[1][2] His family moved to Red Cloud from Hooper, Nebraska in 1927 when his father, Earl W. Smith, was hired as Superintendent of Schools.

Smith attended the University of Nebraska before joining the United States Army Air Corps[1] in 1939, midway through his senior year.

[7] Smith resigned his commission in July 1941 in order to join Colonel Claire Lee Chennault's American Volunteer Group (AVG) as a "soldier of fortune" with the Nationalist Chinese Air Force.

Promoted to flight leader in the Third Pursuit Squadron, the "Hell's Angels", Smith was credited with shooting down a total of 8.7,[8] 8.9[9] or 9[1][10] Japanese planes, and was twice decorated by the Chinese government.

[12] Prior to being drafted as a private in December 1942,[13] Smith served as the technical advisor on The Sky's the Limit directed by E.H. Griffith and starring Fred Astaire and Joan Leslie.

Smith married Barbara Bradford in June 1943, adopting her son Brad from a previous marriage to vaudeville performer George Mann.

Someone was making a speech and Smith assumed it was Phil Cochran, co-commander (with John Alison) of the 1st Air Commando Group.

It was only after Smith landed that he learned the speaker was Lord Louis Mountbatten, Supreme Allied Commander, South-East Asia.

He returned to the San Fernando Valley, where he wrote and published Tale of a Tiger,[21] based on his original diary entries[1] and several articles for Air Classics.