William Smith was born in Ashland, Kentucky in March 1922. His dad was a doctor who was a surgeon in World War 1. The Great Depression had some effect on them. Things got tight and Smith remembers struggling to understand it all. His dad lost a good bit of money due to bank failure. Smith was not fully employed and had some short-term jobs in high school. He entered college. His father wanted him to go to a military school. He saw the war coming and thought the training would help him. He attended one year at Virginia Military Institute [Annotator's Note: in Lexington, Virginia]. Pearl Harbor came along [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941]. A friend who was the administrator of aviation in Kentucky, advised Smith to get secondary training. Smith had taken Civilian Pilot Training [Annotator's Note: Civilian Pilot Training Program or CPTP] in Kentucky. Smith went to Marshall University in Huntington, West Virginia, enlisted in the Army Air Forces Enlisted Reserves [Annotator's Note: Enlisted Reserve Corps] and went to California in 1942. He went to Santa Ana, California for preflight; Oxnard, California for primary training; Bakersfield, California, then Roswell, New Mexico for twin-engine training. He was in the first classes to use the B-25 [Annotator's Note: North American B-25 Mitchell medium bomber] as a training plane. He got a good of number hours in it. He graduated and spent several months in Columbia, South Carolina for overseas training. He then went to Australia, followed by New Guinea. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks Smith why he chose Virginia Military Institute.] It was a well-known school and highly thought of. It was rough for Smith. They had what they called "The Rat System"; hazing and difficulties for nine months. He was grateful when that year was over. He transferred due to the conditions that were arising [Annotator's Note: the war]. He wanted to fly. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks Smith where he was when he heard about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.] Smith was living in a fraternity house at the University of Kentucky [Annotator's Note: in Lexington, Kentucky] and was coming down for breakfast when he heard the news. He thought, "uh-oh, that concerns me." The whole living room area of the house was packed with people all listening to the radio.

The B-25 [Annotator's Note: North American B-25 Mitchell medium bomber] appealed to William Smith as an airplane. The airplane was very rugged and a pleasure to fly. When he got to Roswell, New Mexico and got to fly as a student it was a plus. The more he learned of it, the more he was impressed with it. He graduated there and was sent to a B-25 base in South Carolina. They flew all sorts of different activities there. They learned to fly in formation and cross-country flying. He was supposed to fly a triangular course once, from Columbia, South Carolina to a point in the Atlantic [Annotator's Note: Atlantic Ocean] and then to the Bahama Islands. There was a big thunderstorm over the island, so he flew around it. While banking, the life raft flew out and hit the tail. The crew chief felt like it was alright. Weather was bad in Columbia [Annotator's Note: Columbia, South Carolina] and they were redirected to Jacksonville, Florida. They discovered later that the life raft had flown out because the plane had been flown earlier and some officers were smuggling back some whiskey. They had stashed it behind the raft. They strained to get the cover closed and warped it.

William Smith was dating the sister of a friend, but it did not last long because he went overseas. He really never saw her again. He flew on a DC-4 [Annotator's Note: Douglas DC-4 commercial airliner] flown by airline pilots [Annotator's Note: from California to Australia]. It had metal benches on each side that were hard. It was not a comfortable flight. They flew to Hawaii, then Canton Island [Annotator's Note: Kanton Island or Abariringa, Republic of Kiribati], and then to the Fiji Islands and finally into Brisbane, Australia where they first got their orders to north Australia. The first thing he heard getting into Brisbane was to get steak and eggs. He was put on the worst train trip he ever took. They would walk alongside it to get exercise. They went to Townsville, Australia and then to Charters Towers. There was a Captain in charge of a loose situation there. He said low-level flying was not restricted but they should be careful. They got in their planes and buzzed all over the place. A friend got carried away and buzzed an Australian train. He flew so he could see the windows in the plane. The passengers got out to watch. He then hit a tree. He landed and the Captain came out and was upset. The copilot said they hit a bird. In a tree. [Annotator's Note: Smith and the interviewer both laugh.] They did not even reprimand him. They were then shipped to Port Moresby [Annotator's Note: Port Moresby Airfield Complex, Papua New Guinea] to 17-mile Strip [Annotator's Note: Durand Airfield or 17 Mile Drome] in the middle of the jungle.

[Annotator's Note: William Smith was flying out of Charters Towers, Australia]. They were shipped from Port Moresby to 17-mile Strip Airfield [Annotator's Note: Durand Airfield or 17 Mile Drome] in the middle of the jungle. One plane returned from a mission badly damaged. The pilot told the crew to bail out next to the field. The pilot crash-landed the plane without injury to himself. The men who bailed out took from five to seven days to get through the jungle to the field. There is a lot of tourism now in that area. A big attraction is the Great Barrier Reef. They only saw it as they flew over it. They had days that were rest and relaxation; usually a time the planes were worked on. They flew an average of three or four missions a week. The first few he flew was as a copilot on missions to the Bismarck Archipelago [Annotator's Note: Bismarck Archipelago, Papua New Guinea]. It seemed to them that they were bombing trees. The bombs had delayed fuses. They were right on the deck and they did not want to blow themselves up. They had four .50 caliber machine guns [Annotator's Note: Browning ANM2 .50 caliber machine gun] in the nose, two under the cockpit windows. Those were the first airplanes outfitted like that. It was modified to be a strafer as well as a bomber. Smith flew a B-25H [Annotator's Note: North American B-25H Mitchell] with a 75mm cannon, with four .50s in the nose, two in the ball turret, four under the cockpit, and no copilot because there was no room. They found that it did not really work in their situation because the cannon had to be aimed by flying very steadily and specifically. That did not allow for evasive tactics. The cannon was finally removed and two .50s put in its place. There was a lot of machine-gun, rifle, and antiaircraft fire. The fighters [Annotator's Note: enemy] were waiting on the outside. Their intent was to keep out of sight and off of radar and get them by surprise. If you did not have the element of surprise it was pretty rough. That was a difficulty in hitting naval ships; you could not really surprise them.

William Smith went to the Pacific theater as a Second Lieutenant. He flew from Townsville [Annotator's Note: Townsville, Australia] to Port Moresby [Annotator's Note: Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea] and landed at 17-mile Strip [Annotator's Note: Durand Airfield or 17 Mile Drome] on a metal strip. He was not prepared for the racket it made when the airplane landed. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks him to tell about a supply drop for Coastwatchers, also known as the Coast Watch Organization, Combined Field Intelligence Service, or Section C, Allied Intelligence Bureau]. They were on New Britain [Annotator's Note: New Britain, Papua New Guinea] and not far from Rabaul [Annotator's Note: Rabaul, New Britain]. They were there to advise the United States military of plane, ship, and troop movements [Annotator's Note: enemy movements]. It was mostly Australian Coastwatchers. There was a bad season of poor weather that made it hard for aircraft to get in. They were running out of food and medicine. Smith flew from Dobodura [Annotator's Note: Dobodura Airfield, Popondetta, Papua New Guinea] and was able to stay right down on the surface to be under the weather. The Coastwatchers had built three signal fires and the planes were able to drop the supplies along there. That was as satisfying a mission that Smith flew. They radioed back that they had gotten the supplies. Smith and his crews lived in pyramidal tents with about six cots inside. They would bargain with the engineers to get wood for a platform and then screen the tent in against mosquitoes. The bargaining tool was a bottle of spirits. The first bad experience was when he got to 17-mile Strip and could not get wood. Their floor was gravel. They would put their netting over their cots. He awakened one night and heard a crunching sound. He shined his flashlight and saw a kangaroo rat. They chased it out.

[Annotator's Note: William Smith was flying bomber missions out of Durand Airfield or 17 Mile Drome near Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea.] They would also fly from Dobodura [Annotator's Note: Dobodura Airfield, Popondetta, Papua New Guinea] across the Owen Stanley mountains. He was told it was the worst place for malaria. They took Atabrine [Annotator's Note: trade name for mepacrine, or quinacrine] which turned their skin yellow. He only had a few minor incidents. Smith was a pilot in the 71st Bombardment Squadron, 38th Bombardment Group, 5th Air Force. His aircraft was named "Pissonit". [Annotator's Note: Smith laughs.] Most of the time they flew just one airplane, but even that was rare. He later became an Operations Officer and he assigned himself to his own airplane. His crew consisted of a pilot, copilot, navigator-bombardier, radio man-gunner, and turret gunner. The newer airplanes had a tail gunner. Most of his missions were with five-man crews. New pilots would fly as copilot for a few missions and then they would split time before becoming first pilot. [Annotator's Note: Off-camera, Smith's son, Steve, says that the Pissonit airplane was the one Smith was shot down in and that was the only time he flew that plane.]

[Annotator's Note: The interviewer establishes the date of 15 February 1944 as the starting point for this clip.] Kavieng [Annotator's Note: Kavieng, New Ireland, New Guinea] had not been targeted before. William Smith says that the Japanese shipped fighter planes into Kavieng on merchant ships, assembled them, and then flew them to Rabaul. One thing they had not known about was that the Japanese had radar controlled guns there. He is sure one of those is what got him. He went into attack mode and was hit right at the target. The B-25 [Annotator's Note: North American B-25 Mitchell medium bomber] had a 125 gallon auxiliary gas tank right behind the bomb bay. They were hit in the tank. It blew fire into the radioman and gunner's faces. The radioman bailed out right on the deck. A P-38 [Annotator's Note: Lockheed P-38 Lightning fighter aircraft] pilot saw his chute open halfway and saw him hit the beach. The gunner crawled through the tank and got up front. The left engine was on fire and the wheels had dropped out. The hydraulic system was breached. He got the airplane low over the water and landed between the waves. Smith was the last one off. He never did see the gunner. They could not get the life raft out. Smith threw a parachute out and the gas tank blew him over the nose. It burned his face and burned his mustache off. The three of them hung onto the parachute harness. It seemed like several hours. A PBY-5 [Annotator's Note: Consolidated PBY-5 Catalina flying boat] was stationed for rescues. P-47s [Annotator's Note: Republic P-47 Thunderbolt fighter aircraft] flying cover spotted them. The PBY came in. Nathan Gordon [Annotator's Note: US Navy Lieutenant Nathan Green Gordon] was the pilot. The swells were so high that he had to turn off the left engine, so they were not hit by the props. Smith had an injured leg and burns. He looked at the fellow next to him and it was a man that he had gone through aviation cadet training with. Gordon landed several times. There were a couple of instances of life rafts with nobody in them. He took them back to his base. The friend next to Smith was killed three months later.

[Annotator's Note: William Smith was shot down while attacking Kavieng, New Ireland, New Guinea. He was rescued and taken to Finschafen, Papua New Guinea. He looks through a book.] The Seabees [Annotator's Note: members of US naval construction battalions] took Smith and his crew in and gave them one of the best meals he had in a long time. He returned by plane to Dobodura [Annotator's Note: Dobodura Airfield, Popondetta, Papua New Guinea]. His burns were uncomfortable as his beard would grow through the blisters. The worst thing was that he had lost his mustache. On the attack, there were ten bombers from his squadron [Annotator's Note: 71st Bombardment Squadron, 38th Bombardment Group, 5th Air Force] and a total of 40 to 50 airplanes with P-38s [Annotator's Note: Lockheed P-38 Lightning fighter aircraft] for coverage. They were flying about 50 feet high when hit. His airplane was on fire and the danger was that a wing would burn off. He had to stay up as long as he could to get away from the target and then just put it in the ocean. They had a good view of some of the destruction in the distance [Annotator's Note: while he and his crew were in the water]. Every time Nathan Gordon [Annotator's Note: US Navy Lieutenant Nathan Green Gordon; pilot flying the rescue plane] landed, they would shoot the shore batteries at him. They never hit him. Smith had said to himself that if he was going to be captured, he would just kill himself. Once out there, he decided to hang on to the last moment. He was at least a mile offshore with his surviving copilot and bombardier-navigator. There were reunions after the war that Smith did not know about. By the time Smith started going, the men had died.

[Annotator's Note: William Smith was shot down while attacking Kavieng, New Ireland, Papua New Guinea.] They were on one engine only. Smith decided to pick the landing direction to not go into the waves and stay aloft as long as possible. He cut the other engine and went on in. The rest of it was just waiting. He was too busy to see other aircraft go down, but quite a few did. The water was on fire and the airplane sank within minutes. They only had a parachute to hang onto. They only thought about rescue. They were encouraged when they saw P-47 [Annotator's Note: Republic P-47 Thunderbolt fighter aircraft] fighters. The worst part was the saltwater on his burns; it was very painful. His leg from his knee down was messed up but did not bother him. The other two men did not have a scratch. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks him to talk about the men aboard the rescue aircraft, including someone he gone through school with.] There were eight or ten men aboard already. Smith did not talk to his friend too much. They just talked about ditching and reminisced about other things. He was Jeb Kirkland from Wheeling, West Virginia. Smith had lip balm that he crushed and put on his face burns. They landed several times to empty life rafts. They then went back to Finschafen [Annotator's Note: Finschafen, Papua New Guinea]. Smith had no sense that it was a Medal of Honor action [Annotator's Note: US Navy Lieutenant Nathan Green Gordon, the pilot of the rescue plane, was awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions during the rescue]. Running it back, Smith could see that it took an awful lot of courage and piloting skill. Smith was able to thank him personally later on. [Annotator's Note: Smith's son Steve says off-camera that the pilot flew missions the day after rescuing these men and has letters between their families.] Smith recalls his mother being a "worry wart" and he did not write her. He wrote his father and told him about this but not too much. Smith was only in the hospital one night. He and his crew were sent for rest and relaxation and by that time, things were looking up.

William Smith was in Australia for about two weeks. They pulled some shenanigans. He and his crew were sent to Brisbane [Annotator's Note: Brisbane, Australia] to a hotel. The bombardier-navigator and Smith decided it was tame and wanted to go to Sydney [Annotator's Note: Sydney, Australia]. They finagled some orders to go there. There was a Red Cross Hotel down there. By the time they returned, the unit [Annotator's Note: 71st Bombardment Squadron, 38th Bombardment Group, 5th Air Force] had moved to Nadzab [Annotator's Note: Nadzab Airfield, Papua New Guinea]. He started flying again and were there for a number of months before going to Hollandia [Annotator's Note: Hollandia, New Guinea] and then Biak [Annotator's Note: Biak, New Guinea]. They were at Morotai [Annotator's Note: Morotai, Netherland East Indies], which was his last station before coming home. He was now a Captain. He became an Operations Officer as he was more or less a veteran by that time. They flew against air installations mostly. There were some targets that had big oil containers. A number of missions were against supplies. There were some missions where they could not detect groundfire, but most of them had it. [Annotator's Note: Smith mentions a picture of his aircraft with a hole in the windshield.] On that mission, he had a hung bomb [Annotator's Note: a bomb that did not drop free from the plane when the bombardier released them]. The bombs had a propeller that spun and armed the bomb. He could not see it and did not know what to expect. He decided to fly to another base to not push their luck. They landed with the best landing he ever made. They parked and went to the ordnance camp. They got it disarmed.

[Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks William Smith where he was when he heard the news of the atomic bombs being dropped on Japan. He was already in the United States, so she backs up in the story.] Smith's group [Annotator's Note: Smith was a member of the 71st Bombardment Squadron, 38th Bombardment Group, 5th Air Force] moved north of Manila, Philippines to Lingayen Gulf. He flew a B-25 [Annotator's Note: North American B-25 Mitchell medium bomber] with some buddies down to Biak [Annotator's Note: Biak, Papua New Guinea] to try and get a flight home. The guys that had been on the Bataan Death March [Annotator's Note: forced march of American and Filipino prisoners of war after the fall of the Bataan Peninsula in April 1942] were being brought out and were in bad shape. The worst ones were being flown home. There was a [Annotator's Note: former] German supply ship there. Smith got on that ship. The cabins above were a hospital with a lot of Bataan survivors. Smith slept in a hammock below deck for 26 days. The ship was unescorted and zig-zagging [Annotator's Note: a naval anti-submarine maneuver]. They went into San Francisco [Annotator's Note: San Francisco, California] and he went home. He did not get to see the Bataan survivors. You could tell the ground people from the Air Force people. The officers had a nice mess. The food was not great. The Air Force people did not get motion sickness. The ground boys had it rough. This would have been March [Annotator's Note: March 1945]. Smith got home to Kentucky on 10 April, and Roosevelt [Annotator's Note: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States] died on 12 April. They got a festive reception when they arrived in San Francisco [Annotator's Note: San Francisco, California]. He was stationed in Miami Beach [Annotator's Note: Miami Beach, Florida] and had 30 days leave [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time]. He was then sent to Pampa, Texas and then to Instrument Instructor School. He was separated after that.

William Smith went back to college and it was the hardest thing he ever did. When arriving home after being overseas, everything looked smaller. It took a while to get over that. He went to Marshall University [Annotator's Note: in Huntington, West Virginia] and finished up. He got his degree in Liberal Arts. He went to Louisville, Kentucky to Southern Seminary. He had gone back to Texas before that, because he met a girl and wanted to cement his relationship. He wanted to save his G.I. Bill for later on in case he got married. He got a letter from a friend who invited him to spend a couple of weeks with him. He did and his friend was housesitting in a mansion. He had a photo of a girl he found interesting. They had a blind date. His friend wanted to date her too, so Smith kept quiet. That was in 1947 and they married on 9 June 1950. Smith became a pastor and retired. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks him about an ongoing connection to Fort Benning, Georgia.] He still attended pastor meetings and a pastor asked him to help him out. New boys come in off the street with 14 weeks of intensive training and he loves it. He went to Panama three different times as a pastor of an English-speaking church that was very service connected. His first service in the church, a General and his family joined. He went in 1990, 1993, and 1995 as an interim pastor. During the war, an Australian night fighter shot down a lone Japanese bomber one night. They had a trench they dug with coconut logs over it. One night a bomb went over and hit the end of the mess hall.