Born in Chichester, Sussex, to Alice Hilda (née Heather) and Edwin Percy Wild, a yeast merchant, Wild was educated at Shoreham Grammar School. He emigrated to South Australia in 1923 as one of the Barwell Boys, as part of an assisted migration scheme. He was initially employed as a farm apprentice at Langhorne's Creek and Loxton, and then went to work in the mines at Broken Hill, New South Wales. Wild returned to South Australia in 1930, working at an ice works in Port Adelaide and at a mill in Moonta. In 1936, he went to the Western Australian goldfields, working at mines in Norseman and Kalgoorlie. In November 1939, Wild enlisted in the &lt;a href="2/11th%20Battalion%20%28Australia%29"&gt;2/11th Battalion&lt;/a&gt;. He saw service in the Middle East, Greece, and Crete, and was wounded in action in May 1941, gained the MBE (Military Division) in July 1941, and was mentioned in despatches in March 1942. By the end of the war Wild had reached the substantive rank of captain and the temporary rank of major, and was serving as a camp commandant in New Guinea.