David Smith

Lieutenant J.G., U.S. Naval Air Corps
1942–1947, WWII
Resident, Belmont Village Encino, CA

“I enlisted at seventeen years old so that I could become a pilot. I thought that if I was to die, the cleanest way would be in an airplane crash. I was piloting one of the first planes to bomb Japan and we lost a lot of men in those flights. It was terrible. Our young lives ended right there, but it taught us responsibility. I was proud to have served.”