Coast Guard Academy's 1st Black Graduate, CDR Merle Smith Jr Dies

NEW LONDON, CT —In 1966, Merle J. Smith Jr. became the first Black graduate of the U.S. Coast Guard Academy. He'd go on to have a distinguished career including being the first Black officer to command a U.S. warship in close quarters combat and, "with his command of patrol boats amidst combat action during the Vietnam War," he was awarded the Bronze Star with the Combat “V.”

On its Facebook page Monday, the Coast Guard Academy in New London announced with "heavy hearts" that has Smith died.

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"The Coast Guard, the Academy, and the New London community lost a true hero and friend," the post reads. "We send our heartfelt support and appreciation to his wife Lynda, the Smith family, and all of his classmates, shipmates and friends."

His father was U.S. Army Colonel Merle J. Smith, a member of the Negro League’s Kansas City Monarchs baseball team who served as an Army officer in counterintelligence and then in ordnance, specializing in nuclear weapons, according to a Coast Guard news story from 2017. As a military child, Merle Jr. grew up in Germany and Japan, and had a "thorough knowledge of history and politics, and proficiency in foreign languages." He was a football letterman in his Maryland high school, and a sports journalist. After his high school graduation, he was encouraged to apply to the Coast Guard Academy and began his Academy career in 1962 where he played football.

In the USCG story, it's noted Smith experienced "few problems with racism," while a cadet. In a Lyman Art Museum 2020 video exhibit called Stories of Resilience: Encountering Racism, his wife Lynda described him as "resilient."

"I've seen him spring back, jump back from times when he felt that the Coast Guard Academy did not necessarily understand the challenges of minority students and he would over and over and over again try to facilitate that understanding and try to bring knowledge and information to the academy by virtue of his own example and by virtue of just trying to share with staff, cadets and administration who he was and what he was," she was recorded saying.

Smith graduated from the USCGA in 1966 with a degree in science. For his first assignment, he served as communications officer and then operations officer aboard the 255-foot cutter Minnetonka. Next, Smith commanded the 95-foot cutter Cape Wash.

He was then sent to Southeast Asia to command 82-foot patrol boats in Vietnam including cutters Point Mast and Point Ellis and "directed more than 80 naval fire support missions in Operation Market Time," according to the Coast Guard. "In one Operation Sealords mission, his cutter accounted for the destruction of 10 enemy bunkers, four rocket launchers, 13 structures, and 19 sampans."

According to the Coast Guard, Smith received the Bronze Star Medal with “V” device, Navy Meritorious Unit Citation, Presidential Unit Citation, Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry and Vietnam Campaign Medal with four stars for his service in Vietnam.

Significantly, Smith was the first Black officer to command a U.S. warship in close quarters combat and was only the second Black Coast Guardsman to receive the Bronze Star Medal.

In Smith’s Bronze Star citation, Navy Vice Adm. Elmo Zumwalt wrote, “He combined aggressive leadership with mature and prudent judgment to make his units highly effective combatant forces,” according to the Coast Guard.

After returning from Vietnam, he served at Coast Guard headquarters in Washington, D.C. and spent more than two years on the international affairs staff, attended law school at George Washington University and served as deputy chief of the Coast Guard’s Military Justice Division, according to a story from the Coast Guard.

In 1975, he became a member of the USCGA law faculty and in 1979, Smith joined the Reserves and began his civilian career as legal counsel for the Electric Boat while also teaching law classes part-time at the academy. In April 2016, the Coast Guard Academy honored Smith with a ceremony commemorating the 50th anniversary of his graduation.