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Jim Smith

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Jim Smith was part of the last group of helicopter units remaining in Vietnam. He was flying missions out of Cam Ranh Bay for MACV, the Military Assistance Command. He met the delightful Montagnard people on these missions and had a brief billet in the mountain resort town of Da Lat. (4:06)

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Huey pilot Jim Smith recalls seeing the surface to air missiles whizzing past his aircraft. Fortunately, the VC were very bad shots. He loved when he had a Cobra gunship escort because they would pound any position where those SAMs were fired. He also recalls his meetings with the Montagnard people, who were good to have on your side in the bush. (4:17)

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Jim Smith tried not to make close friends with anyone in Vietnam. You never know when they might get killed. He flew missions for MACV, the advisory group which had a lot of special forces assigned to it. These men had to be trained on triple canopy extractions, a tricky business. (2:55)

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Jim Smith and his wife wrote each other every day while he was in Vietnam. A few times they spoke over the MARS ham radio system, which was always comical when they expressed personal feelings followed by, "Over." When he returned after his tour, he was spit on in the San Francisco airport. Twenty four hours earlier, there would have been a different outcome. (4:55)

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Huey pilot Jim Smith landed in a lot of defoliated areas in Vietnam and he saw a lot of aircraft spraying Agent Orange, but he didn't think anything of it. Decades later, he developed diabetes and it may have been related to that exposure. (2:12)

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After establishing which pop songs remind him of his Vietnam tour, Jim Smith describes his emotional reaction to visiting the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and his pride in the memorial built in his home state of Kentucky. That structure is built in the form of a sundial which has a unique behavior. (4:25)

Jim Starnes

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Influenced by a friend who had joined the Navy, Jim Starnes decided to do the same and take advantage of the V-7 Navy College Training Program. It was a plan instituted in 1940 to train midshipmen for the expanding fleet of ships. A one month cruise started the training, followed by three months of intense schooling. (This interview made possible with the support of COL ROBERT W. RUST, USMCR (ret.) in honor of LtGen Lawrence Snowden & LtGen George Christmas.) (6:01)

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Jim Starnes was a young assistant navigator on the USS Boise, a cruiser out of Pearl Harbor. The ship was not there when the Japanese attack happened. They were in the Philippines on an escort mission. The men of the Boise got a short command telling them they were at war, but it was days before they knew why. (This interview made possible with the support of COL ROBERT W. RUST, USMCR (ret.) in honor of LtGen Lawrence Snowden & LtGen George Christmas.) (4:45)

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It had been decided the Japanese supply routes must be disrupted. Jim Starnes describes the daring decoy mission that was given to the USS Boise to distract the Japanese forces further south. Then, the cruiser headed for the Mediterranean, where it participated in the bombardment for the Sicily and Salerno landings. (This interview made possible with the support of COL ROBERT W. RUST, USMCR (ret.) in honor of LtGen Lawrence Snowden & LtGen George Christmas.) (5:44)

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It had been decided that the Tokyo Express must be disrupted. That was the name given to the Japanese supply convoys reinforcing Guadalcanal. On board the cruiser USS Boise, Jim Starnes knew that his was the only ship outfitted with a new radar system, which gave them a real advantage. Unfortunately, it did not stop the enemy shells. (This interview made possible with the support of COL ROBERT W. RUST, USMCR (ret.) in honor of LtGen Lawrence Snowden & LtGen George Christmas.) (7:45)