Smitty the Jumper

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.

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 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.

The Lincoln-dump jump ended his solo jumping career, with Smitty hospitalized in a body cast for over two and a half months.

Jumping with help Though no longer willing to subject his body to the risks of solo jumping, Smitty's career took a rebound with the 1982 development of the "tandem-jump" harness—a device which allows one skydiver to attach their harness to the back of another skydiver's harness, so that an able skydiver can assist the jump of a less-qualified or less able-bodied skydiver, under one very big parachute. Members of the United States' world champion sky diving team had organized the event to honor Smith for being the world's oldest active parachutist.

Also at Perris Valley, with Don Balch (Perris Valley Sky Diving Society), Smitty made a tandem jump from 13,000 feet, and during their 8,000-foot free-fall, Smitty and Balch, with seven other skydivers from the Coors World Champion Sky Diving Team, joined arms to form an eight-sided, falling star formation, before breaking apart, opening their parachutes, and landing on target.

He was a long-time resident of the "Air Capital City," Wichita, Kansas (home also to son Jerry), in later life, Smitty lived in a trailer decorated as a museum of his career, filled with skydiving memorabilia. Among these was the body cast from his ill-fated jump in Lincoln, labeled with a sign: "Warning to all jumpers - quit before the age of 76."

At the end of his life—the last few years spent in a Wichita nursing home—he reportedly only expressed one regret: the ill-fated crash-landing in the Lincoln dump, which ended his solo skydiving career at 75. At age 96, Smitty died on June 7, 1995, at his nursing home in Wichita. At his funeral, as he had hoped, he was laid to rest in his jumpsuit as a group of planes flew overhead, and a flock of skydivers parachuted from the planes to his graveside, one trailing the American flag.