Lieutenant-Colonel K.C.C. Smith
15th Scottish Reconnaissance Regiment

From the earliest days the Regiment was always known as 15th (S) Recce Regt, until the arrival of Lieut Colonel K.C.C. Smith. From then on we were to be known as 15th Scottish Reconnaissance Regiment—no short cuts, no brackets. And so it was! …when an American unit in a jeep raced up to RHQ and a voice roared out—‘Say is this the 15th Recon Outfit?’ I will never forget the look on the Colonel’s face.

(Ernie Clarke quoted in Scottish Lion on Patrol: 15th Scottish Reconnaissance Regiment)

Born on 17 May 1907 in Monkton, Ayrshire, Kenneth Campbell Cory Smith was commissioned into the 12th (Prince of Wales’s) Royal Lancers out of RMC, Sandhurst in 1926. He was instructor at the Royal Military College of Science in Shrivenham from 1936 to 1939, when he became staff captain and later promoted to major in 1940. He was GSO1 for VIII Corps from April 1943 until February 1944, when he became second-in-command of the 15th Scottish Reconnaissance Regiment.

The unit deployed to France with the 15th Division in late June 1944. In September, Lieutenant-Colonel J.A. Grant-Peterkin was appointed GSO1 for the 43rd Wessex Division (and later CO of 1st Battalion, Gordon Highlanders). Smith assumed command and would earn the Distinguished Service order. by the end of the war.

In 1947, Smith commanded the 16th/5th Royal Lancers and retired to the reserve officers’ list a year later. He received the Order of the British Empire in 1974 for social welfare work in Northern Ireland. He died four years later, on 1 March 1978 on the Isle of Man.