Wrapped in valor
The World War II leather flying jacket may be a tad snug after all these years, but the identity still fits.
By BETH N. GRAY, Times Correspondent
Published November 13, 2007
SPRING HILL - The World War II leather flying jacket of John Murray Smart is a work of art, but more so a memento of pride in his country and his exploits over Europe.
The 86-year-old Army Air Forces veteran points out the painted insignias on the still-supple brown leather: 28 swastikas for bombing missions over Germany, six replicas of the free French nation for sorties there, another for a bombing raid over Holland - 35 in all.
Smart was a navigator-bombardier with the 8th Air Force, 453rd Bomber Group, flying in 1944 with a crew of 10 - pilot, radio man, gunners and himself - out of Old Buckingham, England.
At the start of the war, airmen were to be mustered out after flying 25 missions. But by the time Smart arrived in Europe, the military had upped the ante to 35 missions. Smart flew the limit.
To have flown 35 missions and survived was unusual.
"Some were lucky," Smart said.
For his efforts, Smart earned the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Air Medal with three clusters, the European Medal with two stars, the European Theater Medal with three stars, the American Victory Medal and the Freedom Medal. And, he rose in rank to first lieutenant.
Smart first landed in Preswick, Scotland, on D-Day, June 6, 1944. He and his peers trained in the skies over Ireland in big four-engine bombers, a huge step up from his first airborne flights at age 22 at Maxwell Field, Ala., in a two-seater Stearman biplane - "like a barnstormer," he explained.
Smart left Dartmouth College in his senior year. As captain of the school's hockey team, he had proved his stamina and courage. Both served the 6-foot, 155-pound young man well as an airman.
He aimed to become a pilot. But in pilot school in the biplane, he said, "I could do everything but land it.
"Which is pretty important," he added with a chuckle.
His depth perception was "a little off."
He signed on to become a navigator and bombardier, taking gunnery lessons at bases in Georgia and Texas, including schooling at the "very secretive" Norden Bombsight facility in Texas.
"That will mean something to other airmen," he said.
As for accomplishing 35 missions in less than a year, Smart explained: "They'd fly us 10 to 12 days in a row, then a couple of days off. As long as the weather was good, we flew."
Smart showed off a tangled mass of bomb-arming pins - they look like bobby pins - that he had detached as each bomb exited the aircraft. All are labeled with the site of ejection. He hasn't counted them recently.
His plane's targets were airfields, industrial complexes, aircraft building sites, railroads, bridges.
Smart kept meticulous records of every foray. Among those most known to readers of World War II history are Paris, Reims, Hamburg, Cologne and Berlin. "Munich was the longest flight - nine hours in the air," he said.
"I never saw a German fighter (aircraft) in the sky," he said. "We did get hit by antiaircraft fire."
One of those hits was his scariest experience. Smart and his crew were flying over Saint-Lo, France, at 10,000 feet, "extremely low." It was a bombing attack following a ground artillery barrage to open the way for Allied troops to move across France to Germany.
"We got hit by antiaircraft fire," Smart said.
He was in the nose of the plane. The pilot communicated to him that something was wrong with their radio man - that he was standing and staggering about, disoriented.
Smart responded. The radio man's oxygen tube had been disconnected. Smart quickly repaired it. Then he noticed that the bomb bay was open. The radio operator, or any of the crew, could have fallen through.
He rushed to close it, only to find that a bomb was stuck there, failing to have released. Smart manually deployed it and closed the bay.
There were positive times, too.
"I guess the most pleasure was when they closed the bomb base down three days a month for aircraft maintenance. A truck would drive through to Norwich, England, with a sign: 'Party Tonight at Base.' Girls fought to get on the truck," Smart recalled.
Although there was plenty of music and dancing, Smart said the women came hungry for the white bread, butter, meat, vegetables, cake and ice cream.
"Everything in England was rationed," he explained.
As for his proudest moment, Smart said: "To serve your country is pride, one of the most moving things."
About eight years ago, Smart and his wife, Delores, toured the American cemetery at Saint-Laurent-sur-Mer in France.
"Nine thousand three hundred eighty-six soldiers were killed in Normandy, and they're all buried in that cemetery. That's pretty staggering, a real sight," Smart said, choking up. "I get pretty emotional."
He said that as the American flag was lowered at the cemetery and taps was played at 5 p.m., he was reminded of the many sacrifices made.
"It's something every American should see, and value what we have, democracy and freedom," he said.
Smart documented his war experiences in daily letters to his mother. Delores, his wife of 29 years after his first wife died, said, "I have the box (of the letters), and they're pretty special."
Following his military service, Smart earned a business degree from the Babson Business School in Wellesley, Mass., then went on to executive positions with several companies and as a lobbyist for independent insurers in the Maine legislature.
He and his wife retired to Florida in 1982. After two years "of leisure," Delores Smart said they had to do something. She founded the Smart Interiors furniture store, first in Inverness, then on Mariner Boulevard in Spring Hill.
"I lugged furniture and hung pictures," said her husband, who goes by his middle name, Murray. The company employs 35 people, including six family members.
Incidentally, 62 years after the end of World War II, Smart can still shrug into his leather flying jacket.
Zipping it up fully, though, is a tight fit.
Beth Gray can be reachedat graybethn@earthlink.net.