David Smiley

Colonel David de Crespigny Smiley, LVO, OBE, MC & Bar (11 April 1916 – 9 January 2009) was a British special forces and intelligence officer. He fought in the Second World War in Palestine, Iraq, Persia, Syria, the Western Desert and with Special Operations Executive (SOE) in Albania and Thailand.

Smiley was the 4th and youngest son of Sir John Smiley, 2nd Baronet and Valerie Champion de Crespigny, youngest daughter of Sir Claude Champion de Crespigny, who was a noted jockey, balloonist, sportsman and adventurer.

His father fought in the Second Boer War between 1899 and 1900 with 4th Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders before joining the North of Ireland Imperial Yeomanry (redesignated the North Irish Horse in 1908). He gained the rank of major in the service of the Carabiniers (6th Dragoon Guards) and fought in the First World War.

David Smiley was educated at the Nautical College, Pangbourne, Berkshire, England, where he was a noted sportsman.

Some have suggested that John le Carré consciously or unconsciously took David Smiley's surname for that of his hero George Smiley.

Smiley attended the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, in 1934, and was commissioned into the Royal Horse Guards in 1936. While based in Windsor, Berkshire, with the Blues, he was seen as a "man-about-town", owning a Bentley car and a Miles Whitney Straight aircraft. He was also an amateur jockey and won seven races under National Hunt rules.

After the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, Smiley's regiment sailed for Palestine, where one of his first jobs was to shoot his troop of forty horses when it became clear they were of no use in modern combat.

In 1940 Smiley joined the Somaliland Camel Corps, but was to arrive at Berbera the same day it was decided to evacuate British Somaliland. He returned frustrated to Egypt where he persuaded family friend General Wavell to recommend him for the newly formed commandos. Smiley was appointed a company commander (with the rank of captain) with 52 Commando and his first mission was sneaking from Sudan into Abyssinia.^{[citation needed]}