During World War II he was a member of the 42nd Infantry Division of the United States Army.
He was one of the first correspondents to enter the Dachau concentration camp in Germany just before the end of the war.
Corbett moved with his wife to Providence, Rhode Island, in 1957, and, in addition to his writing, taught at the Moses Brown School.
In 1976, The Home Run Trick won the Mark Twain Award, an honor voted by the schoolchildren of Missouri.
Many of Corbett's books were written while at sea, as he and his wife traveled extensively via freighter.