Leonard B. "Tuck" Smith, the Navy pilot who found and led the attack on the German battleship Bismarck, has died.

His son, Judge Bruce Tucker Smith of Raleigh, N.C., sent this obituary:

Leonard B. "Tuck" Smith
My dad, Capt. Leonard B. "Tuck" Smith, USN (Ret.) of Friday Harbor, died May 16, 2006 after a long decline. He was 90.

He is survived by his wife, Loretta; my brother, Gregory of Kansas City, Mo.; and me; plus five grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

Funeral services at Arlington National Cemetery in Washington, D.C. are pending.

Ernest Hemingway wrote, "Every man's life ends the same way. It is only the details of how he lived and how he died that distinguish one man from another."

Hemingway had my old man in mind.

Dad was born a grocer's boy, the younger of two sons, to parents Laurence and Blanche Smith, in Mayview, Mo., on Oct. 29, 1915. He was born in rural Midwestern America at a time when children still rode horses to school and did chores on the farm or in the family store after school.

His parents valued education and insisted he and his brother become educated men. During his Depression-era college years, he worked at odd jobs to help pay his tuition.

Dad graduated from the University of Illinois with a bachelor's degree in Business before his acceptance into the U.S. Naval Aviation Cadet program in 1938. He won his gold aviator's wings in 1939.

His naval career spanned four decades, three wars and a host of commands in aviation and blue-water billets. He lived and flew in aviation's golden era — a career that began in fabric-covered, open-cockpit Stearman biplanes and ended in supersonic F-4 Phantom jets, and included countless hundreds of hours in long-range, patrol-bomber or reconnaissance aircraft.

Even before America's entry into World War II, he'd already won the Navy's Distinguished Flying Cross in early 1941, for service with Britain's Royal Air Force. If you're a history buff, look up the chase and sinking of the German battleship, Bismarck. My old man was the American pilot who found her in the North Atlantic, then circled overhead amidst a barrage of anti-aircraft fire as his crew radioed the British fleet. The Royal Navy then closed in and circled for the kill. It was a turning point in the European war.

Six months later, on Dec 7, he was standing in front of a hangar on Wake Island when the Japanese attacked, killing his squadron-mate and destroying their aircraft. He spent the next four years fighting in the Pacific.

He fought the Korean War and flew in the early stages of the war in Vietnam.

He was fearless. He led men into battle and brought them home safely from war. He was the guy you wanted flying your airplane or navigating your ship. Despite the fact he was a highly-decorated Navy officer, he'd laugh if you ever called him a hero. He didn't see things in those terms. Of his lengthy wartime service, he would simply tell you he was doing his job and expected nothing in return.

He was a man who could navigate the globe with nothing more than a compass and a stopwatch. He was tough, he was smart, he was resourceful.

He was a man's man. The kind Hemingway would have admired; the kind that seems to have gone out of style in the modern era.

True to his breed of aviators and men, he fancied a nice pair of legs, a fish on the line, a cool bourbon and a warm steak in the evening with friends.

If he liked you, you knew it. If he didn't like you, well, you knew THAT, too. A conservative before the word was used in common parlance, he was not a complex man ... he didn't have time or interest in "complex" people. He preferred simplicity and directness. Tuck Smith was not a "smell the flowers" kind of guy and he had no time for "sensitive males" or any man who sipped designer water or wore Birkenstocks.

You might have thought him blunt, gruff, short-spoken; one who struggled to articulate his simple truths. I don't actually recall him telling me that he loved me. What I DO recall, was that he taught me how to catch fish when they weren't biting, how to put a spiral on a football, how to navigate a boat in rough seas and how to land an airplane in a stiff crosswind. His was a generation of doers, not talkers ... so if his affections were expressed with a fishing rod or a football or a Cessna, well ... I'll take those over all the soapy "I love yous" ever uttered.

He discovered Friday Harbor back in the early 1950s when, as a flying squadron commander at NAS Whidbey Island, he'd buzz the island before heading out to sea. Before deploying to the Korean War, he decided, one day, to return to the island.

In the early 1970s, following a successful civilian career in business, he and his angel, Loretta, moved here and made themselves a home. In their years together, they traveled the globe together, made new friends and had a whale of a time.

A self-taught woodworker, he fashioned some of the finest furniture ever to grace a home and he built-from-scratch the boat that today bears his name, the "Friar Tuck." The Friar was his pride and joy for many years as he and his now-departed fishing buddies chased blackmouth kings in the straits off of the island's west side. To this day, you might see the Friar and hear the putt-putt of her modest diesel engine in the waters just off Friday Harbor. When you see her, give her a wave and a smile. She was built by an artist and sailed by a pro!

Only time could render what did what the skies nor the seas, nor the Germans, nor the Japanese, nor the North Koreans, nor the Chinese, nor the Viet Cong could not. He was a tough man.

So, now ... The sun hangs low and the propellers have stopped turning … and the bar is open: Just look up. You'll see 'em. Brave men and old pals who wore wings — men like Ernie Gann, Jimmy Johnson, Brainerd Macomber, Dennis Briggs and Walt Hartley are waiting for him. The bourbon is on ice and there are tales to be told.

Dad was not one to impart sage wisdom. He had little time for sages. But of the simple truths he did impart, one stands out in my conscious memory. "Live" he said, when I tried to pry some fatherly wisdom out of him. "Live! Live the hell out of life every day ... and enjoy what the hell you're doing, because, son, you're a long time dead. Just live!" And live he did. He did just that. And he did it better and longer than most. Perhaps that's a fitting epitaph for such a man.

Tuck Smith, my dad. The man truly LIVED.

Hemingway woulda liked my old man.

— Judge Bruce Tucker Smith, Raleigh, N.C.