Gerald F. Smith, Navy captain, dies at 86 Gerald F. Smith, a retired Navy captain and engineer, died Oct. 1 at a hospital in Dallas. The cause was cancer, said his wife, Mary Jarrell Smith. Capt. Smith served 25 years in the Navy before his final active-duty assignment in 1974 at the Naval Ship Systems Command in Washington. Earlier in his military career, Capt. Smith was an engineering duty officer at a New York naval shipyard and an officer-in-charge of a mobile support unit in Subic Bay, Philippines. His military decorations included the Legion of Merit. Gerald Francis Smith was born in Honey Grove, Texas, and was a 1949 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis. He received a naval engineering degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1957 and a master's degree in business administration from the University of North Texas in 1980. He settled in the Washington area in 1971 and, since 1974, had split his time between homes in Alexandria and Denton, Texas. Survivors include his wife of 62 years, Mary Jarrell Smith of Denton; three children, Anne Smith of Washington, Karen Smith of Golden, Colo., and Gerald F. Smith Jr. of Lebanon, N.J.; six grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren.