William Y. Smith

Who is William Y. Smith?

General William Young Smith is a retired United States Air Force four-star general who served as Chief of Staff, Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe from 1979 to 1981 and as Deputy Commander in Chief, U.S. European Command from 1981 to 1983.

Smith was born in 1925, in Hot Springs, Arkansas, where he graduated from high school in 1943. He spent one year at Washington and Lee University, then entered the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York. He graduated in 1948, among the first academy graduates commissioned directly into the newly established Air Force. He received a master of public administration degree in 1954 and a doctorate in political economy and government in 1961, both from Harvard University. He completed Air Command and Staff College, Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama, in 1959 and National War College, Fort Lesley J. McNair, Washington, D.C., in 1965.

His first assignment was training recruits at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas. Subsequently he went through flight training at Randolph Air Force Base, Texas, and Williams Air Force Base, Arizona, receiving his pilot wings in September 1949. He then served as a pilot with the 20th Fighter-Bomber Group at Shaw Air Force Base, South Carolina.