Herbert Smith

Herbert McClellan Smith (Jan. 20, 1923 – June 27, 1944) was a sailor from Oneida who drowned during World War II.

See Also: Scott Countians killed in war

Biography

Born Jan. 20, 1923, Herbert M. Smith was the son of Anderson Smith (1869-1950) and Elmira Carson (1876-1962) of the Cherry Fork community in Helenwood. His siblings included Lola Bunch (1904-1993), Gladys Hicks (1913-1985), Leland G. Smith (1917-1918), and Pauline Smith (born about 1920).

The Smith family was an early family on Station Camp Creek in the Big South Fork National River & Recreation Area. Anderson Smith, who once owned the property that is now Charit Creek Lodge, was Herbert’s great-grandfather. His mother’s great-grandfather was John Linn Carson Sr., the first person to settle at what is now Tunnel Hill east of Oneida. The Carson family eventually spread to Ponderosa and to Cherry Fork.

When Herbert registered for the draft, his address was listed as Cincinnati, Oh. He was working for an insulating company there and living with Clyde Smith. When the 1940 census had been taken shortly before that, he and his youngest sister and their mother lived in Winfield with his older sister, Gladys, and her husband. His father was living in Cincinnati at that point with Clyde Smith, having apparently gone north for work.

World War II

Coxswain Smith enlisted in the U.S. Navy and was stationed at the Naval Training Center in Gulfport, Miss. when he accidentally drowned on June 29, 1944. He had been swimming in the Wolf River. His body was returned home to Scott County, and he was buried at the William Carson Cemetery on Cherry Fork Road, where his parents are also buried.

He is listed on the Scott County Veterans Memorial in Huntsville and the East Tennessee Veterans Memorial in Knoxville.