Cornelius Cole Smith Jr. | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Nickname(s) | Corney |
| Born | July 18, 1913 Fort Huachuca, Arizona, United States |
| Died | April 27, 2004 (aged 90) Riverside, California |
| Buried | |
| Allegiance | United States of America |
| Service/ | United States Marines |
| Years of service | 1937–1947 |
| Rank | Colonel |
| Battles/wars | World War II |
| Relations | Granville Henderson Oury (great-granduncle) William Sanders Oury (great-grandfather) Gilbert Cole Smith (grandfather) Cornelius Cole Smith, Sr. (father) |
| Other work | Military historian and biographer |
Cornelius Cole "Corney" Smith Jr. (July 18, 1913 – April 27, 2004) was an American author, military historian, illustrator and painter. A survivor of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, he was an officer in the United States Marines during World War II and retired at the rank of colonel. After leaving military service in 1947, he held a number of important positions including his employment as an architect for the Arabian-American Oil Company and a museum curator for the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. After receiving his MA and Ph.D. degrees in history at Claremont Graduate School, he spent the 1950s as chief of the Historical Division for the 15th Air Force, Strategic Air Command.
He began his writing career relatively late in life, at age 57, and was a prolific author of books on military history and the American frontier of the Southwestern United States. In addition to his own father's biography, Don't Settle for Second: Life and Times of Cornelius C. Smith (1977), he also authored biographies on Arizona frontiersman William Sanders Oury and Russian soldier-of-fortune Emilio Kosterlitzky. His book A Southwestern Vocabulary: The Words They Used (1984) detailed over 500 terms of slang of the American Southwest and Northern Mexico and is widely cited by historians of the "Old West".