Page 204 - They Also Served

Far-Eastern empire. For his exploits in the immediate aftermath of the war, he was awarded an OBE.
Smiley’s next assignment was as the assistant military attaché in Poland, where one of his clandestine operations was discovered – he was beaten up and expelled from the country. Returning to Albania, he was the British lead for a joint mission with the USA to subvert the newly installed communist dictator Enver Hoxha. Unfortunately, the liaison between the two allies was the traitor Kim Philby, who betrayed over a hundred agents, most of whom were subsequently tortured and shot.
Somehow, Smiley found time for more conventional duties and, in command of The Blues, he rode behind the Queen’s coach at the 1953 coronation. After a spell as defence attaché in Sweden, he commanded the Sultan of Oman’s land forces in the civil war. His three years culminated with him planning and leading an assault of two squadrons of SAS on the Jebel Akhdar mountain, the final rebel stronghold. Retiring from the army, he spent six years as an advisor to MI6, making 13 trips to Yemen. After nearly 20 years farming in Spain, he returned to the UK and, in 1990, visited Albania as a guest after the collapse of the communist regime, which years before had sentenced him to death in absentia.
Smiley was one of the people used by Ian Fleming as a model for James Bond, and John Le Carré reputedly used the name for his fictional spymaster George Smiley. The term ‘a full life’ does not do justice to a man who broke over 80 bones in various accidents, set the record for the most falls in one season on the Cresta Run, and who represented Kenya (where he owned a farm) at the 1960 Commonwealth Winter Games. Colonel David Smiley LVO OBE MC died on 9th January 2009.
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