Whitney Willard Straight was the son of Willard Dickerman Straight, an alumnus of Cornell University who served as the American consul in Manchuria and later as a representative for the J.P. Morgan banking company in China. After Willard Straight died in the influenza epidemic of 1918, his widow Dorothy Whitney Straight married an Englishman, and the family moved to England in 1925. Son Whitney rode motorcycles, drove cars, and learned to fly before he was 17, bought and raced a Grand Prix Maserati at 19, set up his own auto racing team of three Maseratis at 21, and retired from auto racing at 23. He then turned to aviation, won several medals as a pilot in the Royal Air Force during World War II, then served as Deputy Chairman of the British European Airways and later of British Overseas Airways Corporation and Rolls Royce. He finished his career as Deputy Chairman of the Post Office in Britain, where he worked until the end of 1974.