COLD WAR HERO

Air Classics, Mar 2005 by Pahl, Gerard

Smoe gave his "last" performance on 6 May 1951 after three intense years flying with the team and training young Air Force pilots. He transferred to Waco, Texas, to take over a position at the base. In 1953, Mike assisted Yugoslavia in the organization, of its jet training program. The grateful Slovak country awarded him a set of its wings - the first foreign pilot.., to he so honored. The King of Saudi Arabia noted Smoe's instructing skills and Mike was again, pressed into service training Saudi pilots to fly jets.

Then in 1955, Mike reorganized the Acrojets while stationed in Germany. The Skyblazers had been the first F-80 acrobatic team in Europe, but, as with the Acrojets, when the Korean War began, the group disbanded - the men and planes were needed elsewhere. The Skyblazers' home base was Fuerstenfeldbruck AB, West Germany, which became the new home of the Acrojets. Team members included Maj. Mike Smolen, Capt. Robert Byrom (assistant flight commander and ferry pilot), Capt. Roger Jellison, Lt. Bruce LyIe, and Lt. George DeNeve (alternate).

While in Germany, Mike and other Air Force jet fighter pilots practiced their primary mission - training young men in T-33s for potential engagement in aerial combat against their Soviet and possibly Communist Chinese counterparts. But they also performed a secondary mission - projecting US military presence in Europe and the surrounding region. In the Cold War, political chess was as important as the numbers of fighters, bombers, and missiles one had. The support of other free nations had to be secured between the US and other NATO nations to present both a psychological and military defense against Soviet Block countries.

In the first two years of the team's performances, the men of the Acrojets demonstrated their precision flying skills above five million plus persons. The American pilots flew for government dignitaries and royalty, literally spanning Europe from Cologne to Belfast. They were immensely popular. The men continued to wow their spectators until 1958.

Lieutenant Colonel Smolen hecame the Deputy Chief of the USAF Mission in Caracas, Venezuela. The US was selling aircraft to the South American government at the time and Mike's job was to assist the Venezuelan Air Force in its efforts to modernize and reorganize its military. Smoe made many visits to the interior to remote military bases and he loved the country.

On 9 October 1964 at 8 am - 24 hours after a FALN pro-communist group warned that it would kidnap a US official - Smoe was hustled away in a 1958 Chevy sedan by two men with submachine guns. His boss, mission chief Col. Choate, who had been waiting to drive him to work, vaulted fences to make good his own escape. That afternoon, the Caracas office of the Associated Press received a call from the pro-Castro group. In exchange for Smoe's life they wanted the release of Nguycn Van Troi, a Viet Cong assassin who was caught trying to kill US , Defense secretary Robert McNamara. FALN leader Commandante Tulio told Mike though that he had been taken as propaganda for their underground war against the Venezuelan government.