Monessen fighter pilot lost over Japan

This story is part of Mon Valley Sons of World War II, a series about our sons who lost their lives in service to our country during the war.

From the cockpit of his P-47 Thunderbolt fighter, Monessen’s Lt. Bud Smyth watched his friend’s flaming aircraft crash into the sea.

As he circled the downed airman off the coast of Japan, Bud felt the rapid staccato of bullets punching into the aluminum skin of his P-47. The swarm of Japanese fighters came out of nowhere, and it was too late to evade them. His damaged aircraft was now engulfed in flames.

Unable to control or escape the P-47, Lt. Smyth and his fatally stricken aircraft plummeted into the sea. His fellow American pilots circled where his Thunderbolt went down, but Bud and his fighter were gone.

The Smyth family of Monessen

Hugh Bernard “Bud” Smyth was born May 10, 1921, to Hugh Alexander and Alice Margaret Smyth (neé Murphy) in Monessen. Hugh and Alice married in Monessen in 1919. Hugh was an office clerk in a Monessen steel mill, while Alice managed the family household.

Hugh Sr. was born in Monongahela to parents who had immigrated to the United States in the mid-1800s from Scotland and England. Alice was born in Scottdale, Pa., to parents who came to the U.S. in the late 1800s from Ireland and England. Both families settled in Western Pennsylvania.

Their son, Hugh, was fondly called “Buddy” or “Bud.” He was the second of six children born to the Smyths. The first, daughter Nell Margaret, was born in 1920. After Hugh came Vincent James (1922), Margaret Alice (1924), Patricia Marie (1926) and Rita Elaine (1927).

By 1930, the family was living with Hugh Sr.’s parents in a large Monessen home at 169 Schoonmaker Ave. Hugh Sr. was active in the community and served as the Grand Knight of the Monessen chapter of Knights of Columbus.

In 1940, the family was living in a rented Monessen home at 842 Don- ner Ave. Their father was now out of work, but Alice was employed as a timekeeper, and Nell, Buddy and Vincent were all working to support the family. Buddy was driving a truck for the Civilian Conservation Corps, a public works organization created as part of President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal during the Great Depression. The CCC put citizens to work on national development projects.

On Dec. 7, 1941, the U.S. suffered a surprise attack by Japanese forces at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. It was only a matter of time before Bud would step up to do his patriotic duty.

On Feb. 16, 1942, Bud registered for the draft. He was a 5’9” 150-pound 20-year-old with brown hair and hazel eyes. By that time, he had been hired by the Koppers Construction Company and was working in Monessen.

On Oct. 8, 1942, Bud volunteered to serve in the U.S. Army, but he quickly learned that Army infantry wasn’t his calling — flying was. He applied for aviation cadet training in the U.S. Army Air Corps and was accepted in June 1943. Bud was eager to give it a go, and was off to San Antonio Aviation Cadet Center.

Smyth earns his wings

By the end of 1943, Bud was in flight training at Aloe Army Air Field in Victoria, Texas, in the Aviation Cadet Class “44-C.” He completed basic, primary and advanced flying training and in January 1944, he qualified as an Army Air Corp pilot. He was commissioned as a second lieutenant.

Most aviation cadets aspired to fly single-engine fighters, the sports cars of the sky. Many, at the sole discretion of the Army Air Corps, were instead sent to train for large bombers or transport aircraft. To his delight, Bud was determined by the Air Corps to have the aptitude to fly fighters, and was sent to fighter school.

Bud’s first stop was the Army Air Field at Miami Beach, Fla., in February 1944. He went on to Technical Training School at Seymour Johnson Field in North Carolina in May. After a short stay, Bud transferred to Bluethenthal Field, N.C., from May to June 1944 with the 124th Army Air Force Base Unit.

Bud received intensive training on the U.S. Army Air Corps’ Republic P-47 Thunderbolt fighter. The P-47 was affectionately known as “The Jug” due to its large round radial engine and its barrel-shaped fuselage. It was equipped with eight 50-caliber machine guns and could carry rockets and bombs to support ground troops. Fully loaded at eight tons, the P-47 was among the heaviest of Allied fighters.

It was a formidable war machine, a flying beast, and this Monessen son had the privilege to fly it. When he completed his training, Lt. Smyth was a qualified P-47 pilot.

In September 1944, Bud departed stateside and headed to his new assignment: the 318th Fighter Group, now stationed in the Pacific’s Mariana Islands. He was headed to war.

The 318th Fighter Group

The 318th FG trained on the Hawaiian island of Oahu. They expected to be deployed further west in the Pacific Ocean.

The U.S. had a strategic objective to construct airfields within range of the Japanese home islands. A new, long-range bomber, the Boeing B-29 Superfortress, was just being delivered to the Army Air Force, and the Mariana Islands of Saipan, Tinian, and Guam were within the B-29’s range of Japan. But first, the islands had to be wrestled from the Japanese.

While the eyes of the world focused on the Allies’ D-Day invasion of France in June 1944, another strategic invasion was underway. Operation Forager, the amphibious invasion of the Mariana Islands, was launched.

Forager began June 15 with the Invasion of Saipan. Once taken at great cost, the 318th FG flew in from Oahu early July to set up its air base at East Field. The 318th quickly joined the fighting by protecting ground troops and attacking Japanese defenses during the invasion of the neighboring islands of Guam and Tinian. By the end of July, all three islands were firmly in the hands of U.S. forces.

Air combat over Saipan

Upon his arrival on Sept. 27, 1944, Smyth was assigned to the 318th’s 333rd Fighter Squadron. By then, the 318th consisted of 84 P-47D Thunderbolts, six P-61 Black Widow night fighters and five F-5 Lightning photo reconnaissance aircraft. With a modest contingent of about 30 officers and 70 enlisted men, they were in dire need of manpower. Bud arrived just in time.

Lt. Smyth soon flew with the 318th in combat air patrol, or CAP, flying in predetermined flight patterns to defend the conquered islands. By November, the group’s mission changed from tactical support of the Marianas to strategic, including long-range bomber escort and fighter interdiction. A squadron of longer-range P-38 Lightning fighters was added to the 318th to protect the newly arriving B-29s.

In November, the B-29s based at Saipan and Tinian began bombing the home islands of Japan. This drew additional Japanese bomber and fighter attacks at those bases, and the 318th was pressed into additional CAP flights over the islands.

By January 1945, the group had grown to more than 260 officers and 200 enlisted men. The P-47s flew constant daylight combat air patrol over Saipan and Tinian, while the radar- equipped P-61’s did so at night. Lt. Smyth was undoubtedly busy rotating with his fellow pilots between CAP flights.

Bud’s first non-CAP mission was Jan. 26, 1945, in a two-hour flight of four P-47s to strafe the non-operational Japanese air base on Pagan Island, about 100 miles north. Still occupied by Japanese stragglers, these missions kept this enemy airfield out of the war.

But the P-47D Thunderbolts of the 318th had become war-weary and required significant maintenance. It was time to retire them — and to move westward.

New P-47s and Ie Shima

With the Mariana Islands now securely in the hands of U.S. forces, the fighters of the 318th were needed at the new front lines of the Pacific war — the Ryukyu islands. In March, the group was informed that they would be relocating their base, and in April, they began the move. While the ground crews boarded transport ships, the pilots stayed behind to receive new fighters and fly them to their new base.

Their new aircraft was the “N” version of the P-47. The P-47N was developed for the longer range necessary for the Pacific and could fly more than 2,000 miles. The most notable visual difference was its bubble canopy, versus the razorback canopy of the P-47D, which gave the pilot an unobstructed view of enemy fighters approaching from behind.

Lt. Smyth’s first mission in the P-47N was to experience the aircraft in combat. On May 6, 1945, a flight of 20 P-47Ns went west from Saipan to the Japanese-held island of Truk on a fighter sweep seeking targets of opportunity. It was a 6 ½-hour round trip mission that hit three Japanese planes and three ships. It was Bud’s final mission from the Saipan base.

In May, the 318th conducted the largest, longest aircraft ferrying project of the war. The group flew their 111 new P-47Ns over 5,500 miles, with stops at six island air bases to their final destination: the Ryukyu island of Ie Shima. The island had just been secured from occupying Japanese forces in April, and Ie Shima was a strategic location for the 318th.

The Battle of Okinawa, the larger Japanese island just three miles east of Ie Shima, was underway. Heavy fighting by U.S. Marines and Army infantry required close air support. Armed with guns, rockets, and bombs, the P-47Ns were just the aircraft to provide it.

The Japanese had also introduced a menacing weapon, suicide kamikaze aircraft, whose pilots intended to crash their bomb-laden aircraft into ships of the U.S. Navy surrounding Okinawa. The Navy needed protection in the air, and the P-47s were on the job.

Lt. Smyth’s first combat mission from Ie Shima was May 28, 1945. He joined a flight of 12 P-47Ns to the island of Kyushu. The flight, a “heckling mission,” was to surprise and harass the Japanese in their homeland. They traveled three hours to Kyushu and “heckled” the Japanese defenses by strafing with their machine guns for an hour. The group shot down four defending Japanese Zero fighters.

On June 7, 1945, Lt. Smyth flew a mission with 42 P-47Ns to escort two U.S.N. PB4Y Privateer bombers and two F-5 Lightning reconnaissance planes to southern Kyushu. The highly successful, seven-hour flight resulted in the downing of 24 enemy aircraft after fighting for 1 1⁄2 hours in the sky over Kyushu.

The turbocharger of Smyth’s P-47 malfunctioned, and he was forced to return to Ie Shima before completing the mission.

Lt. Smyth joined a flight of 38 P-47s to dive bomb enemy airfields on Kyushu on June 20. Smyth was now flying wingman to his flight leader, providing cover from attacking enemy aircraft. The four-hour flight damaged the Kikai airfield and took out a radar installation. Lt. Smyth’s squadron alone fired more than 1,000 rounds of ammunition.

He again flew missions to Kyushu on June 25 and 27, and July 1 and 3, successfully returning from all. Bud had survived the gauntlet of defenses over one of Japan’s home islands. The Japanese pilots, however, weren’t about to give up.

Bud Smyth’s luck runs out

Smyth was assigned to fly P-47N #44-88059 on July 8, 1945, as one of eight P-47N Thunderbolts to dive bomb enemy targets of opportunity in the Chusan (Zhoushan) archipelago off the coast of China. The group took off from Ie Shima at 1323 hrs and headed northeast.

En route, the flight rendezvoused with their navigating escort, a U.S. Navy PB4Y Privateer. The pilot of the Privateer informed them that their mission had been diverted to the Sasebo/Nagasaki area in northwest Kyushu to attack targets of opportunity.

While the pilots of the 318th had been repeatedly warned of a concentration of enemy power in that area, there were no specific intelligence briefings about this target prior to their mission. They had only been briefed on the original target of Chusan, and could not be certain of what might await them over Kyushu.

Flying at 10,000 feet, the P-47s arrived over the Kyushu area at 4:55 p.m. They dive bombed an enemy radar station at Kabashima island and a boat. Proceeding northwest to Ukushima island, they bombed a dock, trucks and structures, then aimed their aircraft east toward Hirado Shima, and attacked a lighthouse and two boats. Lt. Smyth bombed an enemy ship and sent it to the bottom of the sea.

Then the skies over Kyushu became complicated.

One of Bud’s fellow fliers, 2nd Lt. Billie D. Holt, attempted to skip-bomb a boat from a height of 150 feet. When the bomb hit the water, it exploded, sending bomb fragments forward into his plane, which immediately caught fire. Lt. Holt pulled up sharply and bailed out. The Privateer dropped a life raft to him while the other P-47s circled his location.

Without warning, eight or nine Japanese fighters arrived and pounced upon the unsuspecting American fliers. The fighters were thought to be Nakajima Ki-44 “Tojos’’ or Kawanishi N1K “Georges,” two of the best Japanese aircraft. The Japanese pilots aggressively attacked the outnumbered P-47s.

Smyth’s aircraft was hit almost immediately. Flying at only a few hundred feet over water, he didn’t have time to escape. His P-47 fell into the sea in flames, about a mile northwest of Hirado Shima’s southern peninsula. A search of the area by his fellow fliers failed to reveal any sign of the plane or Lt. Smyth.

Lt. Bud Smyth was never seen again.

Smyth mourned by family

On Aug. 1, 1945, Smyth’s family received a telegram from the U.S. War Department notifying them that their son had been killed in action. Days later, they received a letter from Bud’s commanding officer, which read: “The superior airmanship and bravery displayed by Hugh during several combat missions deep into the Japanese homeland were a source of inspiration to the younger pilots in our organization. On the ground, Hugh was the highest type of gentleman. His likable personality and his gentle manner endeared him to the hearts of all of us. Believe me, Mrs. Smyth, your son’s loss is a severe blow to our squadron.”

Three years later, after failing to find any evidence of his wreck, imprisonment as a POW or interment, Lt. Hugh “Bud” Smyth was formally declared non-recoverable by the War Department. His downed colleague, Lt. Billie Holt was rescued by Japanese civilians, spent the remainder of the war in a prison camp and returned to the U.S. after the war.

The name of Hugh Bernard Smyth is inscribed on the Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu, Hawaii, and on the World War II Veterans Memorial Tablet, located at the intersection of Grand Boulevard and Euclid Drive in Monessen City Park. He was posthumously awarded the Air Medal and the Purple Heart.

John J. Turanin is a retired Western Pennsylvanian and grandson of the Mon Valley. He is one of hundreds of volunteers with the nonprofit organization Stories Behind The Stars who are writing memorial stories for every one of the 421,000 U.S. service members and 31,000 Pennsylvanians who lost their lives during World War II. Those interested in joining the effort are encouraged to visit www.StoriesBehindTheStars. org.

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