L.B. ‘Tuck’ Smith
Leonard B. “Tuck” Smith, the Navy pilot who found and led the attack on the German battleship Bismarck, has died.
He died May 16, 2006 after a period of declining health. He was 90.
Tuck Smith was born Oct. 29, 1915 in Mayview, Mo., and grew up on a farm near Higginsville, where he attended public schools.
He graduated from the University of Illinois in 1937 and enrolled the following year in the Navy aviation flight training program in Pensacola, Fla. He received his aviator wings and was commissioned a Navy ensign in November 1939.
In March 1941, he and a few other Navy aviators were ordered to the United Kingdom to fly and train with the Royal Air Force. He became one of the first members of the U.S. armed services to see combat in World War II. He was also the first American to play a critical role in a major Allied victory of the war, for which he received the Distinguished Flying Cross.
Following this European tour, he was ordered to Pearl Harbor, arriving in Hawaii on Thanksgiving Day 1941. He was flying an air mission with one of our carriers when the war started, Dec. 7, 1941. For the next two and a half years, he was on duty in the southwest and western Pacific.
During the Korean War, he spent more than three years in the Korean theater as commanding officer of a combat squadron and on various operation staff assignments.
Following the Korean War, he served in the Pentagon and on various ships and flying assignments before retiring from the service in 1962 with the rank of captain.
For the next 13 years, he was engaged in business activities in the Midwest before retiring to the San Juan Islands where he built his home in 1975 and enjoyed the laid back, pleasant life with his wife, friends, hobbies and fishing.
He is survived by his wife, Loretta; son, Bruce, of Raleigh, N.C., son, Greg, of Kansas City, Mo.; stepdaughter, Mary McDermott, of Jacksonville, Fla.; and six grandchildren.
Memorial donations in Tuck Smith’s memory are preferred to San Juan EMS.
— Family of L.B. “Tuck” Smith
