Smith was born in Aldershot, and educated at King's College School, Wimbledon, where he joined the Officers' Training Corps and was reportedly a crack shot, captaining his school rifle team at the annual schools competition at Bisley. He enlisted at the outbreak of war in the Public Schools Battalion, before being commissioned as a temporary second lieutenant of the Army Service Corps in December 1914. Smith served with the Wessex Divisional Train, going to France in March 1915. Smith qualified as a pilot on 24 May 1916, and on 14 June was seconded to Royal Flying Corps, and appointed a flying officer. He was posted to No. 6 Squadron to fly the Royal Aircraft Factory BE.2d. He wrote home to his father in October 1916; He was appointed a flight commander with the acting rank of captain on 22 December 1916. Despite piloting a grossly obsolescent two-seater reconnaissance aircraft, Smith, and his observer Air Mechanic 2nd Class Backhouse, scored his first victory on 17 March 1917, destroying a German Albatros D.II fighter over Becelaere. On 1 May 1917, piloting RE-8 "4196" with Observer Lieutenant Hayman, Smith was attacked by five Albatros scouts, and wounded in the right heel during the engagement. This was referred to in a letter sent to his father from Second Lieutenant Waight, in May 1917: Smith was promoted to lieutenant on 1 July 1917. Recovered from his wound, Smith transferred to No. 46 Squadron flying the Sopwith Camel in March 1918. He shared a pair of claims on 16 March 1918, being aided by George Thomson. After another claim on 24 March, he shared his final victory, an Albatros C, on 2 April with Lieutenants Donald MacLaren and Alexander Vlasto, and Second Lieutenant Roy McConnell. His commanding officer at No. 46 Squadron, Major R. H. S. Mealing, described Smith as "wonderfully brave, perhaps too brave". Twice he had returned with his Camel badly damaged by ground fire; "D6407" on 27 March and "D6489" on 30 March. On 6 April 1918, flying Camel "D6491", he led a ground attack mission with Lieutenants R. K. MacConnell, J. R. Cole, and V. M. Yeates. They attacked troops and transports near La Motte, dropping sixteen Cooper bombs and firing some 450 rounds of ammunition. However, Smith did not return and was last seen by MacConnell at 15.30 hours over La Motte. Smith fell to the guns of a Fokker Dr.I flown by Manfred von Richthofen. The Red Baron's combat report read, "...The English plane which I attacked started to burn after only a few shots from my guns. Then it crashed, burning near the little wood northeast of Villers Bretonneux, where it continued burning on the ground." He was listed as "missing in action" by the Air Ministry. After the war Smith's father, determined to find his son's remains, travelled to France with former Camel pilot Donald Gold, who had witnessed the shooting down of Smith's aircraft. Although they were successful in locating and mapping the crash position and found several pieces of the Camel's wreckage, he was unable to discover any trace of his son.As Smith has no known grave he is commemorated on the Arras Flying Services Memorial. Smith was later featured in No. 46 Squadron comrade Victor Maslin Yeates' wartime classic novel Winged Victory as the character 'Beal'.
