About: Military service of Ian Smith   Sponge Permalink

An Entity of Type : dbkwik:resource/57M61t8UhqnTfVDn1WHt-A==, within Data Space : 134.155.108.49:8890 associated with source dataset(s)

Future Rhodesian Prime Minister Ian Smith served in the British Royal Air Force (RAF) during the Second World War (1939–45), interrupting his studies at Rhodes University in South Africa to join up in 1941. Following a year's pilot instruction in Rhodesia under the Empire Air Training Scheme, he was posted to No. 237 (Rhodesia) Squadron, then stationed in the Middle East, in 1942.

AttributesValues
rdf:type
rdfs:label
  • Military service of Ian Smith
rdfs:comment
  • Future Rhodesian Prime Minister Ian Smith served in the British Royal Air Force (RAF) during the Second World War (1939–45), interrupting his studies at Rhodes University in South Africa to join up in 1941. Following a year's pilot instruction in Rhodesia under the Empire Air Training Scheme, he was posted to No. 237 (Rhodesia) Squadron, then stationed in the Middle East, in 1942.
sameAs
Unit
  • *
dcterms:subject
dbkwik:military/pr...iPageUsesTemplate
serviceyears
  • 1941(xsd:integer)
Birth Date
  • 1919-04-08(xsd:date)
Branch
  • Royal Air Force
float
  • right
death place
  • Cape Town, South Africa
Nickname
  • "Smithy"
Name
Align
  • right
Caption
  • Smith circa 1943
  • Downed behind German lines in northern Italy, near Sassello, Smith spent three months fighting with local partisans, then headed west, hoping to meet Allied troops in southern France.
Width
  • 220(xsd:integer)
  • 33.0
placeofburial label
  • Place of burial
quoted
  • yes
Birth Place
  • Selukwe, Southern Rhodesia
death date
  • 2007-11-20(xsd:date)
Rank
Image size
  • 220(xsd:integer)
Allegiance
  • *
Battles
Alt
  • A portrait photograph of a young man in an air force uniform
  • A map of Italy, showing the location of Sassello in the north-west of the country
laterwork
  • Prime Minister of Rhodesia from 1964 to 1979; declared independence in 1965
servicenumber
  • 80463(xsd:integer)
Source
  • (Journalist Lee Hall interviewed Smith for Life magazine in 1966)
  • (Extract from Smith's memoirs, The Great Betrayal)
Quote
  • Normally it is sad to leave behind friends and memories, but above all I was stimulated by what lay before me. I was going to fight for Britain and all that it represented. This was uppermost in my mind, and everything else faded into the background.
abstract
  • Future Rhodesian Prime Minister Ian Smith served in the British Royal Air Force (RAF) during the Second World War (1939–45), interrupting his studies at Rhodes University in South Africa to join up in 1941. Following a year's pilot instruction in Rhodesia under the Empire Air Training Scheme, he was posted to No. 237 (Rhodesia) Squadron, then stationed in the Middle East, in 1942. Late in 1942, after six weeks' operational training in the Levant, Smith entered active service as a pilot officer with No. 237 Squadron in Iran and Iraq. The squadron, which had operated in the Western Desert from 1941 to early 1942, returned to that front in March 1943. Smith flew in the Western Desert until October that year, when a crash during a night takeoff resulted in a number of serious injuries, including facial disfigurements and a broken jaw. Following several operations, including reconstructive plastic surgery to his face, and after five months' convalescence, Smith rejoined No. 237 Squadron in Corsica in May 1944. While there, he attained his highest rank, flight lieutenant. In late June 1944, during a strafing attack on a railway yard in the Po Valley in northern Italy, Smith was shot down by flak. 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. Smith spent three months working with the local resistance movement before trekking westwards, across the Maritime Alps, with three other Allied personnel, hoping to join up with the Allied forces that had just invaded southern France. After 23 days' hiking, he and his companions were recovered by American troops and repatriated. Smith was briefly stationed in Britain before he was posted to No. 130 (Punjab) Squadron in western Germany in April 1945. He flew combat missions there until Germany surrendered in May. He remained with No. 130 Squadron for the rest of his service, and returned home at the end of 1945. After completing his studies at Rhodes, he was elected Member of Parliament for his birthplace, Selukwe, in 1948. Becoming Prime Minister in 1964 amid his country's dispute with Britain regarding the terms for full independence, he was influenced as a politician by his wartime experiences; Rhodesia's military record on the mother country's behalf became a fundamental part of his sense of betrayal by post-war British governments, which partly motivated his administration's Unilateral Declaration of Independence in 1965. His status as a Second World War RAF veteran thereafter helped him win support, both domestically and internationally.
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