Graduate, U.S. Military Academy, Class of 1930.

Colonel Smith was a veteran of World War II. During the Korean War, he served with X Corps, Eighth Army then was transferred to Japan to serve on General Mark Clark's staff.

In October 1952, Colonel Smith was serving on General Mark Clark's staff as Chief of the Plans & Operations Division (Logistics Section) of the U.S. Army in Japan. He had just received orders to Washington, DC, where a promotion to Brigadier General awaited him. However, the trip to Washington never took place because on 4 October 1952, he was murdered in his bed by his wife.

In 1934, at Jefferson Barracks, MO, Smith married Dorothy Jane Krueger, the only daughter of retired Army General Walter Krueger (Honoree Record ID 268), World War II commander of the island-hopping Sixth Army. But to the brunette and high-strung Dorothy Smith, the life of a soldier's wife was not a happy one. Monotony unnerved her, loneliness oppressed her, and she sought excitement and forgetfulness in alcohol and dope. She reportedly believed that COL Smith regarded his wife as a clinging handicap to his professional career.

On the night of 4 October, Shigeko Tani, her Japanese maid, testified that she found the Colonel bleeding to death in bed and Mrs. Smith, in bra and panties, clutching a bloody, ten-inch-long hunting knife. A neighbor, Lieutenant Colonel Joseph S. Hardin, found the defendant sitting alongside her dying husband, trying to light two cigarettes at once. She blurted out: "I'm sorry I didn't get him in the heart." She was tried and the court found Dorothy Smith guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced her "to be confined at hard labor for the rest of her natural life." She began serving a life sentence at the Federal Women’s Prison at Anderson, WV.

On 19 June 1957, Dorothy Jane Krueger Smith was freed from prison after serving less than five years of her life sentence. The release took place nine days after the Supreme Court ruled that Dorothy Smith had been tried illegally by an Army court-martial in Japan.

Medals, Awards and Badges

Silver Star Medal with Oak Leaf Cluster
Legion of Merit with Oak Leaf Cluster
Bronze Star Medal
Army Commendation Ribbon
World War II Victory Medal
National Defense Service Medal
Korean Service Medal
United Nations Service Medal
Republic of Korea War Service Medal
Combat Infantryman Badge