Regiment: South Wales Borderers.
Died: 26 October 1944 aged 38 in Holland. Died of wounds.
Battle: Operation Market Garden: September 1944. Cemetery: Arnhem Oosterbeek War Cemetery 18. B. 8.
Son of Charles Inman Smyth and Jessie Smyth, Wood Leys, Finchfield, Wolverhampton.
Army VI. School Prefect. Head of House.
Husband of Elspeth Elizabeth Geddes Smyth, of Farnham, Surrey.
South Wales Borderers Cdg. 10th Bn. The Parachute Regiment, A.A.C.
Died of wounds, Apeldoorn Hospital, Holland.
OBE citation:
'Lt—Col Kenneth Bowes Inman SMYTH, South Wales Borderers, held the position of GSO.I, Airborne Forces, GHQ MEF from 23 Mar 42 until assuming Command of 10 Bn.; the Parachute Regt on 6 Dec 1942. During that time, with painstaking care and much foresight, he did almost unaided the preliminary work necessary for the formation of 4 Parachute Bde in Jan 1943. This involved not, only care and forethought in the planning for the provision of equipment, whether from U.K. or manufactured locally, but much experimental work on the modification of aircraft and existing equipment. When experiments on live dropping were in progress, Lt-Col SMYTH usually made the first jumps himself. It would have been scarce possible to constitute a parachute formation in the Middle East with such speed without the devoted preliminary work of Lt—Col SMYTH. '
OBE Citation WO-373_77_81
Unit war diary for 1944 (except October): WO 171/1243