H. Truesdell Smith—known variously as "H. T. Smith", "Henry Truesdell Smith", "Harold Truesdell Smith", or "Daredevil Smitty" but best known as "Smitty the Jumper"—was an American exhibition parachutist and skydiver of the 1920s and 1930s. He made periodic returns to skydiving starting in the late 1950s, jumping in every subsequent decade until his death, becoming widely known as "the oldest living skydiver", a title he claimed until his death in 1995 at the age of 96.
Early life
Smitty was born in Salisbury, North Carolina, on October 17, 1898. He grew up in the shadow of emerging aviation and began to develop a desire to parachute. However, the early 20th century in aviation was an era when many jumpers, in primitive gear, often did not survive their first attempt; however, Smitty vowed he would.
Aviation career
Exhibition parachute jumping
From age 18 to age 30, Smith tried time and again to get someone to take him aloft for his first jump. Pilots, upon learning of his inexperience, continually denied him the opportunity.
In 1928, at age 30—with a home-made parachute crafted from (by varying accounts) "cheap silk" or "cotton" or from J.C. Penney bedsheets—Smitty leaped from a plane piloted by Andy Burke, near Wichita Falls, Texas, and parachuted safely to earth—the first of over 200 jumps to come, including an airshow career, two revivals of his jumping career, and ultimately national fame in when aging into his 80s and 90s.
Within days of his first jump, Smitty was jumping again, for an audience, collecting pay for the effort. While his original career was as a sign-painter, he soon began finding money in exhibition parachuting. Borrowing gear from others until 1934, he eventually was given an old parachute, with hemp lines, and fashioned additional rigging and harness for it from leather and a Ford Model A (some say "Model T") steering wheel.
PHOTO: For a photo of Smitty in jumping gear, in the 1920s (from the Burrell Tibbs papers at the University of Texas at Dallas), click here. For enlarged version of the photo, click here.
For another decade, Smitty would continue jumping in barnstorming exhibitions—particularly in Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas and Arkansas. His stunts included multiple-chute jumps (releasing himself from a parachute, falling, then opening another 'chute just before hitting the ground), wing-walking, and leaps from a moving automobile to an airplane. Many of Smitty's jumps were done with borrowed equipment, usually without a reserve chute. Discovering that payment was higher, the lower he opened his 'chute, he earned the nickname "Tree-Top Smitty."
In 1933, during a county fair, he set a his personal solo parachute jump altitude record of 11,000 feet, over Bentonville, Arkansas.
By 1937, approximately age 40, after 204-205 jumps, Smitty's second wife—raising three children with him—persuaded him to give up jumping, and return to more profitable work as a sign-painter. His work ranged from multi-story signs painted on large buildings to painting nose art on aircraft—including the name and bird emblem on TV-hero Sky King's airplane Songbird.
Early in his life, he also became a dance instructor, later noting he'd been teaching dancing since the 1920s.
Return to jumping
However, in the late 1950s, nearing age 60, Smitty returned to the airshow circuit. His elderly jumping career was spotted with accidents and near-death experiences that, nevertheless, failed to kill him:
In 1960 (age 61), piloted by Wichita professional pilot U.L."Rip" Gooch, he made jumps at the National Airshow In Wichita, Kansas, opening his chute at the low altitude of 1500 feet. One jump, however, nearly cost him his life as he blacked out on exiting the plane—waking up just in time to open the chute at treetop level. In 1972 (age 73–74, one account says "76"), he suffered a broken leg in jump near Maize, Kansas, just west of Wichita, attempting to land near a group of "girls", who wound up carrying him back to the drop zone. With ice packs on his broken leg, he remained there, partying into the night, waiting until the next day to go to the hospital. In August 1974 (age 75), in Lincoln, Nebraska, jumping for the 211th time, he momentarily blacked out, again, and awoke just in time to see he was falling into a pit of black water at the city dump. Maneuvering quickly, he avoided the water, but struck an embankment, breaking leg, hip, and pelvis (some accounts say both legs). However, it was believed that that jump made Smith the oldest person ever to parachute.