RIP: Col David Smiley LVO

Col David de Crespigny Smiley LVO OBE MC*
11 Apr 1916 – 9 Jan 2009

ZUI this article from The Telegraph:

Colonel David Smiley, who died on January 9 aged 92, was one of the most celebrated cloak-and-dagger agents of the Second World War, serving behind enemy lines in Albania, Greece, Abyssinia and Japanese-controlled eastern Thailand.

After the war he organised secret operations against the Russians and their allies in Albania and Poland, among other places. Later, as Britain's era of domination in the Arabian peninsula drew to a close, he commanded the Sultan of Oman's armed forces in a highly successful counter-insurgency.

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During the Second World War he was parachuted four times behind enemy lines. On one occasion he was obliged to escape from Albania in a rowing boat. On another mission, in Japanese-controlled eastern Thailand, he was stretchered for three days through the jungle with severe burns after a booby-trap meant for a senior Japanese officer exploded prematurely.

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Born on April 11 1916, David de Crespigny Smiley was the youngest son of Major Sir John Smiley, 2nd Bt, and Valerie, youngest daughter of Sir Claude Champion de Crespigny, 4th Bt, a noted jockey, balloonist, all-round sportsman and adventurer, also famed for his feats of derring-do.

After the Pangbourne Nautical College, where he excelled in sport, David went to Sandhurst in 1934. He served in the Blues from 1936 to 1939, based mainly at Windsor, leading the life of a debonair man-about-town, owning a Bentley and a Whitney Straight aircraft. Before the outbreak of war, he won seven races under National Hunt rules. In his first point-to-point with the Garth Hunt, he crashed into a tree, suffering serious injuries. Over the years Smiley was to break more than 80 bones, mainly as a result of sport; on two occasions he broke his skull, once in a steeplechase and once when he dived at night into an almost-empty swimming pool in Thailand.

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In 1941 he returned to his regiment to command a squadron of armoured vehicles being sent from Palestine to raise the siege of Habbaniya, 60 miles west of Baghdad in Iraq, where the king and regent had been overthrown in a pro-German coup led by Rashid Ali. Under Colonel John Glubb, he led a charge alongside Bedouin levies in full cry (they were known to Smiley as "Glubb's girls", because of their long black locks). After helping to capture Baghdad, Smiley's squadron was sent to Mosul with the task, among other things, of capturing the German ambassador, who escaped.

His squadron then moved east, to capture the Persian capital, Tehran, followed by "two weeks' celebration with plenty of vodka, caviar and women". After a spell in Palestine, Smiley led a Blues squadron of dummy tanks into the Western Desert pretending first to be British Crusaders and then, on a further foray, American General Grants, which were repeatedly attacked by Stukas. When Rommel broke through, they withdrew to Cairo. Three months later Smiley commanded a squadron of armoured cars at the battle of El Alamein – his last bout of conventional warfare.

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[H]e was parachuted behind enemy lines into eastern Siam, shortly before the dropping of the atomic bombs and the surrender of Japan, whereupon he organised the liberation of several prisoner-of-war camps, including the one on which the film The Bridge on the River Kwai was based. Though only a major, he personally took the surrender of the 22nd Division of the Imperial Japanese Army.

On Lord Mountbatten's orders, Smiley re-armed a Japanese company and led them against the Communists of the fledgling Vietminh (who later became the Vietcong) in French Indo-China. Among other exploits, he freed 120 French women and children who had been taken hostage by the Communists. The only British officer in an area the size of Wales, he then took the surrender of Vientiane, Laos's capital, from another Japanese general. For his activities in Siam and Indo-China Smiley was awarded a military OBE.

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Smiley was appointed LVO, and Knight Commander of the Order of the Sword in Sweden and Grand Cordon of the Order of Skanderbeg in Albania.

In 1947 he married Moyra, daughter of Lord Francis Scott KCMG, DSO, the 6th Duke of Buccleuch's youngest son. He is survived by his wife, two sons, a stepson and a stepdaughter.

Col Smiley was invested as a Lieutenant, Royal Victorian Order (LVO), in 1952, and was awarded an OBE (military division) for his activities in Siam and Indo-China in 1945. He received both the Military Cross and a Bar thereto for his activities with the partisans in Albania.

In 1966, he was appointed a Gentleman-at-Arms, as reported in the London Gazette (issue 43886, 28 Jan 1966):

The QUEEN has been graciously pleased, on the recommendation of the Lord Shepherd, the Captain, to make the following promotions in and appointment to Her Majesty's Body Guard of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms:
Colonel David de Crespigny Smiley, M.V.O., O.B.E., M.C., late Royal Horse Guards, to be one of Her Majesty's Body Guard of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms i the room of Brigadier John Norman Cheney, O.B.E., promoted.

Col Smiley was also the author of Arabian Assignment (1975), Albanian Assignment (1984) and Irregular Regular (1994).