Melvin Greene

Melvin “Smokey” Greene, Colonel, U.S.A.F. (Ret.), 95, diedJan. 20, 2014, at his home in Austin, Texas, in the company of his family.

He was born April 12, 1918, in Columbia Falls. As a teenager, Smokey worked for the Forest Service as a tower lookout and fire fighter.

He later entered the Montana School of Mines in Butte to pursue a degree in mining engineering. He joined the Forest Service’s elite Smokejumpers unit in 1942, where he earned his nickname “Smokey” and acquired a skill that would later save his life.

In 1943, Smokey joined the Army Air Corps and was assigned to the new B-29 bomber as a flight engineer. During training in Texas, he married Martha Achee after a whirlwind wartime romance.

Deployed to Guam, and under the command of the legendary General Curtis LeMay, Smokey and his bomber crew flew five successful sorties. But on his sixth mission, in April 1945 over Nagoya, Japan, a kamikaze pilot slammed into the B-29.

Smokey safely parachuted from the burning bomber but spent the remainder of the war in solitary confinement in Omori prison near Tokyo. He was awarded a Purple Heart for his injuries, and after the war returned home to Marty and their new son, Smokey Jr., born while he was a prisoner of war.

Smokey continued his military career, serving at overseas stations including Eritrea in East Africa, Athens, Taiwan and several bases in the U.S. Smokey was a highly effective Air Force leader and logistics expert. He was equally at home on the flight line working with his aircraft mechanics or dining at the embassy with heads of state.

Along the way the family grew to include daughters, Kathryn, Mary, Margaret and Stephanie. He retired as a full colonel at Bergstrom AFB, Texas, in 1972 after 29 years of service. Among his many prestigious decorations is the Legion of Merit.

Smokey is survived by his younger brother Howard, his five children and their spouses, nine grandchildren and 13 great grandchildren. He also leaves behind Blaze, his faithful border collie.  

Visitation will take place at Weed-Corley-Fish Mortuary, in Austin, Texas, on Thursday, Jan. 30,  2014. A funeral Mass will be held at St. Catherine’s of Siena Catholic Church in Austin on Friday, Jan. 31, 2014, with interment to follow at Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery in San Antonio.

In lieu of flowers, the family suggests donations to the Wounded Warrior Project: https://support.woundedwarriorproject.org.