page_title: Robert T. Smith
section_title: 1st Air Commando Group
hierarchical_section_title: Robert T. Smith / 1st Air Commando Group
caption_attribution_description: English: 1st Air Commando Group Bomber Section Commander R.T. Smith and Co-commanders John Alison and Phil Cochran in front of R.T. Smith's B-25H "Barbie III" at Hailkandi, India in March 1944.
context_page_description: Robert Tharp Smith was a World War II fighter pilot and ace, credited with 8.7, 8.9 or 9 Japanese aircraft while fighting with the American Volunteer Group.
context_section_description: Smith returned to the United States on the USAT Mariposa along with 82 other AVG pilots and ground personnel. Prior to being drafted as a private in December 1942, Smith served as the technical advisor on The Sky's the Limit directed by E.H. Griffith and starring Fred Astaire and Joan Leslie. The side of the P-40 Astaire is flying at the beginning of the movie has a sitting Hell's Angel of the AVG's Third Squadron that was on the side of Smith's P-40 #77.
  Smith was quickly recommissioned as a U.S. Air Corps second lieutenant and promoted to major the next month. For the next few months, as commanding officer of the 337 Fighter Squadron, 329 Fighter Group at Glendale, California and Paine Field, Everett, Washington, he trained replacement pilots using Lockheed P-38 Lightning fighter aircraft. Smith married Barbara Bradford in June 1943, adopting her son Brad from a previous marriage to vaudeville performer George Mann.
  Shortly after being appointed commanding officer of the 329th Fighter Group in September 1943, he volunteered to return to the China-India-Burma Theater with the 1st Air Commando Group, flying occasional P-51 Mustang missions and commanding that group's B-25 Mitchell squadron in support of British General Orde Wingate's troops working out of India and moving behind Japanese lines in Burma (now Myanmar). One story is told of when Smith was flying alone in his P-51 (named "Barbie" after his wife) and saw a crowd gathered around a jeep on the flying field. Someone was making a speech and Smith assumed it was Phil Cochran, co-commander (with John Alison) of the 1st Air Commando Group.  He put his P-51 into a dive and buzzed the speaker, nearly taking his hat off, at over 450 miles an hour. It was only after Smith landed that he learned the speaker was Lord Louis Mountbatten, Supreme Allied Commander, South-East Asia. Lord Mountbatten was not angry at Smith, but was angry at his aide for having him make a speech on an active flying field. Smith ("R.T." according to Chuck Baisden, for "Round Trip" while in the 1st Air Commando Group) was promoted to lieutenant colonel in March 1944, flew 55 combat missions over Burma, and was awarded the Air Medal, Distinguished Flying Cross and Silver Star.
caption: 1st Air Commando Group Bomber Section Commander R.T. Smith and Co-commanders John Alison and Phil Cochran in front of R.T. Smith's B-25H "Barbie III" at Hailkandi, India in March 1944
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