Otto Diller Schmidt

A boiler blast brought a lone sailor face to face with peril

Seaman Otto Diller Schmidt earned the Medal of Honor during the disaster aboard USS Bennington in San Diego Harbor on 21 July 1905. A boiler exploded while the gunboat was in port, inflicting devastating casualties. Schmidt was recognised for extraordinary heroism during the explosion and its aftermath.

Schmidt came from Blair, Nebraska, and served aboard Bennington as an enlisted sailor. His decoration was authorised in the Navy's order of 5 January 1906. It recognised courage in a peacetime emergency rather than combat against another ship.

After leaving the Navy, he returned to Nebraska and married Maud Wilcox. He later lived at Norfolk, where he became a mail carrier in 1922. Following retirement, he returned to Blair and eventually moved into the Crowell Memorial Home. He died in February 1963 and was buried in Prospect Hill Cemetery, Norfolk.

Medal of Honor citation excerpt

“for extraordinary heroism displayed at the time of the explosion of a boiler”

Source: https://www.cmohs.org/recipients/otto-d-schmidt