He was educated at Nairn and Morrison's Academy, Crieff, in Scotland, where he joined his school's Officers' Training Corps.

Duncan Smith spent some time in hospital with double pneumonia, the symptoms of which he had assumed was only the result of exhaustion from a long operational tour.

[citation needed] Upon recovery in January 1942, Duncan Smith rejoined the Hornchurch Wing, now flying the improved Spitfire Mk.IX.

[4] During the ill-fated Dieppe Raid on 19 August, Duncan Smith was shot down by an enemy fighter but rescued from the English Channel with injuries and eardrum pain.

While Duncan Smith's non-operational tour was recognised as very productive, he began to seek a return to operations, and he was sent to Malta to command the 244th Fighter Wing.

The elevator was hanging by one thread of frayed wire and my rigger neatly snapped this with a sharp blow from his fingers.

The blow I felt was from a bullet that tore through the collar of my Mae West grazing my neck before smacking into the Walrus.

There they were very kind and after fixing up my leg and dressing the neck wound tried to keep me for the night, but I managed to talk the doctor into letting me return to Lentini.

The sad end to the story, other than Duncan Smith losing his footwear in the sea, was news that his comrade Dick Charrington had been shot down and killed during this rescue mission by an enemy fighter.

Charrington may have been shot down by Unteroffizier Alfred Scharl of 2./JG 53 who was credited with a kill at 17:20 2 September 1943, 15 km north of Tropea at low altitude.

After all those sunburns, injuries, wounds and the return of his ear pain from 19 August 1942, Duncan Smith was considered unfit for action.

His second wife, Pamela Summers (whom he married in 1946) was a ballet dancer who was born in Nanking, China where her father was a commissioner in the Chinese Postal Service.

Their son Iain Duncan Smith is a politician who was leader of the Conservative Party from September 2001 to November 2003 and Secretary of State for Work and Pensions in the Coalition government of 2010.

Flight Lieutenant Smith has destroyed at least 5 enemy aircraft.Since being awarded a Bar to the Distinguished Flying Cross, this officer has completed a great number of sorties.