Days after then-Lt. Smith was captured, an SS officer stood over his hospital bed and asked him, "You volunteer to fight for a country that lynched your people. Why?"
Before he was liberated in May 1945, he said, he was often asked by the Germans why, as a black man, he was fighting for the United States. "He would become indignant and respond that he was proud to serve his country," his son, Gordon, said.
Growing up in Des Moines, Iowa, Capt. Smith's heroes were the military pilots who delivered the mail in open cockpit planes. He wanted to join their ranks, but there were no black military pilots.
World War II gave him his opportunity. In 1942 he joined a squadron of black Army Air Force pilots training at a segregated base in Tuskegee, Ala.
From January 1944 until his capture, he flew missions in fighter planes, and was credited with destroying two enemy aircraft in aerial combat and 10 aircraft in ground strafing missions. He received the Distinguished Flying Cross; an Air Medal with six Oak Leaf Clusters; a Purple Heart; the Prisoner of War Medal: and the Congressional Gold Medal among other honors.
He weighed 70 pounds when he was liberated, and spent two years in military hospitals in the United States before being discharged as a captain in 1947. He underwent numerous operations on his right leg and had to wear an orthopedic lift in his shoe. "He must have been in discomfort, but he was stoic and never, ever complained," his son said.
"Dad never thought he did anything special. Ninety percent of what I know about his war experiences, I've learned in the last 10 years," Gordon Smith said.
In 1995, Capt. Smith accompanied President Bill Clinton to Europe with six other veterans for the 50th anniversary marking the end of World War II. He served on the Architect-Engineer Evaluation Jury to select the design for the National World War II Memorial in Washington, which was dedicated in 2004.
