Eben Smith was born in August 1923 in Pasadena, California. He remembers his childhood as being unremarkable; his family moved from place to place as a result of his father being a builder. He recalls the Great Depression as "tough," but everyone was sharing the same experience. He comments that there was nothing in particular he remembers about his schooling. When he graduated, he began work as a carpenter and recalls working at several military camps. He remembers the first indication he had of the attack on Pearl Harbor was when about half the normal work force was absent on that day. Knowing there was a draft, he had given some thought as to what sort of military service he might go into; his father refused to sign the papers allowing him to join the Marines. Not wanting to go into the Army, he joined the Army Air Force in their cadet program. He spent a year in Texas training and graduated as a second lieutenant pilot. Following his graduation, he was sent to Casper, Wyoming, to train as a B-24 [Annotator's Note: Consolidated B-24 Liberator heavy bomber] combat crewman. He comments that at the time, the Americans were losing 30 to 40 bombers a day over Germany, and this equated to 300 to 400 airmen. Once his crew had formed up and trained together, they traveled to Topeka, Kansas, where they picked up a new B-24 and flew it to Italy. He discusses that they were originally to be assigned to the 450th Bomb Wing and that they were not pleased since the 450th had been involved in an incident where a crew had violated an accepted practice by which an airplane could in effect surrender during an aerial engagement by lowering the landing gear. One such event occurred in the 450th and the airplane involved wound up shooting down the escorting German fighter aircraft, which incurred the wrath of the German Air Force. The aircraft's tail insignia readily identified the group to which it belonged, and he comments that even efforts to change the insignia were thwarted by nearby spies. When they reached Italy, the crew was relieved to discover that they were being sent to another base, Grottaglie, in southern Italy. He recounts that he thought the B-24 was a good aircraft, he had a good crew, and that while he was a bit apprehensive on the first trip over the ocean, the navigator was very competent and they arrived without incident.

Assigned as a B-24 [Annotator's Note: Consolidated B-24 Liberator heavy bomber] pilot, Eben Smith arrived first in Foggia, Italy, before being sent south to his base at Grottaglie [Annotator's Note: where he joined the 719th Bombardment Squadron, 449th Bombardment Group, 15th Air Force]. He arrived in July 1944. He recounts that he participated in bombing missions attacking targets in Italy, the former Yugoslavia, Austria and Germany. While flying, he never saw any of his bombs hitting the target; he was focused on formation flying. He recalls that he was shot down on his 25th mission, and that he was not with his normal crew. He was flying as a replacement with another crew. His squadron flight surgeon [Annotator's Note: the medical doctor assigned to tend to the medical needs of squadron personnel] requested to go on the flight because he thought it would be an easy mission; it proved to be the opposite. The target was Vienna, Austria, and because of cloud cover over the target area the group commander had the formation fly away and then return. When they did, the formation faced a heavy German flak [Annotator's Note: from the German Fliegerabwehrkanone, "aircraft defense cannon"] concentration . During this discussion, he remarks that when he saw the movie "Memphis Belle," the sound of flak in the movie was so realistic that he jumped out of his seat. His aircraft was hit in the fuel tanks and the engines flamed out near an airfield by Split, in the former Yugoslavia. The crew bailed out; some were recovered by partisans sympathetic to the Allies, but Smith and several others were captured by Yugoslavs sympathetic to the Germans. A trio of Yugoslav girls reached him first, took his parachute silk, and left. They were followed by a group of Yugoslav boys, who took his pistol, and the parts of his escape kit that were of any value [Annotator's Note: such as the map and gold script they had been issued]. Finally, he was captured by the Germans, who took him to a nearby building where the flight surgeon who had gone on the mission had also been taken. The flight surgeon did his best to set his ankle, which had been broken when he landed after bailing out. The Germans returned in the middle of the night and took him to a school; he thought he was going to be shot, but they examined his ankle and determined it to be satisfactory. He wound up being taken to Stalag Luft I in Barth, Germany, which was home to some 10,000 Allied prisoners of war.

Captured after bailing out of his flak damaged B-24 [Annotator's Note: Consolidated B-24 Liberator heavy bomber], Eben Smith was eventually taken to Stalag Luft I in Barth, Germany. Prior to that, he was taken to Frankfurt, Germany, where he was interrogated. During his interrogation, he learned that the Germans had derived all manner of information on him via newspaper clippings. His transportation to the prisoner of war camp was a railroad boxcar. He recounts the Germans bartered for the prisoners' Red Cross package cigarettes. They wouldn't move the boxcars from the railroad marshaling yards that were typical targets for Allied bombers unless they got the cigarettes. He describes that upon arrival in the POW [Annotator's Note: prisoner of war] camp, he saw a crew that had been with him earlier in his training. Their navigation signals had been interfered with by the Germans, who had deceived them into landing in France. When they did, they and their brand-new aircraft had been captured. He begins describing life in the POW camp by commenting that he lost 40 pounds during his incarceration. The prisoners' diet was largely soup, potatoes and other such bland food; he remarks that the Germans often didn't issue their monthly Red Cross packages, instead storing them in nearby warehouses. Since he had a broken leg, he didn't leave the barracks. The prisoners played a lot of card games, in particular bridge, and topics of conversation often involved food and favorite restaurants. He comments that the Germans didn't treat them particularly well but he, as an officer, got better treatment than the enlisted men, who were in separate POW camps. As the war went on and the Russians closed in on Germany, the enlisted men's camps were shut down and the prisoners were force-marched to the west. The guards in his camp, who he describes as "old men," abandoned the camp as the Russians approached. Originally liberated by the Russians, they awaited American troops to arrive, after which the POWs were sent to France.

Eben Smith was relocated to Camp Lucky Strike in France [Annotator's Note: after being liberated from the Stalag Luft I prisoner of war camp in Barth, Germany.] He recalls that when he arrived, many of the former POWs [Annotator's Note: prisoners of war] were actually being underfed because prior groups of POWs had had difficulty adjusting to a better diet than what they had in their POW camps. He recounts that General Dwight Eisenhower actually intervened on their behalf, after which they were given more food. He has very little recollection of his return to the United States; while POWs had priority, he remembers little of how he got first to New York and then to Pasadena, California. He had some leave at first, followed by assignment to a relocation camp. After getting married and traveling with a group of former POWs to several other bases, he was offered a regular commission so he decided to stay in the Air Force. He was sent to Chanute Air Force Base, Illinois, to become an aircraft maintenance officer. He recounts that initially the military personnel there were not treated well by the surrounding populace, but after a general got involved their treatment improved. Rather than a true maintenance officer, he was ultimately assigned as a training officer, overseeing a cadre of instructors who taught various subjects on aircraft maintenance.

Returning from overseas where he had been in charge of Air Force maintenance instructors, Eben Smith recaps transitioning back to flying as a C-54 [Annotator's Note: Douglas C-54 Skymaster transport aircraft] pilot. At the time, the Air Force was reassigning pilots with significant flying time to the Strategic Air Command, and he became one of the new group of pilots with fewer hours of flight time to be assigned as a transport pilot. He describes one instance where he took a team of photographers up to watch a nuclear detonation test at Eniwetok. He comments that if more people saw first-hand, as he did, the destruction brought about by an atomic bomb, there'd be no more war. He later became the training officer at Pacific Air Forces, having also been a C-124 [Annotator's Note: Douglas C-124 Globemaster II transport aircraft] pilot. He describes the C-130 [Annotator's Note: Lockheed C-130 Hercules transport aircraft] as his favorite airplane that he flew and opines that while the airplanes fly the same in the modern era, all of the instrumentation has changed significantly. Describing his World War 2 experience, he says that he never thought much about the people in the areas where he was bombing; they had a job to do and they did it. Early in his prisoner of war experience, he was around Germans who knew who he was, but they by and large left him alone. No one experience stands out in his mind; he fought because he had no choice, but the war put him on a career path that he may otherwise not have completed. He expresses concern that young people today know very little of the war and history in general; he feels that it's important to study history. He closes the interview by revisiting some of his POW [Annotator's Note: prisoner of war] experiences, in particular the fact that the Germans went to considerable lengths to prevent escapes and to his knowledge no one successfully escaped from the camp in which he was a prisoner [Annotator's Note: Stalag Luft I in Barth, Germany].