The future Rhodesian Prime Minister Ian Smith served in the Royal Air Force (RAF) during the Second World War, interrupting his studies at Rhodes University in South Africa to join up in 1941.

Smith flew in the Western Desert until October that year, when a crash during a night takeoff resulted in serious injuries, including facial disfigurements and a broken jaw.

In late June 1944, during a strafing attack on a railway yard in the Po Valley in northern Italy, Smith was shot down by anti-aircraft fire.

Parachuting from his aircraft, he landed without serious injury in the Ligurian Alps, in an area that was behind German lines, but largely under the control of anti-German Italian partisans.

[5] He wanted to leave Rhodes immediately to join the Southern Rhodesian Air Force, but did not because military recruiters in the colony had been told not to accept university students until after they graduated.

[11] Remaining at Rhodes during the 1940 academic year, Smith secretly made plans to leave for military service in spite of his instructions to finish studying.

In June 1940, during the mid-year break from studies, he quietly travelled to the Southern Rhodesian capital, Salisbury, to tell the colony's director of manpower, William Addison, that he wanted to join the air force; to avoid being barred from enlistment, Smith did not mention his university attendance, and gave his Selukwe address.

Smith was glad to find himself in a course that would ultimately lead to flying fighters as opposed to bombers, since at Guinea Fowl he learned to pilot Tiger Moths, then Harvards.

The squadron was stationed near the Iranian capital of Tehran when Smith joined it, but it almost immediately transferred to Kirkuk in Iraq, to help guard the oil wells and pipelines there.

[13] Light was extremely poor, and Smith's throttle malfunctioned;[19] he failed to take off quickly enough to clear a blast wall at the end of the runway.

[14] A team of doctors and surgeons at the Fifteenth Scottish Hospital in Cairo worked extensively on Smith, putting his jaw back together with a complicated assembly of bandage, plaster, nuts, bolts and wire, and rebuilt his face through skin grafts and other reconstructive surgery.

[20] Smith flew 10 sorties and on the last of these, on 22 June,[13] led a strafing raid against a large railway yard when his aircraft was hit by flak on a second pass.

He turned his Spitfire upside down, thrust the stick forward, released the cockpit's canopy, fell out of the plane and landed without serious injuries on the side of a mountain.

[25] The area in which he had landed was predominantly anti-German, and largely under the control of pro-Allied Italian partisans; one of these saw Smith's descent and retrieved his parachute to stop the Germans from finding it.

The boy, Leo, knew no English; using sign language, he told Smith to sit and wait, and shortly returned with his elder brother, Lorenzo.

The boys' parents, peasant farmers named Zunino, took him in, but decided it was too risky to keep him at the house so soon after the crash, and hid him in a cave on the mountain.

[27] Smith worked on the Zuninos' farm and began studying the Italian language, which he realised he had to learn if he was to travel through enemy territory to the Allied lines.

[28] After a month, the local partisan commander, Antonio Bozzano (nicknamed "Barbetta" because of his beard), came to meet Smith, and asked him to join his ranks.

"[29] Smith realised that Barbetta had given him this "promotion" in the hope of elevating his own reputation in the resistance movement—"none of the other regiments in the area could boast an Inglesi pilote and a majore to boot", he explained in his memoirs.

[32] Smith headed west, across the Ligurian Alps, towards southern France, which he knew had just been invaded by Allied troops, principally Americans, Free French and British.

[35] Twenty-three days after Smith and Bill set off from Piancastagna, they met American troops who took them to a local base camp, from where they were returned to their respective forces.

"[35] It was well known to British servicemen that spending three months or more missing behind enemy lines resulted in an automatic posting back home, which Smith did not want; he was therefore wary as he entered his interview at the Naples transit base.

125 Wing, which was commanded by Group Captain (later Air Vice Marshal) Johnnie Johnson, one of the most successful RAF flying aces of the war.

[e] He spent around five months in Norway as part of the post-war occupation forces, but did not learn Norwegian, later telling Berlyn that it seemed much harder to him than Italian, "and they all spoke English, you see".

[41] In her 1978 biography of Smith, Berlyn writes that the grafted skin on his face "almost hides the injuries even today, though it has left him with a slightly blank expression".

"It was Ian Smith's war-damaged left eye that drew people's attention first," began the report printed in the London Times: "wide open, heavy-lidded and impassive from experimental plastic surgery, it hinted at a dull, characterless nature.

[44] Smith completed his studies at Rhodes during 1946, and entered politics in 1948 when he successfully contested the Selukwe seat on behalf of the Liberal Party, becoming his home town's representative in the Legislative Assembly at the age of 29.

He became Deputy Prime Minister in December that year when the new party, led by Winston Field, surprised most observers by winning that month's election.

[43] Smith's memories of his service for Britain with the Royal Air Force caused him to feel betrayed when the British government proved one of his main adversaries as Prime Minister.

[57] In 1966, Smith's supporters in Britain sent him a painting depicting two Spitfires taking off for a dawn raid, "on behalf of many British people who remained true despite the misguidance of government".