Alan Lyle-Smythe was born in
Surrey, England. Prior to
World War II, he served with the
Palestine Police from 1936 to 1939 and learned the
Arabic language. He was awarded an
MBE in June 1938. He married Aliza Sverdova in 1939, then studied acting from 1939 to 1941. In January 1940, Lyle-Smythe was commissioned in the
Royal Army Service Corps. Due to his linguistic skills, he transferred to the
Intelligence Corps and served in the
Western Desert, in which he used the surname "Caillou" (the French word for 'pebble') as an alias. He was captured in
North Africa, imprisoned and threatened with execution in Italy, then escaped to join the British forces at
Salerno. He was then posted to serve with the
partisans in
Yugoslavia. He wrote about his experiences in the book
The World is Six Feet Square (1954). He was promoted to captain and awarded the
Military Cross in 1944. Following the war, he returned to the Palestine Police from 1946 to 1947, then served as a
Police Commissioner in British-occupied
Italian Somaliland from 1947 to 1952, where he was recommissioned a captain. He wrote about this experience in the
memoir Sheba Slept Here. After working as a District Officer in
Somalia and as a professional hunter, Lyle-Smythe moved to Canada, where he worked as a hunter and then became an actor on Canadian television. ==Writing career==