[Interview Begins]

SPRAGUE: Today is August 20th, 2021. This is an interview with Donald L. Smith, who served in the United States Navy from November 18th, 1943 to December 5th, 1946, during World War Two as an aviation radioman gunner and as a master chief avionics technician during the Cold War and Vietnam War, from September 19th, 1956 to January 18th, 1973. This interview is being conducted by Luke Sprague at the Veterans Home in Medford, Wisconsin, for the Wisconsin Veterans Museum Oral History Program. No one else is present in the interview room. Okay, Donald, where were you born?

SMITH: I was born in rural Delhi, Iowa.

SPRAGUE: Delhi, Iowa.

SMITH: Delhi.

SPRAGUE: How do you how do you spell that?

SMITH: D-E-L-H-I.

SPRAGUE: Okay. And did you grow up there?

SMITH: Yeah, I grew up on a farm there.

SPRAGUE: Uh-huh. And if you don't mind me asking, what kind of farming did your family do?

SMITH: Well, general farming, like everybody those days, with hogs and chickens and milk cows and beef cattle. That's about it.

SPRAGUE: And did you go to school there in Delhi?

SMITH: I went to school. Never went to a country school that consolidated the area. But the year I was born, so I went to minor school. In other words, we had running water and flushed toilets.

SPRAGUE: Okay, so what do you remember about it? And it's, D-E, could you spell it again for me, the town?

SMITH: Delhi.

SPRAGUE: Delhi. D–

SMITH: D-E-L-H-I.

SPRAGUE: Delhi, got it. Sorry. We want to make sure we get that right for the record. So you're growing up in, the schools were in Delhi then?

SMITH: Mm-hmm.

SPRAGUE: What? As you grew up there, you went through, what? How did that go?

SMITH: Well, we were, everybody was poor, because that was during the drought years and the depression years. But we went barefoot all summer, to save wear and tear on the shoes, I guess. Anyhow, the school I started in in Delhi, we probably had twenty kids in my grade. Then I, when, later in the early 40s my parents bought a farm, different area, so I went to a different school the last couple years. We had nine kids in my class there.

SPRAGUE: Do you remember anything from the Depression years?

SMITH: Oh, I remember it all. I remember the dust clouds, and I remember you'd send a cow off to market, they used to ship them to Chicago in those days. And lots of times you didn't get enough money for the cow to pay for the shipping. And we were tenant farmers during my first sixteen years, I guess. And, so we, well my parents raised four kids and we started out on that place where I was born, it was 133 acres, and we farmed out on shares. So my folks got a half of the income, the landlords got the other half. And so, it, we were poor but I guess we didn't know it, because everybody else was in the same boat. For the county fair, we used to get a quarter to spend at the county fair, but rides were a nickel, an ice cream cone was a nickel, so actually, a quarter went quite a ways. The local creamery provided free ice cold buttermilk, so that was a treat, too. Then didn't have to buy pop 'cause the buttermilk was free.

SPRAGUE: Wow. Did your parents do anything in addition to farming?

SMITH: No, I was full-time child.

SPRAGUE: Full-time. Okay.

SMITH: Because, no, we raised practically everything to eat, except sugar, salt and pepper, and coffee, but everything else we raised with the, of course, a big, big garden. And that was one of my unfavorite chores, was having to pick peas and beans and stuff for my mother to can. I don't remember, I didn't mind the farm work, pitching hay and chopping oats and things, but I hated that garden.

SPRAGUE: So as you got older, did you graduate from Delhi High School, or?

SMITH: No, I graduated from Buck Creek. The little country school, but it had twelve grades, and a small gymnasium where we could play basketball. Nine kids went to class, two boys and the rest were girls. Not all the boys went on to high school in those days. I think most of 'em did, but not all. Well, not all the girls either.

SPRAGUE: So how did you get involved with the Navy?

SMITH: I don't really know. Of course, the war was on when I graduated and I wanted to join the Navy. And I don't know why, particularly, I guess 'cause I thought, well, in the Navy, usually had a warm, dry place to sleep and usually you had hot meals. But I was only 17, so my dad said he would not sign for me to join. So when I got to be 18, and he didn't have any say in it, so I joined, or volunteered, for the Navy along with my older brother, Dean, who, he was three years older, but he had got rejected earlier because he had some medical problems. So, in the year following, he got that corrected, so the both of us went to join together. Matter of fact, we went through boot camp together.

SPRAGUE: Did you– so your dad wouldn't sign for you until, he had you wait until you were 18.

SMITH: Right. Yeah, he thought 17 was too young to know what you were doing, and he was probably right.

SPRAGUE: So did you and your brother Dean both join the Navy?

SMITH: Yeah. We joined together, went to recruiting together, and had our physicals together, and went to boot camp together. Then we separated.

SPRAGUE: What can you tell me about boot camp?

SMITH: Well, of course, that was my first trip out of the state. And, it was long, fascinating ride, because we took a train from Dubuque, Iowa to Farragut, Idaho, which seems a strange place for a boot camp. And they had a big leak there, and of course, the government had to spread their training camps around the country, they couldn't put them all together. So we got to boot camp, I joined the Navy in October, and we got to boot camp right after Thanksgiving. They let us stay home for Thanksgiving. And we went out to Idaho. So I guess I spent December and January, in the middle of winter, in Idaho. And I think I went to seven camps, they call them, there. And maybe 40,000 boots out there? Anyway, each camp had its own drill hall and parade ground and things like that. So I was in Company 1047, I still remember that. And it was cold, of course, we had to learn how to march and out on the grinder, which was a gravel, real field. But we learned to march out there. And they had a pen outside of the barracks, where, after chow, you could go and smoke cigarettes. There was no smoking in the building, or any buildings, but you could go outside and smoke. But one thing that always sticks in my mind, and I guess you'd call out of the sea story, because we had to practice standing guard duty, of course. And we were issued wooden rifles for guard duty. And I remember standing the mid-watch, that's midnight, going on watch, and I had to guard an empty clothesline with my wooden rifle. And the guy that got to guard the wash house, he got to be inside, where it was warm, and I was outside with my wooden rifle. And I, they had issued us long underwear, so I had my long underwear on, and then I had my blues and my dungarees and sweater and my pea coat, and I was still freezing. But I remember looking with envy at that guy in the wash house, reading a magazine, while I was out guarding this empty clothesline.

SPRAGUE: What was your impressions of Idaho?

SMITH: Impressions of what?

SPRAGUE: Of being at Farragut?

SMITH: Well, it's a beautiful country. Mountainous around there, and the lake, Lake Pend Oreille, it's just there. It's a state park now, but it was, it was a beautiful country. And one weekend, we got a day to go to, on liberty, we went to Spokane, Washington. It was near us, a city, place that could handle a big influx of sailors. So we, we got a ride to Spokane and toured the town on trips, I guess. And I don't remember much except I was impressed in the bar. I don't, in Washington at that time anyway, if you're going to have a drink of beer, you had to stand up. Couldn't sit down to drink beer. I don't know if that was a state law or whether it was a local ordinance, but at the bar, it was no stools. And of course we got ogle and local girls, but most of us were pretty shy of approaching any. We did get an allowance out of our paycheck. I forget how much it was, $0.50 or something we got out of our paycheck. That was our spending money. But the training grounds, the grinder, as it's called, a bigger picture, a marching area, it was windswept. It was cold, felt good to walk as far as that goes, our march. And we learned our basic, you know, how to stand at attention or parade rest and how to rear march and left flank march and all that you go through at Basic Training. And then our classroom studies were, of course, a lot of it, basic Navy things like firing a five-inch rifle, how to tie off different knots. And you had to learn the language like a “ceiling” is an overhead, “stair-steps,” that's a ladder, and a “floor” is a deck. And, well then you weren't allowed to use your own civilian language, you had to use Navy language. And that still sticks with me. I still remember most of that. And the 24-hour clock, which is, I guess routine in all the military. But it was foreign to us. And most of the guys in my company were from Iowa and were cross-section farm kids. I remember we had one lawyer and some merchants and some city kids, we call 'em. But most of the company was farmers, I guess.

SPRAGUE: So you get done at Farragut. Where did you go next?

SMITH: Well, after boot camp, I got, we all got two weeks leave. So back on the train we go, and I go back to Iowa to visit. And then one time was on back to Idaho and they greeted us when we got off the train. They put us on a, well, cattle car, we called it, because you could travel, like it was like a semi. You had bars to hang onto, you stand up. They took us out to the coal yards where they had a great big trestle that they back coal cars up on. And our places were all heated with stokers, what most people today would know what a stoker is. But it's a furnace that feeds with a coal feed, kind of like the pellet stoves we have today. Anyway, so they handed us all a scoop shovel and said, “Unload those coal cars.” They didn't have hopper bottoms, so they were just big boxcars, and so we all climbed aboard and of course I knew how to handle a scoop shovel alright. Some of the city kids didn't know that trick either, but there we are, out there at night in the cold with our dress blues, directly off the train, shoveling coal for I don't know how many hours, but until we got those coal cars unloaded. Anyway, then it was time to be assigned to some specialty.

SPRAGUE: Wait, they had you unload the coal cars in your dress blues.

SMITH: Yeah.

SPRAGUE: What did you think of that?

SMITH: Not much. [Both laugh] No, we didn't appreciate that. Would've been nice if we could have a chance to change into dungarees. Besides a lot of us were hungover from that train ride from Iowa out to Farragut again. And I remember on the train, the porters or somebody, I guess they're porters, would sell these little bottles of liquor. I think they're two and a half ounces, I still got one of them. So you could buy them little shots. And so of course a lot of guys were pretty hungover when they got there, but we got cured pretty fast on the coal car. So then it was time for assignment to your specialty. And so when my turn comes, the interview, my person doing the signing, I don't remember who that was, an officer, a petty officer, but anyway, interviewed you and said, “Well, what would you like to do?” And I thought, well, my dad always took to his World War I magazines that had stories about the Red Baron and stuff, aviators, and I thought that airplanes, that sounds pretty good. So I'd said, “I'd like to go into aviation.” So, in those days, maybe still that way, if you wanted a particular specialty, and you were qualified for it, they'd give it to you. So I said, “Well, I'd like aviation,” so they said, “Well, you'd have to pass a physical for that.” So as I remember, the physical, I had to stand on one leg with my eyes closed. And if you could do that, then you're qualified for aviation. So I got assigned to Aviation Radioman School in Memphis, Tennessee. So that was all. Before we got on the train then to go to Memphis, they lined us all up, and I don't suppose they do it that way anymore today, but they had probably 150 guys standing naked in a medical quarters there, standing naked, you know, get your, check your throat and get your short arm checked. And if you passed that, then you got on your way to wherever you were headed. In my case, headed to Tennessee. And I remember riding from Spokane and got on a train going to Chicago. Had to change in Chicago, but we traveled in Pullman cars were staterooms. I had a, there was a guy I had at boot camp traveling in a private stateroom. And 'cause you traveled in whatever room was available. But that was really something. But we got to Chicago, we had to change trains, and we had to layover there, so I had a couple buddies, we were roaming the streets in Chicago at 3:00 in the morning and looking for a bar that was open. Yeah, I guess we didn't find one, but we didn't feel any danger of roaming around Chicago at that time of the night, in those days. So then we caught a train to Memphis, and actually Millington, Tennessee, but it was called Memphis 'cause that was the closest city. And then we had our aviation radio school were we had to learn Morse Code. That was the first requirement. And that consumed a lot of our time. And then basic radio theory, and that was mostly was a pretty well concentrated system. I don't know how many hours a day, but we took Morse Code with a pencil, because your airplanes didn't have typewriters in those days, like they had later on. So we had to learn Morse Code with, um–

SPRAGUE: What type of radios did you train on?

SMITH: Well, basic radio, was it, I think the ART-13 built in Cedar Rapids, Iowa by Collins Radio and that was our basic transmitter. And then they had just come out with UHF [Ultra-High Frequency] transmitter radios in those days, but those were automatic. You could just set the dial on them. So there was no, other then talking into them, you didn't have much very complicated. And then we also, then after you finished your basic radio training, then we got radar operator's training. That was interesting, all the ears, the Navy, always found that fascinating.

SPRAGUE: Was that also in Tennessee?

SMITH: Yeah.

SPRAGUE: What did you find fascinating about that?

SMITH: Well, being able to point out an object in the sky that's 30 miles away or look at the coastline of a country and see all of the cities and bays and ships and things. And then as you moved, you could orient it, so it always, like the modern things when you have in our cars that always points north, or the map always points north. Or you could flip a switch and the map would shift so that it pointed in the direction you were going.

SPRAGUE: Okay.

SMITH: We were just going from the old-style radar that was like a blip on a line like you see in an EKG or something like that. That was how you detected your target. Your antennas were directional, and so if you're pointed in the right direction, you'd get a blip, that was a little point that was like so far out on the screen. You correlate that into distance. Then the later ones were more map-like, so you could pick out objects and stuff. And I still remember my Morse Code, because that was drilled into you after a while, and you could just– it was like a second language, I guess. And I always remember the instructor, we had quite a few women instructors, but I remember with us, this instructor that first introduced us to Morse Code, and he said, “I want to start you out in the middle of the alphabet,” and he said, “the first letter you're going to learn is Q.” And he said, “Why are you gonna learn, and so the reason we're gonna use that one 'cause it gets you into the rhythm of Morse Code.” And he said, “You'll remember because Q is 'Queen',” in the phonetic alphabet, Q is 'queen', I don't know if it still is today or not, but it was 'queen.' And then he said, “That's da-da-da-da, or no balls at all.” [Sprague laughs] So he and everybody remembered that. So here it was easy for me. I didn't have any trouble with the coding.

SPRAGUE: So, anything else you remember from radio school?

SMITH: Yeah, well, it was hot of course, then, but that was the middle of the summer. We were in Tennessee, and of course I was, I'd being a farm boy, interested in seeing the cotton fields throughout there. And Memphis, it'd go Liberty, Memphis, was black people, because I had never been around black people. So that was interesting. And, matter of fact, Beale Street, which is famous for music in modern times, Beale Street was out of bounds for military personnel, white military personnel. We weren't allowed to go there. Go down Main Street in Memphis, come to Beale Street, that was it. You had to stop.

SPRAGUE: Any particular reason why?

SMITH: Violence. They had had episodes. But I don't know if it's that prevalent or not, but in those days, well in situations, the war time like that, you have to make snap decisions. You don't, can't drag it through Congress for five years or something. So, they made a decision. And that's the way it was anyway, and we didn't question that. Another kind of connection to modern times, we talk now about they're going to force the military to get their COVID shots, or all the people that are in the military. I don't ever remember being asked if I was going to get shots, I just got them.

SPRAGUE: I don't either.

SMITH: Yeah, yeah, I don't think.

SPRAGUE: So. After you get done in Memphis, what happened next?

SMITH: Well, then that's another train ride. And that was interesting, to Miami, Florida, to gunnery school. Aviation gunnery school. And that train ride, I'll never forget, because we were on inner urban commuter cars, the kind that had a seat that was straight. The backrest was straight up and down, and you could flip it either way, so you could look forward. But that's okay for our ride. But I think it was like three days to get to Miami by that train. And, of course, coal-fired trains, and you'd open the windows to get some breath of fresh air and the cold dust come in there. And we were wearing whites, of course, that was a memorable trip.

SPRAGUE: So you went down, it was Miami or post or base near there?

SMITH: Well, I'm trying to think what they– Actually, I think it was Opa-Locka, maybe? 'Cause we went to gunnery school, then we went to operational training. That was Opa-Locka Naval Air Station. The gunnery school, we had taken over a dormitory that Embry-Riddle School of Aviation and owned and the government took it over. I think that school's still in business. Anyway, they took it over, so we moved into there.

SPRAGUE: And that gunnery, the Embry-Riddle school that you took over was in Florida?

SMITH: Yeah, it was in Miami.

SPRAGUE: Okay.

SMITH: Yeah. Yeah, I'm sure it's still there.

SPRAGUE: Okay.

SMITH: Yeah. So I think that was about a month of training, so, maybe. Well, there's one thing I should mention, on the train rides, so many times you get sidetracked and let a special train go through or something. And whenever that happened, the local townspeople would come and board the train with donuts and coffee and pop and candy bars and stuff. I think some places were famous for that. I think it was one in Minnesota, I read a story not too long ago about that one, that they went, day or night, when the train stopped, they came aboard, handing out goodies. It happened a lot.

SPRAGUE: That's really interesting. I've never heard of that before. Huh.

SMITH: Yeah, that was pretty common. Some places were notorious for the quality and stuff that they hand out.

SPRAGUE: So what happened after that?

SMITH: Well, when I got to gunnery school– Oh, I didn't mention, too, after Memphis, they come around handing out promotion papers to 10% of the class. So I got promoted to petty officer third class, that top 10% got promoted. Didn't even know about the program, so didn't try for it or anything, it's just when we graduated, they came and handed out some promotions.

SPRAGUE: So that's moving along pretty good there.

SMITH: Yeah, it was good. And I got to gunnery school, and I really enjoyed gunnery school 'cause you got to really burn up the ammunition. And as a kid, I was– I think I got my first rifle when I was nine years old. But that was for like hunting pheasants and things, so I enjoyed hunting. So when we got there, they of course had to start us all off on the very basics, 'cause a lot of the guys had probably never even seen a gun, let alone shoot one. But we got, started off with shotgun on clay pigeons, which was, I grew up, we couldn't afford clay pigeons, we had to shoot live pigeons. But there we started it out with a conventional clay pigeon tosser, shoot 'em out, shoot the pigeons out, shoot at 'em. Then, to more replicate what you'd find in an airplane, they added towers and the clay pigeon launchers were in a tower and they'd shoot the clay pigeons toward you or in either direction. And that was fun. And then they mounted your shotgun on a post, and you learned to handle the shotgun like you would a machine gun, only it was shotgun to start with. And you shot clay pigeons, which was more difficult trying to swivel that shotgun instead of your shoulder. But anyway, then, they put the targets on railroad cars, little railroad cars. And the railroad cars would move sideways or away from you, and you'd shoot at them with a 30 caliber machine gun. Then they put you on a railroad car, and you'd shoot at a stationary target. Then they put both of you on, I mean the target and you, on the railroad car. So you could be moving [inaudible]. They were trying to teach you relative motion, of course, so that you'd learn, shoot ahead of the target and stuff. But that was, that was really interesting. I think that was about a four week course, something like that.

SPRAGUE: So you started out, were they– What gauge shotguns where they?

SMITH: 12 gauge.

SPRAGUE: Went from 12 gauge, went to mounted, and it sounds like 30 caliber machine guns or?

SMITH: Mm-hmm.

SPRAGUE: And then–

SMITH: Into the fifties.

SPRAGUE: And then fifty.

SMITH: And then, of course, you had to learn how to assemble, disassemble, and those tricks, and blindfolded, assemble your 50 caliber, things like that.

SPRAGUE: Did you ever go up to the five inch guns at that point, or was it just?

SMITH: No, just to the machine guns. Because that is, in an airplane that's the biggest we had.

SPRAGUE: Okay. Of course, yeah, I'm thinking on a ship, yeah. Okay. So you get down with gunnery– Go ahead, I'm sorry.

SMITH: Yeah, then, we went, we moved, and I think it was Opa-Locka Naval Air Station then, for our flight training, where we got assembled into a crew. Well, I went into torpedo bombers, so there was myself as a radioman and there was a gunner and the pilot. And that sort of guy, meet the pilot. Just luck of the draw, I guess, they just had a, like you draw a name out of a hat, that was your pilot. He was from Texas.

SPRAGUE: Do you happen to remember his name?

SMITH: It's William H. Parker III. Yeah.

SPRAGUE: Okay.

SMITH: I think he ended up being a lawyer.

SPRAGUE: Okay.

SMITH: From, uh, it's on the tip of my tongue, Texas. It'll come to me.

SPRAGUE: So you trained on the torpedo bomber?

SMITH: Yeah. I don't know how come I, I suppose we were just assigned that. So I supposed they assigned you whatever, wherever they needed you. 'Cause I could have went to torpedo bombers or the dive bombers or the patrol bombers. But somehow or another, I got assigned the torpedo bomber.

SPRAGUE: And what was the aircraft you trained on?

SMITH: It was a TBF Grumman Avenger.

SPRAGUE: Okay. And you said there's the pilot. And you. Or was there another? Just two crew members, or three?

SMITH: Two crew members.

SPRAGUE: Okay.

SMITH: Myself and a gunner. Yeah.

SPRAGUE: Okay. What do you remember about the training?

SMITH: I remember my first flight. Now that was my first time ever in an airplane. My first flight was in a glide bombing training flight. And I got sicker than a dog, [Sprague laughs] I remember that. 'Cause the torpedo bomber didn't actually dive bomb like this, they called it glide bombing, where you'd go down about a 45 degree angle. But anyway, that was absolutely a new experience for me. So I didn't know whether I had made good judgment wanting to go into aviation or not. But I got used to it. And you didn't have barf bags either in those days, so if you're gonna throw up, you had to throw up in your white hat, which I didn't.

SPRAGUE: Now on the Grumman Avenger, where does the radioman sit?

SMITH: There in the back, in the– I don't know what, if there's a name for that space, but you were at the back end of the plane, down in, I guess maybe you'd call it a tunnel. And so you had a swivel seat, or a flip-over seat, where I could look forward and see my radios and the radar screen. And I handled the– I forget what you call it, the setup for the bomb drops. So if you're gonna drop 'em all at once, or one at a time, or torpedo, I had a control panel for that. Or I sent them up. And if the bomb bay doors were open, I had a little window I could see in the bomb bay, make sure everything was dropped. And then a window on each side. And then if I swung around to the back, you had 30 caliber on a pivot, that stinger, we called it, that aimed aft and downwards for tail protection. And the gunner had to kind of crawl over my shoulders to get into his turret up on top. But I could also get into the compartment between the gunner and the pilot. I could get up in the canopy behind the pilot too, there, I remember. 'Cause sometimes we carried a camera, for, uh, so we'd take pictures from that position.

SPRAGUE: Okay. What else do you remember about, in this case it would be torpedo?

SMITH: Well, we learned, of course, on torpedo technology and things. But as it turned out, eventually we never dropped a torpedo in action. There were– I guess by the time we got into action, there was nothing left much to torpedo. But we made practice drops and got a chance to shoot at target sleeves to practice our gunnery and things like that.

SPRAGUE: Did you ever end up using that camera, to take pictures?

SMITH: Yeah. You know, I swear one of the pictures in Life magazine which you could still see today, of Mount Fuji, I swear I took that picture. But, uh, 'cause, uh, and maybe it wasn't me, but I swear that picture, I took it. I only got to see my pictures once, and they were whisked off to intelligence, so we never saw actually the results of our photography.

SPRAGUE: What's the image of Mount Fuji that you think took?

SMITH: Well, I think it's a fairly active volcano. So whenever you see photo stories of Japan and stuff, they'll show that picture, or they show that mountain.

SPRAGUE: And what makes you, what do you remember about taking that picture?

SMITH: Well, it's a day about like this, I remember that. And just what our target was that day, I don't remember, 'cause usually we were sightseeing, we were just in and out. But, and I'm not sure whether it was after the first, I think maybe it was after the first atomic bomb was dropped, but before the second one.

SPRAGUE: So it would have been late '45, August or July, somewhere in there.

SMITH: Yeah, that was– Yeah. Yeah. But we didn't– the cameras were loaded and everything for us, so we didn't have to do anything except point and shoot. But, uh–

SPRAGUE: Were the cameras heavy?

SMITH: Yeah. Heavy, awkward, I suppose. Gee, I don't– 18 inches long, something like that. Box camera was a good name for 'em.

SPRAGUE: Huh.

SMITH: But, uh–

SPRAGUE: So you get done with gunnery school. What happens after that?

SMITH: Well, it was gunnery school and then the operational training and then we got leave. That was about Thanksgiving time. So I couldn't get a train ticket back to Iowa to visit, so I did get a bus ticket to Chicago, I remember that. I think that was about a three-day trip from Miami to Chicago on a bus. Then I caught a train from there to Iowa, to visit. I remember I was home for Thanksgiving.

SPRAGUE: And that would have been Thanksgiving of '43?

SMITH: '44.

SPRAGUE: '44, okay.

SMITH: And then, of course, by then I had a girlfriend, so I didn't visit my folks much, I visited my girlfriend while I was on leave there. So, and so then I reported to Grosse Ile, Michigan, after my leave from gunnery school, for training. And there was a Naval Air Station there, Grosse Ile, I think it's near Detroit.

SPRAGUE: How do you, forgive me for not knowing this, but how do you spell Grosse Ile?

SMITH: I think it's spelled G-R-O-S-S-E, capital I-S-L-E.

SPRAGUE: Oh, I got you, Grosse Isle, I got you.

SMITH: Yeah. And from there, we went there very long, then we got orders to Norfolk, Virginia. So back on the train, and there was a regular old troop train, where bunks were about six high, and had a mess car where you go through the line and you could eat standing up. So it was nothing like the first class travel that I had to start with, but got to Norfolk and there, for some reason or another, three crews then of all of us that I went through gunnery school and stuff with, and three of the torpedo plane crews got assigned as replacement crewmen to Torpedo Squadron 16 in Quonset Point, Rhode Island. So I don't know how we got selected other than we were the best or the worst or what, but [inaudible] got assigned to Torpedo Squadron 16. So we took a ferry, I remember, from Norfolk up to, gee, I don't know, Baltimore or somewhere. Then took the train again up to Quonset Point, Rhode Island. Yeah, no, this was in the winter then, of course.

SPRAGUE: And what happened at Quonset Point?

SMITH: We were in training, basically mostly radar training there. We had a little twin engine beach craft. I forget what the civilian version is, but anyways, it was twin engine beach craft. And it had like four radar stations in it. And then we flew out over the ocean around while just practicing using radar. And that was the same type of radar that we had on the torpedo bomber. So we are familiar with it. And there, on one of our night training flights and on the torpedo plane, one of our crews flew into the water. One of the guy's name was, [pauses] he was from Wisconsin, crewman on that plane, it's right on the tip of my tongue, it's down the southwest of Wisconsin. Anyway, the assumption was the pilot got vertigo, which was the same area where that Kennedy flew in the water here a few years ago, the same area there. We were three of us in a formation, and he just veered off and flew in the water. It was a dark, very dark night so no horizon there.

SPRAGUE: And that would have been about when?

SMITH: Uh, probably January of '45, maybe. Something like that.

SPRAGUE: Okay, okay.

SMITH: Yeah, and we weren't there, [coughs] we weren't there too long. And then we had orders to join the squadron at Norfolk, at USS Bonhomme Richard. Big Dick, they called it, or sometimes Bonnie Dick.

SPRAGUE: And that's CV-31? I think–

SMITH: Ye– [trails off] I'm getting that confused, might've been 31. Yeah, I think so.

SPRAGUE: Okay.

SMITH: So there we joined up with them, the active squadron who were just reforming. They had been in the Pacific, in the Southwest Pacific, and put in their tour there and came back to the States and regrouped and retrained and filled up the ranks with people like us. And so the three newbies, that was us, joined them there at Norfolk, and the carrier, that was brand new, so we were on there for a shakedown cruise. Went down to get on in that area. And while we were there, while the ship was getting its tests and things, our three crews and support personnel went to Waller Field in Trinidad. So we lived on the Army Air Field there at Trinidad for a while. And got our training, especially at night, night radar training, and night navigation training for pilots.

SPRAGUE: And that was on Trinidad. And you called it Waller Field or–

SMITH: Waller. I'm sure it was Waller Field.

SPRAGUE: Okay. And what was that like, that night training?

SMITH: Well, it's pretty routine, except one night we went out and there was us, just our three planes out to, I think it's Tobago, one of the islands in that group. And while we were out there, I think it was night navigation training basically for the pilots, but we were out there, we got fogged in, and so we were using our Aldis lamp, that's our blinker gun that I operated to make bright enough lights where the planes could still see each other. But anyhow, the pilots got lost, confused in the fog. And so my pilot asked me, “Can you see Trinidad on the radar?” I said, “No, I got blank no matter where I looked,” but I said, “Maybe if we climb higher, we might could find it.” So we had the three planes in a big circle, gaining altitude. Finally we got up there where I could pick up the island, and so we got back home. And then I remember when they got there, the tower told them to do three touch and gos. And I thought, “I think I had enough of this flight.” But three touch and gos before we could call it quits for the night.

SPRAGUE: So you got back.

SMITH: Yeah. So when, the ship had then finished their qualifications and we went back aboard and back to Norfolk, and loaded up ammo and food and all that and went through the Panama Canal. And we made a practice raid on Panama City, poaching there. Scare the daylights out of them. [Sprague laughs] Apparently no one warned the populace that we were gonna do that. So.

SPRAGUE: And when was that about, do you think?

SMITH: It was probably getting home about February.

SPRAGUE: February of '45?

SMITH: 45, yeah. Yeah, somewhere around there. You know, I think that, oh yeah. Then we landed and stayed a couple days at the airfield, Albrook Field in Panama City, and got some liberty. And Albrook Field, strangely enough, was named after a pilot from Delhi.

SPRAGUE: Whoa.

SMITH: He was a World War I pilot, and I don't remember why they named it after him anymore, but there was some Albrooks around Delhi, that's where he was from. That airfield was Albrook Field.

SPRAGUE: And Albrecht, A-L-B-R-E-C-H-T?

SMITH: No, “brook,” B-R-double-O-K.

SPRAGUE: Oh, like “brook”.

SMITH: Yeah.

SPRAGUE: Gotcha. Well, I'm glad I asked.

SMITH: Yeah.

SPRAGUE: Okay.

SMITH: So then from there, we proceeded to the coast to San Diego, and we took out about a thousand Marines and headed for Hawaii. And the only thing I remember about that, the first day at sea, headed for Hawaii, we hit pretty stormy weather. So what did the cooks dream up for chow? Some greasy old pork chops. And about half the Marines were hanging over the rail. I remember that. And that was a big joke, how many sick Marines we had. So we got to Hawaii and there we offloaded again and flew over to Maui at an air station at Maui for more practice. That was the whole squadron flew over there.

SPRAGUE: Do you happen to remember the name of the Naval Air Station in Maui?

SMITH: Hmm. I don't remember, no.

SPRAGUE: Okay.

SMITH: But–

SPRAGUE: So the squadron flew over.

SMITH: To that air station for more practice. I just remember, all of the islands we flew over, all around the stuff, beautiful country. But we got liberty there, of course, town. And I remember I got a haircut, was the first time I ever saw a lady barber. I thought that was another new experience for a guy from the sticks. But I also remember, I think it was the Fourth Marine Division, I'm not sure about that. One of the marines' divisions had really taken a beating in the South Pacific, and they were stationed there for regrouping and recuperation and stuff. And we went and we were in town early on a Saturday morning, I think, in a bar. And the bartender lined up all along the counter, he lined up shot glasses and he walked along, filled all of them shot glasses. We said, “What are you doing?” And he said, “Well, we turn our marines loose at 10:00.” And he said, “Then we'll be gone in a flash.” And so he was prepared ahead of time for Marines when we'd come to town.

SPRAGUE: Do you happen to remember the name of the town, by chance?

SMITH: I want to say Kahalui, but I'm not positive. I think that was it. They had to be careful, you know, because it was so many servicemen they'd just swamp in all these small communities. Yeah. And then, we come back to Hawaii and the ship wasn't quite ready to leave yet. So they put us up in the Royal Hawaiian Hotel. And that was another eye-opener as somebody from the sticks, to stay in that hotel. SO we had, over the wartime, we had quarters anywhere from the ridiculous to the sublime. We had them all. But I remember the tile floors and everything in the hotel was red plush.

SPRAGUE: That was the Royal Hawaiian–

SMITH: Hawaiian.

SPRAGUE: Hotel.

SMITH: Still a famous landmark, 'cause my wife went there a few years ago, it was still there. The existence is still a luxury hotel.

SPRAGUE: And is that in Oahu or where is that?

SMITH: That's on, yeah, Oahu.

SPRAGUE: Would it be Waikiki or somewhere?

SMITH: Well, Waikiki is a beach on Oahu. Oahu, it's a–

SPRAGUE: The island–

SMITH: Honolulu. Honolulu, yeah.

SPRAGUE: Honolulu. Honolulu's a– okay. Okay, so you're at Hawaii. What happens next? It would be–

SMITH: They took us off of the Bonhomme Richard. I don't know why, politics, I suppose. But anyway, put another air group on there. And so they loaded us on a jeep carrier. And that was the USS Salamaua, a jeep carrier. But I just run across the liberty car, that jeep, and we went to Guam.

SPRAGUE: And how do you spell that ship's name?

SMITH: S-A-L-A-M-A-U-A, I think.

SPRAGUE: Salamaua, does that sound right?

SMITH: Yeah, close enough.

SPRAGUE: And you called it a Jeep carrier?

SMITH: Yeah, escort carrier.

SPRAGUE: Escort carrier.

SMITH: Yeah. We always called them jeep carriers.

SPRAGUE: Why did you call them jeep carriers? Just curious.

SMITH: I don't know. It was a name, I don't know who dreamed it up to start with.

SPRAGUE: [Laughs] Oh, okay.

SMITH: But, I guess 'cause they were small and versatile. They called them jeeps. Yeah, that's what we referred to 'em as jeep carriers.

SPRAGUE: And what happened when you got to Guam?

SMITH: Then we turned around and loaded on transport planes and flew to Saipan.

SPRAGUE: Okay.

SMITH: And there, from Saipan, we went aboard the USS Randolph.

SPRAGUE: Okay.

SMITH: We relieved, I forget what squadron was there, we relieved them.

SPRAGUE: The USS Randolph. That's a CV-15?

SMITH: 15.

SPRAGUE: 15, yeah. Okay. And you're on there, you're on the carrier, what happens next with you guys?

SMITH: Well, for some reason, I guess we went over to the Philippines to join Task Force 58 point– I forget, they had different numbers depending on which admiral was in charge. So it was 58.3 or, I think it was 3.

SPRAGUE: That sounds right to me. Task Force 58, that sounds right.

SMITH: Yeah.

SPRAGUE: Okay. So do you remember the squadron number on the Randolph by chance?

SMITH: Yeah, we were still Air Group 16.

SPRAGUE: Air Group 16.

SMITH: Yeah, all this time from we joined Group 16 and of course, Torpedo Squadron 16 was a part of Group 16.

SPRAGUE: Okay.

SMITH: And we remained together as a group until the end of the war. But they moved them, they still do, from ship to ship. That's a group.

SPRAGUE: Okay. That's good to know. So–

SMITH: So nothing to remember there, the Philippines. 'Cause we anchored off shore there for some reason, and we actually got to go ashore for a beer bust. I think it was, I don't remember which area it was anymore, but I remember a miles-long sandy beach there. So we all, that wanted to, could jump overboard for a swim or you could go ashore. And they drug out the beer, so everybody got a beer and a sunburn. And we weren't just standing there too. So then we joined up with the rest of the air group and headed for Japan.

SPRAGUE: Were you doing any, running any missions off the Randolph at that point?

SMITH: No.

SPRAGUE: No.

SMITH: No. It's just after we left there, that's when we headed towards Japan.

SPRAGUE: Oh. And, okay, so you didn't run– You weren't running any missions off the Randolph while you were in the Philippines. Okay. And then you headed to Japan. Okay.

SMITH: Yeah.

SPRAGUE: So let's see where we're at here. Let's go ahead. Let's take a quick break. This ends segment one.

[PAUSE IN RECORDING]

SPRAGUE: Okay. This is Luke Sprague with Don Smith, Donald Smith, starting segment two. So we had just left off at the ship going to the Randolph, the U.S., CV-15 going to Japan, and it would have been 1945, early. Tell me what happened next, Don.

SMITH: This was around the 4th of July, I guess, We went to, and made our first attack on the mainland of Japan. And I could give you the exact dates if that's material.

SPRAGUE: No, that's okay. We don't need those.

SMITH: Well, okay.

SPRAGUE: So before you got to the mainland in Japan, did you have any other attacks at Saipan?

SMITH: No, I didn't.

SPRAGUE: Okay.

SMITH: We did our routine training at Saipan, of course, and we cut up on Randolph and we had some training exercises with the entire task force, and that was amazing. The first time I got airborne, see that task force from the air, I couldn't believe it. Ships as far as the horizon.

SPRAGUE: And we think that was Task Force?

SMITH: 58

SPRAGUE: 58.

SMITH: Yeah.

SPRAGUE: And you don't remember if you were .1, .2, or .3.

SMITH: I don't remember.

SPRAGUE: Okay. So anyways–

SMITH: Then we, and we always, of course, kept some planes in the air for patrol for submarines and stuff, and I guess I did a couple of them, with right up patrol.

SPRAGUE: Nothing happened on any of those patrols.

SMITH: No sighting up there. Oh, and, back up a little bit and while we were at Saipan, we lost another crew. We were about 10, 12,000 feet, pushed over into glide bomb attack, and one of the plane's wings just folded.

SPRAGUE: Oh.

SMITH: And it just fell like a rock.

SPRAGUE: This is a member of your squadron?

SMITH: Mm-hmm.

SPRAGUE: Do you happen to remember any of their names or tail number?

SMITH: I don't, I don't remember their names. No, not offhand.

SPRAGUE: That's okay. That's all right. So let's get back to Japan, then, I think.

SMITH: [Coughs] Okay, wait. [Coughs] I think our first attack, that could be– Can you pause?

SPRAGUE: Yeah, I can pause it! Yeah, okay, we're going to pause the tape.

SMITH: Okay, yes.

[Pause in recording]

SPRAGUE: Okay, you're on the air. This is starting segment three with Don Smith. Go ahead, Don.

SMITH: This was on [inaudible]. It was two strikes [Mount Barrow?] and [Naruto??] Airfields, basically Tokyo.

SPRAGUE: Okay. And that was with Torpedo Squadron 16, correct?

SMITH: Mm-hmm.

SPRAGUE: And you're talking to, yeah, strikes on the mainland?

SMITH: Yeah.

SPRAGUE: Okay. What else do you have for me? [Smith coughs] Tell me more about that.

SMITH: Well, there was unknown number of aircraft damage or destroying a– 200 pound, 250 pound freight bombs were dropped in the revetment area. Yeah, against Japanese planes on the ground.

SPRAGUE: Now, were you loaded with bombs or you had a torpedo bomber? How did that work?

SMITH: Yeah, but we never dropped a torpedo in action. All we did was carry bombs.

SPRAGUE: Okay. Did you ever drop any bombs?

SMITH: Well, 10 July 1945.

SPRAGUE: [Laughs] Sounds like it, sounds like you're doing it then. Cool. Okay. Tell me more about any runs you had against the main islands there.

SMITH: Well, on the 14th of July, it was two strikes, on ferry slips and shipping on Hokkaido, that's north in Japan.

SPRAGUE: Do you remember anything from that mission, by chance?

SMITH: Four planes attacked the train ferry.

SPRAGUE: [Scuffling on the microphone] Okay. Keep going.

SMITH: Four planes attacked the train ferry, and a few minutes after we attacked, they saw the ferry sink. And also we made hits on the ferry slip, and one freighter was sunk and many ships were strafed and attacked. I remember that particular one because I didn't have a gunner with me on that trip. And we– I remember the pilot flying over the ferry slips, we bombed the ferry slips. And instead of flying away, he stayed low and swung out, and I thought, “Must be something wrong.” So I called him. He was okay. He said he was just gonna vary the routine, but he didn't tell me. But I kind of got back at him because on the next time at that same area, we bombed it again, that would be on the 15th of July. I didn't have a gunner, and so when he was flying low after he dropped the bombs, so he was so low that he was pretty close to the ground. So I swung the turret around, on the torpedo bomber, you could swing the turret so you could fire forward. So I opened fire on vehicles there without telling him I was going to do it. That scared the [inaudible] out of [inaudible]. [Sprague laughs] He didn't tell me not to do it again, but anyway, I kind of got [inaudible]. Actually, it was two raids on the 15th, same targets.

SPRAGUE: Were those also at Hokkaido or were they–

SMITH: Yeah, that was the same area.

SPRAGUE: Okay. What do you remember about firing and what that experience was like?

SMITH: Well, I remember two things. We had, for new weapons, and I don't remember which particular rate first used them, but one was the proximity bombs, which was new at that time, we'd set 'em to explode like at 100, 150 feet in the air, and we really used them up. Aircraft hangars, they're really effective because they set out a blast wave and just collapse a building. And the other one, new weapons that we had were what we called Tiny Tims, I think it was an 11-inch rocket. I think it was 11-inch, rockets that we could carry, which we did. That was, I guess, the forerunner of today's airborne missiles. These were not guided or anything but they were rockets, and they're pretty big.

SPRAGUE: And what size were the what size were the proximity bombs in terms of pounds?

SMITH: I think they were 500-pounders.

SPRAGUE: Okay. What happened next?

SMITH: We all went back and next target was back at Yokosuka, I think, mostly they call it Yokosuka now, but it was Yokosuka. Went after the naval base there. One thing that struck me too, [coughs] well, we had so many planes in the air, you would've had to, almost, you had to take turns with the various squadrons from the various carriers and stuff because otherwise you would have a traffic jam right over the target, there were so many planes.

SPRAGUE: Any threat from anti-aircraft guns?

SMITH: That was really thick. That's another story, too. Nobody had warned me about was, anti-aircraft fire was, there are all different colors that explodes, smokes from the aircraft, from the shells and aircraft shells were different colors. So the idea was, of course, so that gunners wouldn't know which was actually, if their gun was firing at us. But no, I didn't expect that surprise. And also that was our first use of window, or that jamming tinfoil strips that we carried. And my job was to string them onto as we approached the target.

SPRAGUE: How did that work, that tinfoil stuff?

SMITH: Well, it would take the radar, the enemy radar, and blob up their screen, so they'd just get a big blob. Actually, they had been using that in Europe, but this was the first for carrier aircraft use, I guess. And so, I think I would guess it was quite effective.

SPRAGUE: How did you deploy it from the aircraft?

SMITH: I opened the door, pitched it out.

SPRAGUE: [Laughs] Was it in a container?

SMITH: It was in bundles.

SPRAGUE: Okay.

SMITH: Just throw out, the idea was, just throw out a handful at a time. It looked kind of like Christmas tree ornaments.

SPRAGUE: Did you encounter any Japanese aircraft while you were over there?

SMITH: Very few. Very few.

SPRAGUE: Did you have an opportunity to fire on any other–

SMITH: I never, never. The only time I fired was when we caught offshore boats on our way back from raids and we attacked them. And then we wouldn't, pilot would make runs on them. He would fire his guns. Then as we passed over the target, then I could fire from the back, there, strafe those boats.

SPRAGUE: Do you ever remember being scared, or no?

SMITH: No. You know, I don't, never particularly remember that. I guess apprehensive, I guess you'd say, but I don't remember being [trails off]. I used to wonder about that. But I don't.

SPRAGUE: Okay, going ahead with your raids on the mainland, did you have any other ones or were those the main?

SMITH: [Inaudible] Kure Naval Base. That was where we sunk a battleship. It was in port at this naval base in Kure. K-U-R-E. Battleship Hyuga.

SPRAGUE: Do you happen to remember–

SMITH: My pilot got Navy Cross for that.

SPRAGUE: Your pilot did, or?

SMITH: Mm-hmm.

SPRAGUE: Oh, okay.

SMITH: And it was customary that a case like in our torpedo squadron, pilot get the Navy Cross, the crew, we get a Distinguished Flying Cross, but somewhere up the line, the hierarchy decided they were giving out too many, so they quit that. So I didn't get that.

SPRAGUE: But your. Your pilot's still got the Naval Cross.

SMITH: Navy Cross, yeah.

SPRAGUE: Navy Cross. Sorry.

SMITH: So, but I could have used that later on in my career because that was points toward the promotion.

SPRAGUE: Yeah. Sure. So your pilot was credited with sinking a battleship at–

SMITH: Well, he was–

SPRAGUE: Or involved.

SMITH: Assisted in it. I guess I don't know how many planes.

SPRAGUE: Okay.

SMITH: I guess we got–

SPRAGUE: Well, let's continue with the raids on the mainland, if you have any other ones, by chance.

SMITH: Well, hold on.

SPRAGUE: We don't have to cover all of them. But ones you remember.

SMITH: Yeah, that, Kure, I remember Kure because it was really heavy defended, and so many others like the ferry slips and stuff wasn't so heavy. And I remember, I don't remember– Do you remember what date the first atomic bomb was dropped? I don't remember but, but I know between the time they dropped the first one and the second one, we made raids that probably would've been, uh, Honshu, Honshu. That's main, I, the last one made was the 13th of August, at an airfield. Unknown damage. And I remember because we said, “What are you doing here with our little 500-pound bombs after the atomic raids?” Well, at the first one, of course, we didn't know the reason, but they had sent us way out to sea, several hundred miles off the coast. And then we learned that they had dropped that bomb, and we moved back and made more raids, and then they dropped another bomb.

SPRAGUE: Do you think they sent you out to sea to get you away from the bomb?

SMITH: Yeah, yeah.

SPRAGUE: Wow.

SMITH: But I remember, we were right on the coast, I could, right over the coast, one-inch band, when they called us back and said, “War is over.” That would've been 15th of August, in that area. It would be the 14th here. We had a 2000-pound bomb on that day. I don't remember the target. So of course we wanted to dump it, and they said no, bring them back. So we landed back aboard with it, 2000-pound bomb aboard. [Sprague laughs] Then I suppose they threw it overboard, but anyway, they wouldn't let us dump.

SPRAGUE: So you were in the plane when you got the word?

SMITH: Yeah, mm-hmm.

SPRAGUE: Huh.

SMITH: Yeah, I could, we were right over the coastline, headed in.

SPRAGUE: What went through your mind when you got that word?

SMITH: Well, I suppose elation, great sigh of relief. But I don't remember any exuberant displays on the ship and stuff like it showed in New York City, places. I don't remember that on the ship. Might have been, but I don't recall it.

SPRAGUE: Do you think there was any sense, of the people that you knew, that the war was coming to the end, or not?

SMITH: Well–

SPRAGUE: After the first bomb dropped and then.

SMITH: Yeah, I think, the question in a lot of our minds, and it's still in mine, why we were preparing to invade Japan. I don't think it would've been necessary, because we had so many planes and submarines, we had like, whenever we made a raid, there'd be, like 25 miles offshore, would be one of our submarines. You'd always see one, so there was probably a dozen of them, cruising off there, ready to pick up any pilots or crews that had crashed or bailed out. We lost one crew there on, gee, I think it was on the second raid, that they apparently had taken a bullet or shrapnel through the oil line of the airplane, because they were streaming oil. And so, the skipper said, “Well, head back to the ship,” he sent some escort with them, told them to head back to the ship. But they never made it, the engine ran out of oil, and they landed in the water. So they landed in the water, and they all got in their life raft, and all signaled they were okay. And so they weren't, probably had made a mistake trying to get back to the ship, because they were quite a ways from a submarine. So the powers that be had told the cruisers to send out some seaplanes to pick 'em up. And the seaplanes never found 'em. And so it got dark, and so that was the last we saw them. Never found them.

SPRAGUE: This would've have been from your squadron?

SMITH: Right. That was the executive officer.

SPRAGUE: Do you happen to remember his name?

SMITH: Neil, Stanley, Neil was pilot. I think Stanley was gunner, and Hearn was the radioman. Yeah, he was executive officer.

SPRAGUE: That was the executive officer of the squadron, huh?

SMITH: Yeah, it was his second tour.

SPRAGUE: That would have been right in July of '45, or August of '45?.

SMITH: Yeah, probably that would have been August, yeah, about the first part of August. Or else, the last week of July, I'm not sure. And we some guys who got wounded from shrapnel, but I think that was the only plane crew, we lost the whole crew. Oh, we did have another crew that was shot down. But that was on that when we were raiding those ferry slips, and they were shot down. And they came down in the open water between the two islands, and so they got on their rubber boat, and they headed out for sea. And a submarine picked them up. They rowed like, something like 20 miles, try to row one of the rubber boats, there's a real effort, but they really made time.

SPRAGUE: Did you think having those submarines out there for recovery, was that, did you think about that as being on the plane, if you got shot down, your odds were pretty good?

SMITH: Oh yeah, sure, it gave you confidence. Yeah, if you were shot down, that you, somebody would pick you up. And they were close to mainland, maybe like only four or five miles off the Japanese coast. They were close.

SPRAGUE: That was during the ferry raid?

SMITH: That they rowed out, yeah.

SPRAGUE: And then they paddled their rubber boat out 20 miles out to sea. Okay. Did you have any time when you were on the ship by chance so that you would have come under kamikaze attack or any encounters with those?

SMITH: Well, no. The Japanese Air Force was pretty well-demolished by that time. But we did have times, I remember one time when it was real foggy and the guys up in the crow's nest, the lookouts, they could see Japanese planes, but it was so foggy that they couldn't see us. And they obviously must not had radar to detect us, 'cause they flew on, unaware that we were even there. I saw some horrible results of those attacks, like the USS Franklin, that was really beat up. They were just coming into Pearl Harbor when we were leaving. It was amazing, it was still floating.

SPRAGUE: Damaged pretty badly though, huh?

SMITH: Yes. But we had so many planes, so many submarines, so many ships that nothing could hardly move on the island of Japan.

SPRAGUE: Do you remember when you were on the Randolph, any of the damage from previous attacks on it before?

SMITH: I think the worst damage on the Randolph, they got hit by one of our own planes, a P-38. I think that they were anchored at [inaudible] and this guy was showboating or flat-hatting, whatever you want to call it. [Sprague laughs] Crashed into the stern of the ship.

SPRAGUE: Huh. So we'll jump back here, World War Two ends. You're flying back with your 2,000-pound bomb still on your aircraft. You land. Tell me what happens next.

SMITH: Next, we, uh. We head closer in to Japan. And, the powers that be were putting together a landing force then, that would take place before the signing peace and that. But they were draining all the ships of their Marines to put together a landing force to occupy the island. So I remember we had a little ceremony when we offloaded our Marines. And I remember the captain tell them, “Good luck, and say, we won't leave you, we won't go home without you.” And the next day we headed for home.

SPRAGUE: [Laughs] And they left the Marines.

SMITH: We left the Marines.

SPRAGUE: And you left them on one of the big islands, or?

SMITH: We left them on, must have been on Honshu. Yeah, the main island. Yeah, and.

SPRAGUE: Do you remember what Marines they were?

SMITH: No, they were part of the ship's company.

SPRAGUE: Okay.

SMITH: Yeah. Yeah, we were on our way home when they, before they had that signing ceremony and stuff on the Missouri. We were already halfway to Hawaii.

SPRAGUE: So–

SMITH: We got to Hawaii, and then had to layover there and still didn't know where we were going, but we were at Hawaii and had to layover. And of course, that was a big treat to get some liberty and get some fresh milk and fried eggs. That was a real treat. I remember I ordered half a dozen fried eggs when I got a chance, at a restaurant there. And we weren't there very long, so they sent us all the way back through the Panama Canal clear back to Baltimore. So we had liberty in Panama City, and then back to Baltimore. Had a welcoming home party.

SPRAGUE: In Baltimore.

SMITH: Yeah.

SPRAGUE: And what was that like?

SMITH: Oh, it was a big party. Had a dance and working on the ship, and opened it up to the public. Thousands of people turned out there for a party and a dance, and a big [inaudible]. And then we got leave that week, month, I think a month's leave. But I didn't, none of us knew where we were going, they just gave us leave papers and said, “We'll contact you.” And so in three weeks I got orders over the phone to go to San Diego and I thought, “The East Coast squadron going to San Diego,” but they had dissolved the squadron and split us all up, so back in the train again, clear to San Diego. There, I got assigned to the headquarters, 11th Naval District, I guess 'cause I was a radioman, worked in communications.

SPRAGUE: In San Diego, okay.

SMITH: Oh, when I was home on leave then from Baltimore, went home and I got married.

SPRAGUE: What was that like?

SMITH: What, getting married?

SPRAGUE: Getting married.

SMITH: I suppose it was a big treat. That's a picture up there, in the upper left hand corner. Very simple, everything was still pretty austere then, we didn't have a big wedding or anything.

SPRAGUE: What was your wife's name?

SMITH: Ruth Reggentine. R-E-G-G-E-N-T-I-N-E. Yeah, I remember I was out in the field helping my dad pick corn, and my mother come and said, “You just had a phone call. Supposed to go to San Diego.” Yikes. But that was a good job out there.

SPRAGUE: So did both your wife and you go out to San Diego?

SMITH: Well, I went out and then she came out by herself. Uh, she was 18 years old. And she said, well she's going to San Diego, and my mother said, “You'll never make it.” But she went off by herself, got on a train, and went to Los Angeles. Had to change trains then. And I met her in San Diego. I had met [inaudible] said to find an apartment. Pretty crude, but you were lucky to find anything.

SPRAGUE: So you were in San Diego at the headquarters and you were there until, on active duty, at least until '46, correct, or?

SMITH: Yeah it was, May of '46, I think it was, that I got discharged.

SPRAGUE: Okay. Anything during that time at the naval headquarters that in terms of significance of things that.

SMITH: Well, one thing that sticks in my mind is we were, the ship, the harbor was full of ships of, Navy ships, and they were ordered to keep a 24-hour radio watch, which they always were. Anyhow, they got pulled in the harbor, and discharge two-thirds of the crew, and so the commander of the ship would come into our office and say, “Can you monitor our ship's pass messages for us? Because I don't have any radiomen,” he said, “How am I supposed to monitor that when there are none of my radiomen left?” But out district commander said, “No, you can't do that. They've got a headache themselves.” So, we used to surreptitiously keep track of their messages for them, 'cause there was no way in the world they could do it. Eventually they got that straightened out, but I felt sorry for them, or if they did have a radioman, he was supposed to be on duty 24 hours a day. [Sprague laughs] It was a typical end-of-the-war mess, I guess.

SPRAGUE: Yeah. So you're discharged from active duty in 1946? May of '46. What did you do in between your discharge in 1946 and your re-entry into the Navy?

SMITH: I was in the reserve.

SPRAGUE: Okay.

SMITH: I don't remember whether I joined that in '46 or after a period of time, I don't remember. I think five years reserve, and then I might have had some blank, must have had some blank time there. Then I went on active reserve duty at Glenview, Illinois. They come around recruiting, looking for people to go active duty to maintain the, well they called them TARS, Training and Reserve Program, so they're in Glenview, Illinois. They had the air station trainings, uh, system for training weekend warriors, we called them, the reserves.

SPRAGUE: And that would have been what year you went back on?

SMITH: I think that was '56.

SPRAGUE: '56. Okay. What drove your decision to go back on active duty?

SMITH: Well. A lot of it was pure mercenary. The idea that I'd go do a 20-year reserve, whatever, in military and get medical care and retirement program and that. And also it was more exciting, I guess, but, to get something different because I love to travel and stuff. And my wife was all in favor of it, so. When I went back in reserves, and then I, they come along and offered you more schooling if you would join the regulars. So that's what I did. I went regular Navy and had got advanced schooling enlistment motive.

SPRAGUE: In this would've been in '56 again, or after that. What did you go to school for?

SMITH: Well, the new moon breaking rules phase phasing out say to what? In a communication which ought to be. And so these are four opportunity to get good electronic maintenance. So, again, it was a wide open field. As soon as you did your time passed your test, you could get promoted. So that was a good one to get you to. That's true.

SPRAGUE: Was there what was the trip? What was it like going from radioman to electronic maintenance?

SMITH: How would you put your routine? I guess the biggest challenge, probably mathematics that is very human could learn, you know, the actual theory of your radar, radio, communication, navigation systems. But in maintenance, you had to learn the science of the program. So it was probably the most.

SPRAGUE: And where was the school for the back office?

SMITH: Not the South Korea.

SPRAGUE: After you got out of that school. I think I know where you went, but you tell me where you went.

SMITH: Well, while I was still in the reserve, I went to the basic aviation electronics school from Glenview, which went practically blue. And that's then when I went regular and went back to Minneapolis for a B-school. They called an advanced avionics school. And from there, I went to Quonset Point.

SPRAGUE: And just out of curiosity, what was your rank at this time and how did that work after? Well.

SMITH: When I went back on active duty, still third class, courtesy of well, towards June the fourth. But anyway, I carried four more years of back and active duty history, third class radioman. And when I got on basic school, then I passed the class and I read third class aviation recognition and second class in the same can. I took the change rate test and took an advancement test at the same time. So I read them both at once. So they're there. They pose for test for first class. So it's a reserve. And when no one actually knew what to do with first class. Trying to Big six.

SPRAGUE: Okay. What was your posting after that to your base and.

SMITH: Would put quantified crowd contact point? All right, let me answer two. In a submarine squadron.

SPRAGUE: In which squadron?

SMITH: That would be. Yes. 39.

SPRAGUE: Okay. And what within vs 39, was there a particular section or segment or was that the basic unit? Yes. 39. Was there a detachment with the largest?

SMITH: Yes. 39. For every part of their group? No. No. Sure.

SPRAGUE: Okay. On your pre-interview, you had mentioned and this could be right or wrong, you had mentioned A6 CV nine or CEO.

SMITH: Character where.

SPRAGUE: It would either be that one or it would be.

SMITH: Some sort of look. Wants to have six. Yeah.

SPRAGUE: Okay.

SMITH: It was was number one.

SPRAGUE: Who was the first one? The A6.

SMITH: Yeah. Okay.

SPRAGUE: So we'll cover that first here at a concept point, Rhode Island. You're. You're now in an anti-submarine squadron.

SMITH: Right.

SPRAGUE: Tell me about that, how that works. Well, I.

SMITH: First went there, so first class and fortunately, the radar system. Yes. To tracker submarine. But the radar was the same one that we studied in school when I went to school. So naturally, I had assigned to the radar patch, which was Cinch. And so one of the responsibilities of Duty six was really radar maintenance. And that gets a lot of dry equipment to the machine.

SPRAGUE: So I understand. So as to tracker, do you have to remember if it was, what was it as to E as to the airport or just, you know, that it as it was has to.

SMITH: Well, first we'll see as to what f right. Yeah. Later it's a different squadron but it came up s to E which just basically different electronic equipment.

SPRAGUE: And so I understand and a listener understands is it he six and you're the avionics technician or come on to make sure I get this right and as to have tracker four within the V. S 39 squadron. Were you did you did they, did you take the avionics out? Were you in the aircraft? Tell me how that works, because I don't know that. Well.

SMITH: Basically, they didn't run the symptoms, but you basically troubleshoot the aircraft to start would cause a lot of trouble in here with the avionics within it because you've got miles of wiring, new connections and things. So I who are trained students, then first thing you do is make for a look for the simple things when you're looking for a problem, just like you do today with your television. First thing is look, make sure it's plugged in and the connections are proper. You don't have a lot of trouble with poor connections, but if the aircraft checked out, you pull equipment, take it up, take it to the shop and repair it.

SPRAGUE: Now, on the Essex. Where did that chap sit? Attacker.

SMITH: Oh, gee, I think we remember on the third day below the hangar. Maybe you saw the second deck. I don't second the law that would protect their. You know what you're saying?

SPRAGUE: Okay. Any particular pieces of equipment that you remember?

SMITH: Yeah, I remember. 13. No. 31. Epps 31. Airborne pulled. Search. Yeah. Search. Radar. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, they all look now to this period, layer and other quadrants. I say think because after 33 modification.

SPRAGUE: So how did those radars, how did that function with the anti-submarine function of the S2? How was it used?

SMITH: Well, what the radar, of course, you you could only pick up surface targets. Oh. Or snorkel or something, which they don't know. But it was a search right hook. You know, their equipment. We had the man we call it the magnetic detection system that detect underwater. And we had some sonobuoys that you could drop and it would transmit sound from the water to your receiver described in court. We had our communication equipment, the navigation equipment to.

SPRAGUE: Do work on the magnetic detection or sonobuoys, you know.

SMITH: The magnetic detection system system, the magnets in a cradle. And so, again, align themselves with the magnetic field that you were flying for. And they were very sensitive, very shaky to him from. But even then, it must shake you and the mechanics of it. It was difficult for me. But the electronics part is not that complicated. And at my radios they were but correctly tuned. You change channel dial, but they were mechanically towed within that really help system. But they were kind of or a RC 27 or C.

SPRAGUE: 27 would what frequency band.

SMITH: UHF.

SPRAGUE: UHF and were the transistor were they tube were they circuit board.

SMITH: There were tubes this time that I would say like when I went from quarter point to Memphis pitch that was the era of transitioning to transistors.

SPRAGUE: What did you think about that transition?

SMITH: What's the point where you can reduce ASIC equipment there? And the biggest difficulty was getting the different systems to talk to each other because you have some old system, some new systems trying to get each other. I thought, I get the whole thing, but eventually you got it done.

SPRAGUE: Do you happen to remember any of the exercises you were involved in in the early like 56, 57 by chance at all?

SMITH: Well. We, of course, always had practice drills with submarines. We had submarines who would play deep stuff. They'd go on. But that was the start of that Russian submarine threat, and it really, really increased after that. But that was in 56, seven, around the beginning of trying to keep track where the Russian submarines were in later years, like the Russian submarine threat really escalated. That would a full time job. Yeah.

SPRAGUE: But you didn't you didn't think that it was escalated in 56, 57, or it was just coming on?

SMITH: Yeah, far as I know. Yeah. So that here.

SPRAGUE: Do you happen to remember any cruises into the Med or anything like that.

SMITH: From, you know, six in 15. Hey, maybe. Yeah, it's two. It's probably about 59. We made a oh 43 total shuttle flight tours we went up to. And then we went to normal. He. And seated in between England and Norway. Iceland.

SPRAGUE: Denmark.

SMITH: Denmark. Yeah. And then we went to England, Portugal, and he pulled in Athens, Greece, and through the Suez Canal to Pakistan. Pakistan was a member of the Hidden Group, I think it was called Central Southeast Asia. And he had all something kind of like neat source things. You know, in Pakistan was a member of that. So we went to Stanford, did a picture with Becks, didn't he? Yeah, I guess we're still supporting him.

SPRAGUE: And remember anything. And maybe Beirut, Lebanon. No, no. Okay.

SMITH: No need to know.

SPRAGUE: Okay.

SMITH: Well, sure. If Pakistan had been there. Oh, interesting. Of course, Greece. It was interesting.

SPRAGUE: It. Do you remember? Ever? I've got a couple of things that are listed, but I don't know if you're going to remember or not. But I got to. I've got to ask anyways. Do you happen to remember at 59 helping out some victims of a flood in France by chance?

SMITH: I don't remember that.

SPRAGUE: No. Okay.

SMITH: Yeah.

SPRAGUE: Okay. So one of the things that we talked about during your pre-interview was, uh, the Bay of Pigs 1961 jumping ahead. Yeah. What do you remember about that? What do you.

SMITH: Remember that retirement pickup? Oh, I think my son was six at the time. Our submarine carrier. And we offloaded most of our submarine plates. Not all of them, but all of a sudden, we took on a squadron of eight four track markers and headed down the East Coast and went by mine. And we closed up to shore for they could see us, we could see the pitch and everything. We got down here. Of course we were proud of it. But what's going on at home? You know that pretty much the vision that was coming in. So being in the communications chair, we had her radio, her monitoring with several different communication channels and we were monitoring whether it was the official channel or not. But between the crew on the beach, the you'd call rebels or what major opposition to the Cuban government. We were monitoring them and we knew that the invasion fleet, such as it was, was headed for Cuba. You know, we launched our air force with their weapons and. Of course, we didn't hear this part, but basically what happened? Kennedy called off the bombers. In the meantime, you know, I get on the boats, we're heading to shore Cuba with no air support. And they were pleading for their air support. They didn't get it. So I thought that was a stain on the United States government. Afterwards, he said Bobby Kennedy was full of influence behind that. But I don't know if that but I don't know what they called off the air support.

SPRAGUE: So you were there when Dr. You were in the comms room when the radio traffic was going back and forth? Yeah. REPORTER six.

SMITH: Yeah.

SPRAGUE: Wow. Do you remember being sworn to secrecy afterwards?

SMITH: I remember swearing. I remember it. No, I don't think. I don't remember that for secrecy.

SPRAGUE: Well, that's what the some historian wrote down. It doesn't mean it's right. Do you happen to remember having to if the planes. The planes came back to the S6? Correct. They forced it. You have to remember, we're repainting over or doing something with the paint. But they're claiming that the planes were painted over. The markings, the stars and stripes were painted over with gray paint. And then later it would have had to come off. Do you remember anything like that?

SMITH: Yeah, It seems to me like you did. My God, it seemed. Yeah.

SPRAGUE: What about something you thought was unusual, I think.

SMITH: Yeah, well, we knew what we were going there for. Take a little black plane for good, then. Never used aluminum. Poor suckers. Paid the penalty. Yeah.

SPRAGUE: Anything else you remember about the Bay of Pigs?

SMITH: No. Except it struck me that it was purposely short so the public could see it. We were headed there to support the issue because the information was still secret. And. Then we could see Tom give us. Okay.

SPRAGUE: Moving ahead to 1962.

SMITH: You went to Memphis for Structure of the Behavior. Yeah. And at that time. I'm trying to think what I paid, Chief Petty Officer, but I think that would be Chief Petty Officer. Went to Memphis, got well, one of the guys, the chief said, Look, sir. Yes, sir. No, sir. He wanted an instructor said yes. So, of course, you're privileged, privy to all the orders just coming in to Memphis for the structure. Said he was her instructor. He. He told the school superintendent there that part was going, I want that guy. So that's how you ended up teaching in the advanced school at Memphis. Memphis. And right after he got there. Chief Petty Officer.

SPRAGUE: And that would have been. When when did you take Chief?

SMITH: Must be about. 59 or 60. Oh, okay. Yeah, I bet. You know, I did go for mine down to Pensacola for. They have what they call the Chiefs attendees or for the chiefs that 93 people, Chief and tickets still there go there for once here ship trading things. I like teaching there at school because they were all career people. They were motivated. And then one experience or a reversal, the powers that be decided that we could take these kids from the old school over to a pretty basic school. We'll send them over to the school and then they go to the fleet and we'll save time. Well, that didn't work because for one thing, most of them youngsters graduating from the British school never had a job, never really had any responsibility. Even the school was you pretty much up here. You if you're making or not, you've got to work at it. And why don't we just weren't literate that that program wasn't successful. Then the powers that be come down on it. So any of it? No. School. Charter school. Well, you could tell that the people which configured systems should work. But if you had. But the THC found in a lot of them or people like me. If that had been transferred over from one another rating, even transferred mechanics and stuff over to chronic feel because he had a surplus and shortage of electronic types. So a lot of them were even taking the bases. Bill School too, but they were kind of out of their league, but they would make it because they worked at it. Some of them weren't even school graduates, but it worked out and you couldn't get any. Of course, you were always willing to help the ones that want to help themselves. But you take a recruit from high school, 17, 18 years old and never had a job. And so it was sort of military. A lot of them would willingly strike a pose. That probably still happens. A judge says, well, if you join the military, we will certainly look to you. So when they get there, that's the same thing as being in jail. Yeah. Difficult with you. And even though technically they're smart enough, but smart to show that part of it. Yeah. So. Yeah, but I don't like teaching. It's good for people because they worked it. And I said earlier in the transition age from vacuum tubes to transistors and stuff, well, they're missing age from analog computers to digital computers. So we were early digital numbers, system stuff. Now, easiest class to teach because somebody had a student, they've never heard of any number system different from one through ten. And so that was a class that you could teach on Friday afternoon and you have the students attention. Otherwise, Friday afternoon, kind of a drag. But when you introduction, the numbers system was written, of course, numbers went over good. That was fun to teach.

SPRAGUE: And these were courses you taught at Memphis? Yeah. Yeah. And that would have been in what timeframe? Again.

SMITH: I think it was 59 to 62 or something.

SPRAGUE: Okay, That's good to know. Okay. Wow. And you were an instructor. What's the correct title? That the correct title. Yeah. And you would have been a chief or chief at that time. Yeah. Okay. It sounds like you enjoyed that.

SMITH: Yeah, I did. And it was of, you know, a day job. You didn't have midnight work and stuff like that. Like you have to ship shift. Yeah.

SPRAGUE: Yeah. So what your the point you were making is sounded like to me, like during the Cuban Missile Crisis, you were. You were teaching is what it sounds like to me. Or were you back on ship.

SMITH: At that point to ship this? What you do.

SPRAGUE: When you were all this time?

SMITH: Yeah. But I remember being in Key West.

SPRAGUE: Okay.

SMITH: Oh.

SPRAGUE: Where were you.

SMITH: At? Yeah. You know, I can look. Most of the movements of this 61.

SPRAGUE: October of 62, a year later.

SMITH: Would. I would have efforts. No, it was I parked them Quonset point. That was about the time. No, I think the missile crisis.

SPRAGUE: Yeah. Okay, no problem. I got to ask because you have. I don't it. Yeah. Okay. So moving ahead, what happened after you're in Memphis to 62? What happens after that?

SMITH: I transported.

SPRAGUE: Back.

SMITH: To Phenix 30. For. Yes. 31. Thank you. 31.

SPRAGUE: P.S. 31. Okay.

SMITH: And then with the time of the Cold War with, we were trying to keep track of the Russian submarines. So that that period happened between during the Vietnam affair. And so the news, obviously, you know, that it's a time that the Russians had submarines. So after calls to New York City and Newport and patrolled the Atlantic coast and our job in cooperation with the patrol saw him. I saw him in Bermuda and Cuba. We were trying to keep track of Russian submarine hypnotic ocean, and we would tend to pick them up and try to clear what they left was the northern part north of Norway, Murmansk up there. That's where the Russian submarine to cover. I hope they're ready. And another job was to pick them up and track them wherever they went. So we always knew what they were. And, you know, so so I think we had for these for any crew, any submarine carriers operating off the Atlantic Coast in conjunction with those other etc. stuff. So we lost one of the subs would held till we could looking for him again. So we keep track of it. But it didn't get much notoriety here because he had no say.

SPRAGUE: So yes. 31 Was it on the A6 or was it on a think?

SMITH: I think we swapped carrier sometimes, but part of the time we're on no hotspot. Okay.

SPRAGUE: Okay. So from the you'll have to forgive me because I'm an army guy. So from your perspective, from the defense squadron's perspective, the ship isn't so relevant necessarily. You're just happened to be on it as a ship.

SMITH: Is transportation. Okay? That's all.

SPRAGUE: Yeah. Okay. That's what I need to know. Yeah. Okay. So do you happen to remember, like, any incidents with, you know, with during the Vietnam War in particular with where you were tracking those subs?

SMITH: Well, there were several occasions where they lost track of them, and we put all our assets to work on, locate. You can see we had an underwater sound system, and I think it's probably still in effect. Cable got new underwater post patrol squadrons from Iceland, Brunswick, Maine and Norfolk, Jacksonville, Bermuda. So we all worked in conjunction No. One, one particular outside. Yeah, it's a clue of where the sub was okay to track down. You think would come? But we never. We never attacked any for money. No Dark ghost. We used to. We've used people who hurt when we had our own submarines, of course, too. But we took it from here. We would ping the ship, drop it active sonobuoy, so you could try to come and let them know that their being attractive.

SPRAGUE: Or do you happen to remember any like recovery of spacecraft during that time on the ships?

SMITH: We didn't perform that. Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

SPRAGUE: And the aircraft that you were using for tracking those subs, was that still the as to take did you also happen to work with the the helicopter, the sinking helicopters?

SMITH: We always said they're part of your crew. They had submarine helicopters, VHS.

SPRAGUE: Which did they have their own avionics techs. Okay. So then, yeah, okay, I gotcha.

SMITH: But in our central repair shop, that equipment could be crossed over and work working it. My thought was.

SPRAGUE: How did things change over time in terms of you talked about sonobuoys, about the magnetometer, you talked about the radar. You saw all the way from the mid-fifties into the early seventies and changing from analog to digital computing and from tubes to transistors. What were some other did you notice any other changes in the.

SMITH: In switching in the computers. Of course, that's when he got into v v beast mode. Stuart. But navigation really changed over time. That was in the sixties for both systems. So before World War Two, you had navigation systems that would point you in a direction of a radio transmitter. You could receive their signal and point yourself pretty yourself in that direction, but you had no way to know that distance. So the system was developed where you could tell how far away you were, which was a complicated system, but it worked. And they had the long range gas station system, which I think still in existence.

SPRAGUE: Said the moon.

SMITH: Loran. Yeah, Yeah. Where you wouldn't have that system. No, I suppose it's mostly satellite. I don't think.

SPRAGUE: I've heard mixed reviews on the lower end from Vietnam.

SMITH: Era people. Well, it was like the direction finder. You had to use some sense with a to break time.

SPRAGUE: Okay, We'll take a break tonight. This is Luke Sprague and Donald Smith. This is segment five of our interview with Donald Smith from Medford, Wisconsin. And we're going to continue our discussion about the Cold War. And we were just talking about navigation systems. So we're going to go ahead and move on from there. In particular. How did you how did you find the Cold War against the Soviets versus World War Two? How do those experiences compare for you?

SMITH: Well, I think most sticks in my mind, either column or line of thought is out of the public view. I mean, in public volume, where what's what's going on, what the implications were, just like Afghanistan once was just kind of our public mourning. And we're a war tool cause every part of society is involved. So, of course, you know, children were covered because they were terrible racially. And, you know, everybody would show and victory signs. So in favor. Daily paper full of stories of what was going on and pep talks and things and. What I guess you're saying. I thought this was public involvement. You weren't too close to that touch for everybody personally. The Cold War and these war suits created for her to touch people's personal lives, to see who's to. Maybe because of that summit, everybody had family members that were involved in the war effort, either in the military or in events, defense, jobs. And their words are universal for common purpose. Everybody was behind the effort.

SPRAGUE: So like, you know, Cold War 65, 72, Vietnam era, roughly. Do you have any any memory of your you're tracking these ups. Did you remain in peace? 31. Did you go to a different squadron or were you in there? That ends 31 and until you're retired.

SMITH: When I made the senior chief, I think I transferred to what's been four years, 34. I think I was in four different years, 39, 32, 31, 34, etc.. Okay. When I made senior chief, I had to transfer to a different squadron.

SPRAGUE: Okay. And senior chief. Is he.

SMITH: Eight?

SPRAGUE: Eight Oak. Tell me you didn't say much about P.S. 32. Well.

SMITH: When I first went from Memphis, after coming in contact with the Village 39 and the powers that be decided to split all the squadrons made from half the size perimeters, they were looking for more opportunities to have commanding officers, commanding officers and commander. So that was a job for a junior commander. Maybe they had two really junior commanders. You know, and anyhow, so then that split off in a year or two. And so they had no one.

SPRAGUE: Was that about.

SMITH: I know we're going to 16 maybe, or something.

SPRAGUE: Okay. Here. And then you were 31 and then coming back up to date. You made it. You were in P.S. 34. Was this 34 also working off to A-6 or the WASP and those ships on the Atlantic?

SMITH: Yeah, much of that. We are the ones who point out it was horrible.

SPRAGUE: Okay. What what can you tell me about being a senior chief in terms of leading?

SMITH: Well, you switch from I actually when you make chief.

SPRAGUE: Switch and say, but yeah.

SMITH: Senior Chief, you are. You're not like the electronics technician anymore. You be in charge of the baby division like. Or you might even be the maintenance chief for the whole squadron. Chief at the master. Chief, you would be, but not other senior chiefs for the maintenance chief and chief of all the maintenance support. So you were concerned particularly about all the technical input? It's more, Charlie. Supervision. Leadership.

SPRAGUE: What advice would you give to somebody who is going to be in a position like that?

SMITH: I think the first thing he said in general. Well, yeah, some do who were put in that position. That shouldn't be by virtue of the fact that they were him, you know, And it gave a lot of credit to be a service, which is for now. But some of them were or put a position that they were prepared for.

SPRAGUE: So set an example. Yeah. What is it?

SMITH: And. I guess I know how to communicate between your lips and her officers Be able to carry a message both ways, and you have to have an attack.

SPRAGUE: Okay. Sounds very familiar. Do you? Early seventies. Late sixties. Did you. You were in the Atlantic. Did you have any interaction at all with the other than them coming to the sailors? Yeah. With the Vietnam War. Or was that Pacific Theater?

SMITH: Well, they're pretty much two separate Navy. But of course, I had guys that I left school now or or worked with upstairs instructors who went that way. Yeah. So I had some communication with with.

SPRAGUE: What was your experience from World War Two? You know, to Vietnam and Vietnam. What was your what is your perspective on the change in the Navy during that time?

SMITH: Well, I always remember, Admiral, So what, that Soviets batter ground. He said that they had. Loud, long hair. Yeah, well, liberal. Liberal. I used to live here, I guess. And of course, old timers were set against both of his ideas. Kind of faded away. Hee hee. Liberal. Right. Created more and stuff. And I think that the kind of social change reforms I remember that Dumfries sailors wrote kind of producer doesn't reason and he why I have no idea changed inside me to look like women's dungarees pants. Did away with the 13 button fly under uniform, which is impractical. But it was kind of a Navy tradition.

SPRAGUE: That was Admiral. Admirals?

SMITH: Somewhat. Yeah. Yeah.

SPRAGUE: Do you think you as a Navy chief, you'd like those changes in tradition.

SMITH: Or no did? And I wondered I'm wondering how long the term chief is going to survive. What she called her piece board in chief for something. Oh. I wonder.

SPRAGUE: So go ahead. I'm sorry.

SMITH: ALL No, it's good to see what we're doing here. We're going to report it. And my see duty time was up with the submarine squadron. I transferred over to lives on Office Depot. Overhaul and Repair. That was. No, we had a big repair facility for us. It's true. It's Quonset point and helicopters. They did there. And it was a button up five man office. Had a commander in chief and I know chief from the Reserves, which secretary was liaison between squadrons and stuff and overhauled part. And that was different cars to compete for a phone booth or for, who knows, maybe nukes in the squadron.

SPRAGUE: Was that towards the end of your career?

SMITH: Yeah. Yeah. Then they're like, Well, did I meet Master Chief at that point? So I was a senior chief billet, so they had to move me. It give me a choice of about three places. You chose Naval Air Test Center. And when I got there, they were deep in the conversion to digital computer digital world. For you, planes. Could you come in? A computer could communicate with another plane with the whole producer or wherever, or to take a ship. Airplane planes that had been on station to sub for so many years, they could take the information, don't put it into the plane. I don't come to relieve them automatically. And there were some liaison with the contractors developing new equipment like Lockheed had seen or heard, and it was all kits make electronic components for the Navy. We would test them and then supposedly the contract would go to the best piece of equipment, which didn't happen. Politics. Didn't after that. It worked for months to report on test, done some equipment. Then you recommend what to buy. And it goes to the Senate Armed Forces Committee here so that you say no, it goes to did a company outside serve my home district? But a contractor served in the Navy, had higher debts here, so worked in that same department to take it in stuff that was supposed to write the reports. So they knew they would get selected under $200,000 for a test program. And the first thing to do was money show up and buy a new carpet for the office or new desk for people or something. The writer might call it flop and whoops. But you see, you see a little bit in your area. You see what goes on in the real world.

SPRAGUE: Times like they were greasing the skids.

SMITH: To help you make themselves more comfortable stuff. But.

SPRAGUE: And that was in Patuxent River. Is that in Maine or Maryland? Maryland, Sorry.

SMITH: Yeah, It's done down the bay from D.C..

SPRAGUE: Okay. So you felt, even though you may have said your piece, the civilian, the contractors were going to do what they wanted to do it. Did you think that or felt that?

SMITH: Well, not them. I mean, these guys I don't knew carbon, but they probably read or I don't report what they found because you had statistics, you know, so many hours between failures and equipment, things, you know, but they couldn't send their report off to the hierarchy in Washington or who knows what happens to it. All right. What do you think should be done?

SPRAGUE: So you're nearing your what drives your decision to leave the Navy or to get to retire? Tell me about that.

SMITH: Well, I had two kids in high school and Maryland. Well, I had to be transferred back seat duty from the Coast Center. So they had patrol squadron, sir, but they were moving them to me at the time. I had to go see duty. Well, I went over to one of the patrol squadrons because I wanted one of them and went over to there and threw a few strings. I got transferred to Repeat Patrol Squadron eight, which was in Apprentice movie to me. But I had a beautiful place in my head, Maria, right out of the water, and I couldn't even afford to take her son. Oh, but that was good. I left my family. Her furniture and career schools were horrible. So we all moved to Maine and then we. I was doing very well. So I decided, I guess we came with some pilot Tiger. I would like to say that people have searched and it was really a good job. I could probably coach out of you criterium lead, but I certainly take their song.

SPRAGUE: Now, that was your time with Vpd, where it made.

SMITH: Brunswick millions.

SPRAGUE: Of.

SMITH: Patients closed? No.

SPRAGUE: I remember the patient's name.

SMITH: Naval Air Station to Berkeley.

SPRAGUE: Huh? I'm sorry. What did you say?

SMITH: Naval Air Station. Brunswick.

SPRAGUE: Brunswick. Okay, got it. It's named actually at the places name. Okay. Yeah. That doesn't always happen.

SMITH: Yeah. Yeah. That would help me a good deal, I guess.

SPRAGUE: Yeah. So.

SMITH: So be it, Master Chief. No, it's like, Well, but I was like, No, they call it Commander in Chief. Okay. And that's pretty good job. And you get it to pretty much speak your piece because there's no penalty for it. I mean, after commanding officer, don't quite kill for nothing you can do about it. So you'd get four or five younger junior. There is something you can do about it. Change your evaluation so your promotion chance you could. Good.

SPRAGUE: So that position was command Master Chief.

SMITH: Yeah.

SPRAGUE: But the grade is still inside. But it's because it is.

SMITH: In the title.

SPRAGUE: Yeah, It's like a command sergeant major.

SMITH: Yeah. Right.

SPRAGUE: Yeah. So you're holding the position? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So how did you get from Maine to Wisconsin? Help me out with that a little bit.

SMITH: If you can. Well, it's a job from I have worked at Wisconsin. Really? Because I grew up in then station in Memphis. I had a guy from here that I get one student. Both of us for students here. And he and I hit it off. We had a lot of things in common and stuff for them and our wives here. And so he helped me to come over here and visit for a couple of times and come up here. And I liked it so and so. I always tended sun to further north, and so I liked it here. So that's where I ended up, you know, like two people have grown up here, country trees, so quick and stuff.

SPRAGUE: Okay. What roughly what, what timeframe did you. Was it immediately after 73 year. Well, tell me about it. Was it later? Was it years later? I'm just curious.

SMITH: What did I do?

SPRAGUE: When did you move?

SMITH: Oh, to go through the 73 movement here.

SPRAGUE: Okay.

SMITH: Yeah.

SPRAGUE: Okay.

SMITH: Now, the country about halfway to Lake County. Well, the neighbors up there had it coming up. He want to sell it. So that's how it got to camp. I missed the water.

SPRAGUE: What's the name of the lake?

SMITH: It's on the Capital Lake.

SPRAGUE: Richter Lake?

SMITH: Yeah. Oh.

SPRAGUE: Okay. I didn't know your capital was actually on Mercury. I thought it was on a different lake.

SMITH: No, just right.

SPRAGUE: Okay, well, now I get to ask the question. Where was the cabin exactly? On Lake. Well, if you don't mind.

SMITH: It goes down. Go down the driveway to the tavern.

SPRAGUE: Okay.

SMITH: There's a fort. You go up a hill, you know? Yup. And you go out on a point. And that's where I saw it. There.

SPRAGUE: Wow. Okay. I know exactly where that is. Where you're describing. You know, you turn right the road wise. Yeah, of course. To the bar, if you go to the right, goes over the hill on the hill, and then there's cabins and there's houses now on the right.

SMITH: Oh, I hope that point.

SPRAGUE: If you're all the way at the end.

SMITH: No, I was just on the bay side. Oh yeah. Not quite the.

SPRAGUE: Okay, not quite. Okay, interesting. I'm very familiar with that lake. Okay, So 73, move out here to Richter Lake.

SMITH: No, no, no. I moved here. I bought an old farmhouse on Hammel.

SPRAGUE: Oak, which.

SMITH: Is what you say about halfway through it.

SPRAGUE: Okay.

SMITH: For external farmhouse, a little sun pool.

SPRAGUE: Okay, well.

SMITH: Then you get low homesick for some water. So there's a cabin. Come on. I bought that place a goldfish fish and a lot.

SPRAGUE: And you were rectified. From what year to what year?

SMITH: I bought the place about 74. Sold it. Maybe two or something like that. Wow.

SPRAGUE: Okay.

SMITH: I got into motor homes stuff, and so it sold. Yeah.

SPRAGUE: Well, that's interesting because I would have very likely been on Richter Lake during that time. I'm old enough to have been there during that time, and my father owned the property on the east side of the lake at that time. So that's interesting. Okay. So when you got back here after you retired, did you decide to take on a second career? What did you do or did you not.

SMITH: Know the guy in the pilot? And so I said, you never one retirement. But you could be in panic or choosy. So I would buy like work and I did quite a lot of that. And mostly farm wiring or stuff like that. And then I took a job. Road maintenance for Tom. So I'd just like to add that for 12 years, I guess. And then I guess I quit the band or I was the talent shows for a while too. But then yeah, then my first wife died and, um, so I think I raring to go. And then 88 I quit completely went to putter, which I do. I still have three acres out there. Well, yeah, well, you fish and travel. Yeah. After my second wife and I got married, we made it All 50 states and other places where we used to work could be stationed in the. During. I did say you should move to town. So I did. But now I go to the country five days a week. So I go out there. Okay? I look all tractors is my hobby. I must have done 15, 15, 20 whole tractors, 20 years.

SPRAGUE: Rebuilding.

SMITH: Them. They are quite hard to rebuild. So it's expensive. But I just charge it after entertainment.

SPRAGUE: And this is over in the town of Hamel. Yeah. Okay. Is it on your. Your son's property or your property?

SMITH: Oh, okay. We got 18 acreage up there.

SPRAGUE: Okay. So it's kind of winding down here. What are your I know we talked a little bit about it earlier. What are your thoughts on Afghanistan and what's been happening there? From World War Two veterans perspective?

SMITH: Well, I changed my mind a little bit, but I. My thoughts are we express with the rest the world think like we do, good or bad. But where are you? You can't just go into a country and change your overnight or probably over 50 years. You can't change it. It takes a long time, change country. And we couldn't hurt. And we don't go to when apparently we don't you know, you think we'd probably give some place. But my notion that if we had you know, which we didn't doing, you know, we didn't really do a second time after we got interrupted and won the battle of what to do with it and still do. Yeah. In Afghanistan, I think most of it would achieve far more importance to get rid of. We did that and you know, we could have just got out in a way. We introduced your life to a lot of people that suffer for no. You think that through to what's going to happen to these people that help us, and particularly women that we introduced and motivated a bunch of them. Now we've got to come to grips. Nothing we could do could start the whole process or. I know, I know. But I don't know what my grandson or my granddaughter think. It's horrible. We just cut him off. He did speak before and I speak from experience. But take it. And he worked a lot of in connection with this. When you call him tribal leaders or whatever. He worked a lot with him. You see him there all the time. And, of course, he's training him. But the. He felt that a lot of times you were trying to do things that they weren't ready for. Take them from Stone Age computer to YouTube. One generation had to do. Because the old chief's still got the power of hierarchies, which seems to work in the young. You'll remember they were seen on TV. He looks like it was shown some of those troops stopping civilians in the stuff, trying to examine their paper, said they can't even read. What Good. Sure, sure. Passport to read that. So how you could try to convince him that you had special privilege to mess. But I think a lot of people who are.

SPRAGUE: But do you have any involvement with the local veterans organizations here about, you.

SMITH: Know, armed? Do you ever hear of children? Secret Service? What else is there? That's about it.

SPRAGUE: How do you keep track of anybody who shall continue? Well, you were in the Navy.

SMITH: Like the last two just died last year. Could I publish? What Stone? They're not sure how many she had, but I'm not counting.

SPRAGUE: So if you had to do it again. Would you do it again? Would you? Starting with what? Would you do it again?

SMITH: Oh, yeah, I'd do it again. Do it all the time. And someone who's here said Hope spent between World War two and active duty. I'd sometimes say, Well, they didn't gave me much, but what if it did? Because I grew up. It's true. That's one one problem. I thought about it this morning. You take it on high school or even military. He never experienced real, real world. And so always in. You could train him to go out and fight and things like that. But to get out and interact with people and control people who live outside have given him a break order to actually be able to persuade people things take a military is not well prepared for that. Even here. I always had a lot of respect for West Point and that place and that, but it's situation still place. They want that to have an experience. And I think you could see that some general thought that. No. And the system doesn't change much by the days of all year, all England and stuff. We read about it all. Lots of stuff. They were political appointees and that's basically what the unwholesome books are today. You're going to be a four star general generally. That would be politically correct, even though they know better.

SPRAGUE: Did we miss anything from your military service that you'd like to cover?

SMITH: Well. Couple of things that have changed over the years. Of course, when I first joined the military would say, you know, you never thought about it. Now on the ship, there are blacks and Filipinos for mess stewards. In other words, it's stuff. And but we had a lot of what they call Hispanics. I served with a lot of them. But when they integrated service, give Truman credit for that, I guess. I myself don't run across the problem other than her victim. Victim problem, a somewhat from her niece would portray portray themselves as victims, not as much seen at all, but in her. If you take a kid bringing milk, dairy may be forced by the courts, bring him in the military and he gets a job, wash airplanes for washing clothes and stuff for the season so their office or electronics won't want to do it. They say, Well, I don't have that job because I'm black. And it's not because it's black. It's crazy. It's a upbringing he bought Brooke Phillips brought up under him. That's not helpful. You pull him out whoever you want. But the fact that he's got a radio job is because of the life he's lived previously. They're not. Not the color scheme. And why not? When I graduated from the advanced schools, there were like practically every classroom, which it referred to in first. But if you get a third in that class and graduate my first with black and green, as a matter of fact. But and not this. It's in Memphis, which is by far Deep South, which. Yeah, but are they doing stuff there? Well, we're so integrated in our students with three women there. Women were just becoming more more women used to be stuff, but I don't remember any race problems. Maybe it was, I thought military, but it did the best job of all if it really fits, I. I mean, if it were a House GOP from New York City or they were Southerners or farmers or something, but was it more sort of different for the blacks? You didn't. Or. You don't want to hear much about their hopes, but they're they're really second class citizens to. And Mexicans wants the government to work for them. Okay. Saw it personally. Yeah. What we we know he we heard for ten years from Texas and we had neighbors that were Mexicans and they call themselves the Mexicans. They call themselves Hispanics. But three years down there, my nieces and nephews daughter, their son, daughter, Congo. She's married to a mexican and. I really never thought much about it in the Navy.

SPRAGUE: Okay. So what motivated you to do this interview?

SMITH: Well, it started by my granddaughter. But I was thinking, you know, if I look at the calendar and said this up and I discovered, like after my father in law died and I discovered his actual military history, I just said, I wish I knew that because he served in World War II and was a trench in the trenches in France. And I never knew that. I knew that he wasn't in France, but all the stories he told about stealing stuff from the French farmer for his bunk and stuff like that, he never talked about those months in the muddy trenches and stuff. So, I mean, I don't mind story for be heard, but most of us heard just start room reflections and you don't hear much. Sometimes veterans get together, they'll tell we call you stories and stuff. But what was didn't have families I don't think you hear much like my uncle so yeah I'll go to one call to see him or another interview herself. And one was fought in North Africa and Seabees were both in South Pacific. One of my cousin's husband was a soldier and I didn't serve in South Africa. I didn't know their stories and maybe ask one question, which I know why President Bush proved that there was no islands down there from he was marooned a couple of months with a few other guys. But but. I think she did get a story which is reports on something that happened, liberty or something that. Come to nitty gritty. You know, here. So what I've done with this story is just that, you know, a lot of guys experienced it was just by luck of the draw that I got in the combat because all the guys that I went to school with took stuff. We're here. Never got that far. But I got there because I was part of three guys. Three crews were replacements. Otherwise, the other guy would never made it that far. And I might be lucky that I joined the Navy or have who's right at that age group time. Listen, I would find myself in Okinawa. Were one of those places probably taught us that for most of my classmates, it was the stuff with the Marines. So Erica, I said, had a tough I always had a pump or you said you don't. Could you hold? But I got an invitation, which was just because they read magazines. It's a solid universe. My brother and I went to boot camp with. He got amphibious forces with him, but he worked in the Philippines carrying tanks onshore.

SPRAGUE: And what was your brother's name again?

SMITH: Dean. Dave. Actually, moments later on my next younger brother, they they had his he was career airforce. He served his second lifetime title.

SPRAGUE: Thailand.

SMITH: He was in avionics.

SPRAGUE: During World War Two.

SMITH: North Korea. Korea. Vietnam. He would show me. He married two Japanese fighters. And she they do kind of an interesting story. She is Seeker. Her mother was married three times in all. Three of her husband's were killed. Right. Sorry grandmother greatest here but and she had Japan. Oh, yeah, I do go. When you got out of grade school, you either get split or you go into, like, what you said school or else you go into higher education. Well, she had that be a seamstress and she was working at the park, selling reading badges and stuff like that. But she.

SPRAGUE: Okay. Well, I think that winds down the interview.

SMITH: Well with Sarah and I, you know, I got to travel, you know, coast to coast, and I never got to the equator. Got north of the Arctic Circle. Americans. I wish that were possible. 30.

SPRAGUE: Okay. Well, well, well. Go ahead and wind up the interview, Don. Thank you for your service. Much appreciated.

[Interview Ends]