN relieved Commander Wallis F. Petersen, USN, of Command of this vessel in accordance with BuPers Despatch 100385 of May, 1943." Petersen was promoted to command Destroyer Division 48, and the Bush became, for the moment, the division's flagship. The ship's own history says Smith had reported aboard on 17 May and that the crew called him "Smitty." He was thirty-eight.
For the first weeks he drilled the ship off the California coast. On 16 August the Bush sailed from San Francisco for the Aleutians, and through the autumn she worked out of Adak, Alaska, with gunnery and damage-control drills, refuelling, and the routine of a ship waiting for a campaign that did not come. On 1 December she was at sea from Adak toward Pearl Harbor. On 9 December she sailed from Pearl Harbor for Funafuti in the Ellice Islands, where she moored on 13 December. By the 20th she was at Milne Bay in New Guinea, and at the first alert there the log records the red alert at 0434 and general quarters at 0438.
On 26 December 1943 the Bush was in fire-support area No. 2 off Cape Gloucester, New Britain, as Task Group 74.1 opened fire at 0600 on the Yellow Beach with the cruisers Phoenix and Nashville and the destroyer Bache. After a spell near Buna, the Bush sailed on 25 January 1944 for Madang, and in the early hours of the 26th she fired her 5-inch battery on the installations there, expending 526 rounds in accordance with the operation plan of the task group commander. In February she was in Sydney, Australia, at Woolloomooloo Bay; on 14 February Captain Petersen was relieved of the division by Commander J. B. McLean.
The next operation was the Admiralty Islands. On 12 March 1944, the log records, she bombarded the western end of Hauwei Island while some twelve landing craft approached the beach, firing 175 rounds of anti-aircraft common ammunition, and on the 13th she bombarded targets at Lorengau on Manus, firing 104 rounds. In April she was at Cairns, Australia, where on the 11th a new executive officer and navigator, Lieutenant Percy A. Lilly Jr., relieved Lieutenant Commander Walter V. Combs on Smith's orders. The deck log excerpts the ship's association has published are signed by the watch officers, not by him, and the sources examined here do not contain an action report or letter in his words.
By the end of May the Bush was in Dock 18-A at Mare Island, California. At ten o'clock on 30 May 1944 the ship's company was at quarters. "Pursuant to orders of officer in charge, Fleet Sound School, Key West, Florida, MC 73/P16-4/00(2), of 14 May 1944," the log reads, "Lieutenant Commander Rollin E. Westholm, 73482, USN., relieved Commander Thurmond A. Smith, 62117, USN., as commanding officer." He had been in command for three hundred and fifty-three days. He was thirty-nine.
The Bush's history by her association says that "in addition to his time aboard BUSH, Smith served as a cryptographer at the Navy Department in Washington D.C. He helped to break the German and Japanese codes during World War II." It gives no dates or office, and no other source examined here describes this work. The same history says he retired as a rear admiral. Uboat.net gives a temporary captaincy from 25 March 1945. The year of his retirement, his later commands, and any marriage or children were not found.
He died on 19 December 1992 at eighty-eight, according to uboat.net. The place of his death and burial were not found.
His own words are missing from the record. What remains is a Lucky Bag sketch of a young man who tried one hobby after another and had no trouble with his studies, the signatures on a ship's log, and the line in the log that records his relief. The Bush herself was lost off Okinawa on 6 April 1945, under another captain.