Personal Number: 253886 Rank: Lieutenant Name: Ronald Gordon KING-SMITH, MiD Unit: Grenadier Guards London Gazette : 29 January 1943 https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/35880/supplement/531/data.pdf FOOT GUARDS. Gren. G'ds. The undermentioned Cadets to be 2nd Lts.: — 4th Dec. 1942:— Ronald Gordon KING-SMITH (253886). London Gazette : 11 January 1945 https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/36886/supplement/324/data.pdf The KING has been graciously pleased to approve that the following be Mentioned in recognition of gallant and distinguished services in Italy:— Foot Guards. Gren. G'ds. Lt. R. G. King-Smith (253886). London Gazette : 28 June 1946 https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/37630/supplement/3278/data.pdf FOOT GUARDS. Gren. G'ds. War Subs. Lt. R. G. KING-SMITH (253886) relinquishes his commn. on account of disability, 28th June 1946, and is granted the hon. rank of Lt.
London Gazette : 11 January 1945 https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/36886/supplement/315/data.pdf https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/36886/supplement/324/data.pdf https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/36886/supplement/325/data.pdf
Is he the chap that wrote The Sheep-pig which was turned into the film Babe ? Edit. Dick King-Smith - Wikipedia
See also: War - Dick King-Smith - "It was wartime and leave was unpredictable and brief for people serving in the forces. Dick was by now an officer in the Grenadier Guards, Myrle an officer in the WAAF (Women’s Auxiliary Air Force). Having got their parents’ blessing, they decided to get on with organising the wedding and they were married at St. Mary’s Church, Bitton, on February 6th 1943." "In 1941, aged 19, Dick, enlisted as a recruit in the Grenadier Guards and served with distinction, despite being ‘frightened stiff a lot of the time’ On arrival in Salerno, his platoon, along with many others, fought their way up Italy, which took months. On 12th July 1944, Dick was seriously injured by a British hand grenade thrown by a German soldier. He was only saved from certain death by the fact that he was sheltering behind a tree, which took the brunt of the explosion. He suffered extensive shrapnel wounds and later, when he was back in England, a cerebral embolism, either of which could have killed him. When Myrle first saw him, in a military hospital in Liverpool, he was a shadow of his former self, weighing only eight stone – his normal weight was more like twelve. As she walked down the ward, peering anxiously at the beds, she would have failed to recognise him had she not noticed a raised arm feebly waving at her. Of this meeting, Dick said: ‘. . . seeing her again was, of course, the greatest of tonics and I began to get better’. Eventually Dick was sent to a convalescent home in Weston-super-Mare and then, when he was well enough, to his childhood home, Homelea, where he and Myrle lived with his parents for the next two years. Their first child, Juliet, was born in a nursing home in Bristol, in October 1945. As a young platoon commander in 1943, he took part in the Salerno Landings in Italy. During the long voyage via the Cape of Good Hope, the Red Sea and the Mediterranean coast of Africa, Dick acquired a collection of chameleons which he became very attached to. Sadly, he had to let them go on reaching Salerno. He also managed to disgrace himself on the trip by getting very drunk on crème de menthe and running around the ship naked, alarming the females in the officers’ mess, and having to be restrained from jumping overboard! He remembered none of this excitement, which was relayed to him gleefully by his friends." From The Grenadier Guards in the war of 1939-1945, by Nigel Nicolson and Patrick Forbes. v.2. 5 GG, Wounded, Italy, Campi, 12/7/1944 Page 430 Page 463
