General Sir Rupert Anthony Smith, KCB, DSO & Bar, OBE, QGM (born 13 December 1943) is a retired British Army officer and author of The Utility of Force.
[1] Smith enlisted in 1962 and graduating from the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst was commissioned as a second lieutenant into the Parachute Regiment in December 1964.
In October 1990 Smith was promoted major general and assumed command of the 1st Armoured Division[12][13] which he led during the Gulf War.
[15] The citation for the DSO, published in the London Gazette reads:Major General Smith has led the largest British armoured force deployed in action since World War II.
Within two weeks of taking over 1 Armoured Division in Germany, Major General Smith was despatched to the Gulf to command 35,000 men and women making up the British Ground Force contribution to Operation Granby.
Although he did not know it at the time, he had only six weeks to pull his force together, train it, and deploy it some 350 miles, and set up a close working relationship with the Americans under whose tactical control he was placed.
Failure to achieve it would have destroyed the main thrust of the Commander in Chiefs battle plan and could have resulted in grave and heavy US casualties.
He personally led from the front with fearless disregard for the enemy anti tank fire, and despite the high threat of chemical weapons being used.