William Polk Longmire Jr was one of the founders of the school of medicine at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) and a former President of the American College of Surgeons. He was born in Sapulpa, Oklahoma, in 1913. After graduating from the University of Oklahoma, he entered Johns Hopkins Medical School, where he obtained his MD in 1938. He stayed on at Baltimore for two years, first as Cushing fellow in experimental surgery, and then as Halsted fellow in surgical pathology. This was followed by two years in practice in Sapulpa. He then returned to Johns Hopkins for his residency training, and was a member of the first surgical team to successfully perform the ‘blue baby’ operation, a groundbreaking procedure that allowed infants with a severe heart deformity to live a normal life. At Johns Hopkins he was appointed as an assistant professor and then an associate professor of surgery. Just before leaving, he was appointed as its first professor of plastic surgery. He returned to general surgery when he went to the University of California at Los Angeles as professor and Chairman of the department of surgery. He served as UCLA’s surgical Chairman until 1976 and continued in medical practice at UCLA, becoming professor emeritus in 1984. He published more than 350 published scientific articles and four books. In his later years, he wrote *Starting from scratch*, a book describing the founding of UCLA’s school of medicine. He served on the American College of Surgeons’ board of regents, ultimately as its President. He also served as President of the Society of Surgical Chairmen, the American Surgical Association, the International Federation of Surgical Colleges and the Los Angeles Surgical Society and as Chairman of the American Board of Surgery. He served as visiting professor in many universities, including the University of Berlin and the University of Edinburgh. He was recognised by surgical societies in Italy, Switzerland, France and Germany. He married Sarah Jane Cornelius and they had two daughters, Sarah Jane and Gil. There are three grandchildren. He died on 9 May 2003, from cancer.