Gene Smith lit a cigarette on the way down.
He was over Hanoi, Vietnam, on Oct. 25, 1967. Enemy fire forced him to eject from his F-105 Thunderbird a few moments earlier, injuring his leg and leaving him to drift down over what he called the most “heavily defended place on earth”: the heart of North Vietnamese territory. Smith, a Mississippi Delta native and member of the 333rd Tactical Fighter Squadron, was flying his 33rd mission over North Vietnam when he was shot down. He and his squadron were conducting a raid that day on Paul Doumer Bridge.
As he fell to the earth below, Smith recalled seeing countless North Vietnamese troops waiting for him. He lit a smoke.
“I knew that they probably were not going to have any fond feelings for me,” Smith told the crowd at a Mississippi Airport Association luncheon held at the Mill at MSU on Tuesday. “Because I’d just dropped two 3,000-pounders (bombs) on them and everybody in that force had dropped two 3,000-pounders on them, and they were going to be summarily pissed. I would have been too.”
Smith was shot twice in the thigh and taken as a prisoner of war.
It was the beginning of 1,967-day-long ordeal.
Captivity
Smith’s captivity began in Hao Lo prison, which American POWs nicknamed the “Hanoi Hilton.”
The Vietnamese interrogated him, starting with asking for basic information like his name, rank, date of birth, etc. Smith said they then asked what type of plane he flew.
He refused to answer at first, and Smith said they put him in a ball.
“I checked parts of my anatomy that I have never seen before,” Smith said. “They crossed my legs. My arms were behind me. They put a steel bar in my mouth with some rags that had some little steel filings in it. Then they took the straps and tightened me down into a ball.
“It was the most excruciating thing I’d ever experienced,” Smith added.
Smith said he later figured the North Vietnamese already knew what type of plane he’d been flying, and so he told them. Then, he said his captors asked for the names of the pilots he flew with. He refused to answer, and he said they tied his arms behind his back and hung him from the ceiling by his wrists.
“I finally learned that the things they were asking me really had not a whole hell of a lot of military use to them,” Smith said. “‘Who’s in your squadron?’ Well, I made up a lot of names of guys I had known who were KIA back even before I got to southeast Asia.
Smith stayed at Hao Lo for a few months. Then his captors transported him to the Son Tay prison Camp. He was later moved to Camp Faith — right before the U.S. launched a successful raid to free the prisoners at Son Tay.
Smith said he was later moved to another prison near the Chinese border, where he stayed until he was released as part of Operation Homecoming on March 14, 1973.
He stayed alone in a cell at first, one he said that was maybe four feet wide and six deep.
For Smith, the hardest part of the captivity wasn’t dealing with the poor conditions, or the “slop” they fed him twice a day, or using a jar-sized chamber pot that he had to try to empty 30 feet away from his room while on crutches due to his leg injuries.
The hardest part of the early going, he said, was coming to terms with the reality of his captivity and accepting that it likely wouldn’t change soon.
“I’m in that cell 24 hours a day, and I had to mentally come to grips with the fact that I was not going to wake up back in my room at (Takhli Royal Thai Air Force Base),” he said. “I’m not going to blink my eyes and this whole thing was going to be over. I was a POW. I was in North Vietnam and I was going to have to deal with this.”
Smith learned to keep his mind busy at Hao Lo. He said he’d spend the morning in prayer, then work math problems in his head, or try to recall as many Bible verses as he could.
The North Vietnamese moved Smith to larger and larger cells, with more and more fellow American POWs, as his captivity progressed. Smith said they learned to talk through a tap code.
Smith said it was the other men he served with and met through his captivity who deserved honor and recognition.
“I’m no hero,” he said. “I never have considered myself a hero. But I served with heroes. I served with some of the toughest men that I have ever known, who earned every bit of respect that we gave them as leaders.”
Bio
Smith is a retired Air Force Lt. Colonel. He was commissioned through the Mississippi State University’s Air Force ROTC program in July 1956 and began active duty in September 1956.
In addition to the F-105, Smith has flown the F-89 Scorpion, F-101B Voodoo and F-102 Delta Dagger in service with the 445th, 82nd, and 496th fighter intercept squadrons.
After his release from captivity, Smith served as an instructor with the 50th Flying Training Squadron at Columbus Air Force base. He later as the Operations and Officer and Commander for the same squadron, and Director of Operations of the 14th Flying Training Wing before he retired from the Air Force on July 31, 1978. The Smith Ceremonial Plaza at CAFB is named in his honor.
After his retirement from the Air Force, Smith was executive director of the Golden Triangle Regional Airport from 1979-1999.
Alex Holloway was formerly a reporter with The Dispatch.
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