Retired Air Force Gen. Jacob Smart, credited with planning the World War II raid over German-held oil refineries, died Sunday. He was 97.

The four-star general had congestive heart failure and died in the house where he was born, a spokeswoman with the Sauls Funeral Home said.

It was Smart's idea to strike the oil refineries in Ploesti, Romania, at low levels with heavy bombers -- a strategy some military planners thought suicidal. The plan in August 1943 was to send nearly 180 B-24 Liberator bombers, some of which flew at 200 feet, to hit the refineries that produced much of Germany's oil at the time.

Five Medals of Honor were presented for the mission, among the most ever awarded for a single action.

Smart was gunned downed later by anti-aircraft fire over Austria and was a prisoner of war in Germany for nearly one year. In captivity, he was pressed for information on the upcoming D-Day invasion. Postwar, he helped shape Air Force doctrine.

Smart graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 1931 and entered active duty as a second lieutenant.

Though he also was a veteran of wars in Vietnam and Korea, Smart didn't often talk of his experiences, Bill Smart said.

Before returning to Ridgeland, Smart briefly worked for NASA after he retired from the military.