Flying Officer (Navigator) Sydney Kent Smith was born on 24 September 1922 in Alix, Alberta, a small prairie settlement where the horizon seemed endless and the night skies stretched unbroken from edge to edge. He was the son of Joseph Mansell and Eleanor Burgess Smith, and brother to Orwin and Margaret — a family whose world was rooted in the quiet rhythms of rural Canada, far removed from the gathering storm overseas. When war came, he joined the Royal Canadian Air Force and trained as a navig