A graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point class of 1924, he was commissioned in the Army Air Corps and learned to fly both airships and airplanes.

He attended Harvard Business School, from which he received his Master of Business Administration in 1937, and spent World War II working as a budget and financial officer, first at the Air Materiel Command at Wright Field, Ohio, and then in the Office of the Chief of United States Army Air Forces in Washington, D.C.

He then served as commander of the 3750th Technical Training Wing at Sheppard Air Force Base, Texas, until he retired in 1957 with the rank of major general.

He had an older brother, James Cecillus White, who attended the United States Military Academy at West Point but failed to graduate with the class of 1919.

A guard at the Embassy of the United States, Beijing, when the Pacific War broke out on December 8, 1941, he spent four years in captivity, but eventually retired with the rank of colonel.

[7] White commanded the 1503rd Air Transport Wing in Japan until July 1951, which shipped supplies and personnel to the forces fighting in the Korean War.

[8] On returning to the United States in July 1951, he became chief of the Army and Air Force Exchange Service in New York City.

Colonel Edward Higgins White II graduated from West Point with the class of 1952,[9] and later became an astronaut, and the first American to "walk" in space.