 Born in Salt Lake City, Utah, but raised from early childhood in Los Angeles, California, the son of Ignatius Quimby Tobin and Mary Alicia Tobin (née O'Fallon).Tobin initially came to Europe to fight on the side of Finland against the Soviet Union's invasion of that country, but hostilities had ceased before he arrived.He was already a qualified pilot, having learned to fly in the 1930s.