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Smith remembers no more, but engineering analysis can describe roughly what happened. The wind hit his body with a force of 8,000 Ibs., and he felt deceleration of 40 gs, so that his organs weighed 40 times normal. His arms and legs must have flailed like propeller blades. His helmet, shoes, socks, gloves, wristwatch and ring were stripped off. His seat blew away automatically; his parachute opened and his unconscious, battered body drifted down toward the sea half a mile offshore. Air blast had inflated his stomach and lungs so that his body floated when it hit the water.
"What Airplane?" On the sea, luck awaited him. A fishing boat commanded by Art Berkell, a former Navy rescue specialist, was within 100 yards, and a fleet of Coast Guard auxiliary craft was maneuvering near by. Berkell started toward Pilot Smith even before he hit the water, and had him out in 50 seconds. He was semiconscious, partly delirious. "Anyone else in the airplane?" asked Berkell. "What airplane?" replied Smith.
Coast Guard boats closed in, and Smith was transferred to one of them. Radios crackled, and sirens screamed onshore. An ambulance was waiting at Balboa, and when he was riding toward Hoag Memorial Hospital, Smith heard a siren and wanted to know what was up.
He was deep in shock, with hardly any blood pressure. Plasma and whole blood were pumped into him. The skin of his nose was torn; his eyes were swollen shut; his face was almost black. His shoulders and thighs were covered with bruises; a hemorrhage in his left eye poured blood continuously. His heart, kidneys, liver and stomach had been damaged by internal air pressure or the terrible g forces. He sank into unconsciousness, and, while he lay dully on his bed, Air Force and Navy flight surgeons tramped through his room. At one time 18 specialists were crowding around him. In all, more than 100 physicians inspected the only living man who had bailed out of an airplane at more than the speed of sound.
Childish Letters. On the sixth day, Smith regained consciousness. He could see nothing, but he thought he heard laughing voices. The voices cleared into words. Thirty ten-year-old children in Aliso Elementary School had heard the thundering shock wave of his dive to the sea. Their teacher, Mrs. Pearl Phillipson, suggested that they write to him, urging him to get well. It was these childish letters, read aloud by a nurse, that he heard when he first awoke. Then, like shapes looming through fog, details of his flight came out of his memory.
While Airman Smith was still unconscious, Navy salvage crews began to search and drag for his airplane. No one remembered exactly where it hit, but one of the divers had happened to take a picture of an oil slick off South Laguna. By triangulation the point of impact was found, and after 381 dives, most of the airplane was fished up and collected in 44 barrels. "It looked," said a North American man, "like enlarged cornflakes."
Medical reports on the Smith case weigh 4½ Ibs. Engineering reports on the case of Smith's airplane weigh 12 Ibs. The experts do not maintain that bailing out at more than the speed of sound is a safe procedure, but they are glad that at least one man has done it and lived. Now a pilot whose airplane heads for the deck in a screaming supersonic dive will know that he has a chance of survival.