Honor Flight heroes

From The Citadel to the jungles of Burma

Lee G. Smoak Jr.
AGE: 86
TOWN: Rock Hill, SC
MILITARY SERVICE: U.S. Army
CO-OP AFFILIATION: York Elec­tric Coop­er­a­tive

World War II was in full swing by the time Lee Smoak fin­ished high school in Orange­burg. The 16-year-old fig­ured he was almost cer­tain to be draft­ed, so he decid­ed to pre­pare for life in the mil­i­tary by head­ing off to col­lege at The Citadel. Sure enough, by his sopho­more year, Smoak was draft­ed into the U.S. Army.

Although the war saw the trans­for­ma­tion and mod­ern­iza­tion of mil­i­tary machin­ery, Smoak’s ear­ly expe­ri­ences were a throw­back to a bygone era. He trained at Fort Riley, Kan., as part of the Army’s last unit of mount­ed cav­al­ry. When he and his fel­low sol­diers were giv­en their even­tu­al wartime assign­ment, Smoak recalls, they were told, “Boys, you’re going over­seas. But you can’t take your hors­es.”

“The hors­es were put out to pas­ture in Kansas, and we became infantry sol­diers,” says Smoak.

He served in India, Bur­ma and Chi­na, where his most mem­o­rable com­bat expe­ri­ence was a bat­tle for a moun­tain over­look­ing the Bur­ma Road. The Japan­ese had occu­pied a heav­i­ly for­ti­fied hill, and under the lead­er­ship of 1st Lt. Jack Knight, Smoak’s com­pa­ny com­man­der, the Amer­i­can troops took it back. Knight was killed lead­ing a hero­ic charge dur­ing the bat­tle and posthu­mous­ly award­ed the Con­gres­sion­al Medal of Hon­or.

Smoak cred­its his mil­i­tary train­ing at The Citadel and his youth for help­ing him remain calm and fol­low orders in bat­tle.

“You’re scared alright,” he says of com­bat, adding, “Being so young, you did­n’t ques­tion any­thing your supe­ri­ors said. You just did it. You did­n’t think about the fear or the fact that you might be killed.”

Smoak was sta­tioned in Kun­ming, Chi­na, when the war end­ed and recalls how the news unfold­ed: “We were watch­ing a movie one night. It was one of those old ones where you had to change the reel after the first reel was done. While the reel was get­ting changed out, some­one came burst­ing through the door and said, ‘The grapevine says the Amer­i­cans dropped an atom­ic bomb on Japan and they’re going to sur­ren­der.’ ”

Offi­cial word would come the next day, but that night, it was just a rumor, so the men imme­di­ate­ly turned their atten­tion back to chang­ing the movie reel. “We were more inter­est­ed in see­ing Rita Hay­worth,” Smoak laughs.

After the war, Smoak returned to The Citadel to com­plete his degree and went to work in the tex­tile machin­ery busi­ness. Today, he lives in Rock Hill and serves as a men­tor for stu­dents at his alma mater. “They’re on my dai­ly prayer list,” he says. —BAKER MAULTSBY

How to buy the book

Elec­tric coop­er­a­tives in South Car­oli­na spon­sored an Hon­or Flight of 100 World War II vet­er­ans to Wash­ing­ton, D.C., on April 11, 2012. Pur­chase the sou­venir book of the trip con­tain­ing a pro­file and por­trait of each vet­er­an by mail­ing a check made payable to “Elec­tric Coop­er­a­tives of S.C.” Hon­or Flight Book, 808 Knox Abbott Dri­ve, Cayce, SC 29033 Price: $29.95 per copy, includes sales tax and ship­ping.