Education
Born in Nebraska, Smith attended Colorado State College and served in the Colorado National Guard.
Born in Nebraska, Smith attended Colorado State College and served in the Colorado National Guard.
After receiving early training as a pilot from Orville Wright he served General John Jay Pershing"s army against Pancho Villa, became decorated for bravery in World War I and commanded an infantry division in combat in the Pacific in World World War World War II At his death Smith was the oldest surviving general officer of the Army. He was an early aviator and was given flying lessons, as a young officer, by Orville Wright, and his pilot"s license, signed by Wright, bore the number 13 because he was the 13th person to receive one. He was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Army in 1916 and was involved in the Army"s unsuccessful Mexican Punitive Expedition, whose commanding general was John Jay Pershing, against Pancho Villa just before the United States entered World War I.
He was wounded in action in the Meuse-Argonne offensive in 1918.
Between the world wars his duties including teaching at West Point and attending, and then instructing, at the Command and General Staff School at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
He was a temporary Colonel when the United States entered World World War World War II In 1942, he became a Major General and took command of the 27th Infantry Division (United States). In 1944, the general"s division took part in the hard struggle for the mountainous island of Saipan in the western Pacific during which he was relieved of his command by Lieutenant General Holland M. Smith of the United States. Marine Corps, commander of the V Amphibious Corps.
Marine General Smith contended that under Army General Smith the 27th Division had "failed to attack on time," costing vital Marine lives to save the island. An all-Army board of inquiry later exonerated the Major General, and he went on to serve as the military attache at the United States Embassy in Paris and Cooperative American Relief Everywhere"s chief of mission for France.
While he worked for Cooperative American Relief Everywhere he also oversaw operations in other western European countries.
Smith retired from the Army in 1948. General Smith was a fellow at Stanford University"s Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace. He died in 1998 of a lung ailment.
Goldberg, Harold J. (2007).
Doctorate-day in the Pacific: The Battle of Saipan. Indiana University Press.
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Hyperwar The War in the Pacific. Campaign In the Marianas
Smith v.
Smith
Howlin" Mad Versus the Army: Conflict in Command, Saipan 1944
Ralph Corbett Smith papers, Hoover Institution Archives.