{"id":7929,"date":"2024-01-29T06:51:17","date_gmt":"2024-01-29T14:51:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/philippineinternment.com\/?p=7929"},"modified":"2024-02-27T07:32:09","modified_gmt":"2024-02-27T15:32:09","slug":"the-smothers-familys-link-to-philippines-by-martin-meadows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/philippineinternment.com\/?p=7929","title":{"rendered":"The Smothers Family’s link to Philippines, by Martin Meadows"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Smothers<\/a>A veritable blizzard of media accounts followed the death on 26 December 2023 of Tom Smothers, the senior half of the famed Smothers Brothers, whose show-business credentials date to the 1960s. The purpose of this post is not to add to that blizzard; on the contrary, my initial intention was simply to briefly highlight that the brothers (in what I thought was a not-well-known fact) had been evacuated from the Philippines not long before the Pearl Harbor attack brought the U.S. into WWII; and — a slightly better-known fact — that the brothers\u2019 father, a Major in the U.S. Army, later died while in Japanese captivity. My initial post, consisting of a grand total of four lines, has since been transformed into this somewhat more extensive report.<\/p>\n

Why the changed plans, and what did that involve? My initial reaction soon changed when I looked through the flood of accounts about Tom Smothers and his family. I then decided to look more closely into the whole family\u2019s history prior to the immediate post-WWII period. Given that context, my revised decision resulted from the fact that virtually all of the stories about the Smothers family displayed one or more of the following shortcomings \u2014 information was either non-existent, incomplete, and\/or just plain wrong. (That verdict applies, for example, to the article whose link is attached at the bottom, along with two illustrative paragraphs from the article, which are excerpted from about 1\/3 of the way into the article. The verdict even applies to the Wikipedia<\/em> entry on the brothers<\/a>.) <\/p>\n

To make it clear at the outset, however, this narrative does not seek to present a comprehensive review of the family\u2019s history; nor does it deal in any way with the Smothers Brothers\u2019 show-business history, which, as noted, has been covered by innumerable writers. Its purposes are twofold: to present the highlights of the missing and thus almost completely unknown record of the head of the Smothers family prior to his arrival in the Philippines in 1940; and to clarify the almost always incorrect, and often even badly-garbled \u201cfacts,\u201d relating to the Smothers children\u2019s births and their arrival in and later evacuation from the Philippines.
\n<\/p>\n

This brief chronicle begins, naturally, with the family patriarch, U.S. Army Major Thomas Bolyn Smothers, Jr. His father (Tom\u2019s paternal grandfather) was Thomas Bolyn Smothers (1874-1958), and his mother was Maude Frances Reid (1880-1966). Thomas and Maude had three children \u2014 Paul Green Smothers (1903-1953); the future Major Thomas B. Smothers, Jr. (1908-1945), and Brona\/Bronna Reid Smothers (Masten) (1910-2003). Focusing on our main concern, Smothers Jr. eventually married Ruth Genevieve Remick (1916-1988), who was born in Denver, Colorado; after his death in WWII she remarried, and later died in Santa Rosa, California. Smothers Jr. and his wife had three children: the future Smothers Brothers team of Tom and Dick, and their younger sister, Sherry, sometimes cited as Sharon (relevant dates on all three are provided below). <\/p>\n

As noted, discussion of Smothers Jr. will be limited mainly to the pre-WWII period, for two major reasons. First of all, there exist several amazingly detailed (and quite graphic) accounts of what happened to him while he was a prisoner of the Japanese during WWII. And second, I have neither the expertise nor the time to attempt to detect possible inaccuracies\/errors (if any) within these various accounts, let alone to reconcile them (if indeed that would be called for). A final note: To avoid confusion, as well as to simplify matters, henceforth Smothers Jr. will be referred to as Thomas (and toward the end as Major), and his elder son will be referred to as Tom. <\/p>\n

SIDEBAR.<\/strong> Tom\u2019s full name was Thomas Bolyn Smothers, III; and Dick\u2019s full name is Richard Remick Smothers. Incidentally, one of Tom’s three sons was named Thomas Bolyn Smothers IV; he was born in 1965 and preceded his father in death, having also passed in April 2023. Tom IV has one son who, however, is not Tom V \u2014 his name is Phoenix Parrish Smothers. As it happens, Tom\u2019s sister Sherry\/Sharon strangely also died in April 2023, which proved to be an unusually sad year for the Smothers family.)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Thomas was born on 27 July 1908, in Rockingham, North Carolina. His parents later moved to Winston-Salem, NC, where he attended the city\u2019s public schools, and graduated from Reynolds High School in 1925. Below are photos from the school\u2019s 1925 yearbook, the \u201cBlack and Gold.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"Thomas<\/a><\/p>\n

Black & Gold, 1925. Tom was known for his enormous vocabulary. In the class prophecy, which he wrote, he is mentioned as having published a dictionary containing 20,000 words of 15 syllables or more. Click for full image.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Tom<\/a>
\n

Tom Smothers is at far left in the front row. Click for full image.<\/em><\/center><\/p>\n

After leaving high school, Thomas entered the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, from where he graduated in 1929, with a commission as second lieutenant. Here is his photo from the 1929 West Point yearbook, \u201cThe Howitzer.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Thomas<\/a><\/p>\n

Following his graduation from West Point, Thomas was stationed at a number of locations during the 1930s. Those included three years in Panama, either at Fort Bruja (renamed Fort Kobbe in 1932) and\/or at Howland Air Force base in the Canal Zone; Fort Douglas, Utah; Fort Moultrie, South Carolina; Fort Benning, Georgia; and Fort Hamilton, N.Y. In 1935, no doubt while he was stationed in Utah, he married Ruth Genevieve Remick (photo below), in a full military ceremony, complete with arched swords, as recounted in 1989 by Sherry. (She also mentioned that Thomas, a practical joker, arranged for an M.P. to arrest him in the middle of the marriage ceremony. Both anecdotes came, of course, from her late mother.) <\/p>\n

\"Ruth<\/a>
\n

Ruth Genevieve Remick Smothers<\/center><\/p>\n

While Thomas was stationed at Fort Hamilton, which is located in Brooklyn, New York, he attained the rank of captain in June 1939. Exactly one year later, in June 1940, he was sent to the Philippines, assigned to the Quartermaster Corps. His family, which by then included the two future Smothers Brothers, accompanied him to the U.S. possession. And little more than a year later, in October 1941, he was promoted to the rank of major. At this point we now turn our attention to the task of establishing the facts concerning the family\u2019s children and their evacuation from the Philippines \u2014 information which, as already noted, usually is incomplete at best and, far more often, erroneous at worst. <\/p>\n

To begin with, many stories about Tom and Dick fail to list even the correct years of their births. These are the facts: Both Tom and Dick were born at the military Post Hospital on Governors Island, which is not far from Fort Hamilton, where Thomas was stationed. Tom was born on 2 February 1937, and Dick was born on 20 November 1938. Generally the stories get Tom\u2019s birth date right, but then either misstate Dick\u2019s birth date as 1939, or \u2014 as in the article attached below \u2014 assert only that Dick \u201cwas born two years later.\u201d It is indeed true that the brothers are\/were nearly two years apart in age, but most if not all people would take \u201ctwo years later\u201d than 1937 to mean 1939 rather than 1938 \u2014 and besides, 20 November 1939 is nearly three years<\/em> after 2 February 1937.<\/p>\n

The birth-date issue is even more muddled with regard to the brothers\u2019 younger sister Sherry\/Sharon. Moreover, the question of her status in 1941 is intertwined with that of when the children and their mother were evacuated from the Philippines to avoid the war. To start with the latter, at best some accounts simply mention the evacuation without specifying a date, though usually they also imply, or outright declare, that it was a close call \u2014 that they barely avoided the start of the war. Other reports, however, are badly mistaken, and once again the attached article is an example \u2014 it claims that, \u201cWhen the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, the family was sent home and Maj. Smothers remained.\u201d This is the most ludicrous possible error \u2014 for, aside from being factually wrong, it ignores the fact that it was extremely difficult, if not virtually impossible, for civilians \u2014 including military dependents \u2014 to leave the country after the Pearl Harbor attack. <\/p>\n

That leads us to the egregious errors committed by virtually all coverage of the evacuation issue, especially in connection with Sherry\/Sharon Lynn (1941-2023). Once more the attached article is at fault; like many similar narratives, it says that, when Thomas was sent to the Philippines, \u201chis wife, two sons and their sister, Sherry, accompanied him.\u201d Other stories say the same, and thus also explicitly state \u2014 rather than merely imply \u2014 that Sherry was among the evacuees. Too, they usually indicate \u2014 obviously to hype the drama of the occasion \u2014 that the family\u2019s departure occurred in the nick of time.<\/p>\n

Although I have found no source which furnishes a specific date for the family’s departure, it is quite likely that they left Manila in July of 1941, or August at the very latest \u2014 in any case, the timing of their departure was far from a close call. The evidence for that is provided by material in two newspaper articles. One is a 1952 report in the Winston-Salem Twin City Sentinel<\/em>, which states that \u201cSharon [Sherry], the youngest child, was born Sept. 18, 1941, a short time after the officer\u2019s [i.e., Thomas\u2019] wife [and sons] arrived back in this country.\u201d The other is a 1989 piece in the Santa Cruz Sentinel<\/em>, in which Sherry\/Sharon recounts that her mother told her that, in order for the family to be evacuated by ship, she lied that she was only three months pregnant (with Sherry) rather than admit she was six months along, as that would have prevented them from leaving. Below is a photo of the recently-returned Smothers family. <\/p>\n

\"Smothers<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Sherry<\/a>

Sherry Lynn Smothers<\/p><\/div>In view of the almost universal confused and erroneous accounts surrounding the related issues of the birth of Sherry and the family\u2019s evacuation from Manila, having determined the approximate date of their departure constitutes, in my view, a useful \u2014 if not a fairly significant \u2014 finding. Much less so, but perhaps equally helpful, is having made clear the date, and the circumstances, of Sherry\u2019s birth. (While on the subject of Sherry, it may be worth mention that she had an unusual number and variety of jobs during her lifetime, rather than one dominant occupation; also, she was married once, very briefly, an episode she called a \u201csilly part of my life.\u201d) <\/p>\n

This survey has achieved (whether successfully or not) its two principal objectives, as stated above. Its final task \u2014 for the record, for the sake of completeness, and above all to honor the Major\u2019s service and emphasize the horrific suffering he endured \u2014 is to present an extremely sketchy outline of Major Smothers\u2019 experiences following the Pearl Harbor attack and as a prisoner of the Japanese Empire. In April 1942, according to one account, he joined and became the Commanding Officer of the 3rd Battalion of the 45th Infantry Regiment, Philippine Scouts. He survived both the Battle of Bataan and the Death March, as well as close to three years in the Cabanatuan POW camp. He was then sent to Bilibid in Manila, from where he was among more than 1600 American captives transferred in December 1944 to the notorious Hell Ship Oryoku Maru<\/em>, that U.S. bombers sank as it was leaving Manila Bay. He and other survivors of the attack were then placed in the Hell Ship Enoura Maru<\/em>, which also was bombed after it arrived in Formosa in January 1945. American survivors of that attack were then sent on the Brazil Maru<\/em> to Japan, where the badly wounded Major was sent to a military hospital in Fukuoka. From there he was sent to a POW slave-labor camp in February. <\/p>\n

In late April 1945 the Major was taken by stretcher to the Fukuoka docks, preparatory to being sent on to Korea and eventually to what was then Mukden in Manchuria. Accounts of subsequent developments differ, but it seems that the Major died during the night of April 25-26, as a result of several factors, including malnutrition, beri beri, pneumonia, cardiac asthma, hypothermia, and his wounds. His body was sent to Korea anyway (the result of complex bureaucratic factors), and apparently it was left on the docks there at Fusan. His eventual fate seems to be unknown for certain; again, accounts differ \u2014 he was left on the Fusan docks to an unknown fate, he was buried at sea, he was cremated in Korea. Whatever the case may be, one thing should be made clear to conclude this particular episode of the Major\u2019s story: all<\/em><\/strong> of the gruesome details of his treatment \u2014 and by extension the treatment of other Japanese prisoners \u2014 have deliberately been left out, in the interests of time, space, and above all the reader\u2019s peace of mind. <\/p>\n

Major Thomas Bolyn Smothers, Jr. was an authentic war hero \u2014 of that there is no dispute. Lacking \u2014 and instead of \u2014 a burial place for the Major, there are monuments to him at Fort William McKinley in Manila, and at the American Cemetery and Memorial in Manila; and his name is on the Tablets (or Wall) of the Missing there. His family received several of his posthumous awards, including the Purple Heart Medal, the Bronze Star Medal with Oak Leaf Cluster, and the Prisoner of War Medal. Below is a 1945 article reporting his loss, with a fitting photo of Major Smothers.<\/p>\n

\"Major<\/a><\/p>\n

MAIN SOURCES<\/strong><\/p>\n