Harry G. Smith (1938)
SMITH
Posted By: Kent Transier
Date: 11/8/2023 at 18:03:26
The Winterset News
Winterset, Iowa
Thursday, May 19, 1938
Page 2, Column 1County Briefs – St. Charles
Harry G. Smith, airplane pilot for General Chiang Kai-shek, once a resident of St. Charles and Winterset. The Des Moines Tribune of April 6 in the news items of the death of Harry G. Smith from typhus fever while at the Chinese air base Chunghang, China.
Mr. Smith, son of the Rev. and Mrs. William Christie Smith of Indianola, was born at Diagonal December 8, 1890, graduated from Simpson in 1917, enlisted in the world war and was flying instructor from March 1918 to the end of the war and after returning taught in the Milford high school. In 1920 he entered the government airmail service as an air pilot and was one of the pilots chosen by the government to meet Charles A. Lindbergh on his return from his Atlantic flight.
His father was pastor of the St. Charles Methodist 1902-3 and the Winterset Methodist circuit 1903-5. Harry was a lad of 12 to 15 while he lived with his parents in Madison County and attended the public schools of St. Charles and Winterset.
He had gone to China in 1929 to establish air routes for the government after which he flew airplanes for Chinese officials, and for three years flew the eight passenger plane for General Chiang Kai-shek in the war against the bandits in China. He was buried in China.
His wife and three children live in Glendale, California. His father celebrated his 70 years in the ministry by preaching last Sunday morning in the Methodist church of Indianola where he has lived since his retirement in 1921.
Memorial
Madison Obituaries maintained by Linda Griffith Smith.
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