Retiree News

The following are comments from Lt Col Russell Smith’s son, Dale Smith. The text comes from an email
sent to Brig Gen Braden “Mongo” Sakai, who requested Retiree News share the information HIANG
retirees.

Mongo,

Thank you for the call and for yours and the Guard’s support for my Dad.

My Dad was commissioned in early 1942 and learned to fly as an air cadet in Ventura Co, CA and was
commissioned there as well. He then went through type training in B24s as a co-pilot at Hamilton Field
in No California before deploying to the southwest Pacific and was stationed on the York Peninsula of
Australia and on New Guinea. He flew sorties against Japanese Imperialism throughout the Bismarck
Islands and Coral Sea and redeployed back the US in late 1943 and became a B-24 instructor at Gowen
Field (Boise Int’l airport, ID). At the end of WWII he returned with my mother, who he had married prior
to leaving for the Pacific, to her native Hawai’i. Upon arrival, he realized that he did not want to give up
his love of aviation, and together with five others, requested and received authorization to form the
Territorial Air National Guard (THANG) in 1946.

Russ flew A-26s, C-54s and C-47s and when he quit flying in 1963, continued as the Deputy Commander for Materiel for the HANG. He oversaw and, as a professional Civil Engineer, designed facilities that stand to this day, which include the hangars for the F-22s, which were originally designed around the F102. He also saw the standup of the Mt. Kaala radar site, which allowed the Koko Crater facility to be shuttered. The Kokee radar facility fell under his purview as well.

Perhaps one of the most interesting stories he ever told me was back in the early 1960s when the HANG
was challenged in a war game to defend Hawai’i against the US Navy. Russ assumed that the blindest
eye to radar defense was to the south, so as a battle planner, assumed the Navy, with their two aircraft
carriers, would rally south of the islands and beyond the combat radius of an F-102. The F-102 did not
have a probe or drogue so the only option was ground refueling. The day before the “war” was to begin,
my dad had 2 F-102s reposition on an approach road to an old radar facility at Ka Lae, on the Big Island,
and fuel trucks from Lymon field drove down to refuel them. The carriers now fell within the combat
radius of the Darts and they began flying combat patrol searching for them. Upon finding them, they
maintained radio silence and returned back to South Point and awaited the beginning of the “war”.
Upon the start time, they were already on station and within minutes, they had “gun camera” film of the
floating airports and returned to South Point and then relayed to Hickam. The next day the Navy
“attacked” O’ahu and claimed there was no resistance to their ingress. At the debrief, after their
Admiral pontificated, Russ stood up with his two camera shots and announced that based on time stamp
and the ability to carry infrared AAM-7 sparrow missiles, the missiles could have been targeted on the
carriers and subsequently led to their demise after the resulting explosions. Since the carriers would
have been destroyed, there would be no aircraft flying to O’ahu and the claim of the Navy would be
moot. The HANG won the war, and my dad said that the Navy never asked to play any war games again
with the Air National Guard.

My father continued with the Guard and retired in 1967. His time in the Guard and his stories of flying
in the southwest Pacific were what drove me to join the USAF and fly KC-135s.

Mahalo to Brig Gen Braden “Mongo” Sakai for sharing this information.

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