Shlomo Shamir was born Shlomo Rabinowitch, in Berdychiv, Russian Empire. He was taken to Mandatory Palestine in 1925. In 1929 he joined the Haganah and was instrumental in smuggling weapons and illegal Jewish immigrants into Palestine during the time of the British Mandate and the White Paper of 1939. In 1940 he received his pilot license, and in the same year he joined the British Army's infantry in order to fight the Nazis. In 1944 upon the establishment of the Jewish Brigade he was appointed Internal Commander of the Brigade on behalf of the Haganah and the Jewish Institution in Palestine. In 1946 he was discharged from the British military with the rank of major.

In 1948 he was ordered by Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion to establish the Israeli 7th Armored Brigade in the fight to conquer Latrun so as to open the road to Jerusalem. He commanded over creating the Burma Road. At the end of the 1947–1949 Palestine war he was offered to be appointed as the Chief of the General Staff, but he refused. Instead he served other capacities, eventually becoming the third Commander of the Israeli Navy in December 1949. He helped build the small Israeli Navy by purchasing a new corvette and advanced torpedo boats. In 1950, he was replaced as Commander of the Israeli Navy by Mordechai Limon and became the third Commander of the Israeli Air Force. Under his leadership, the Israeli Air Defense Network was created, and the Hatzor Israeli Air Force Base built. In August 1951, he handed command of the Air Force over to Haim Laskov and retired from the Israel Defence Forces.^[1][2]

In civilian life, Shamir established Israel's Phosphate mines and headed Israel's land Authorities. He received a master's degree in Social Sciences from Tel Aviv University and a master's degree in administration from Harvard University.

On 19 May 2009 Shamir died in Tel Aviv at the age of 93, leaving his daughter Yael, two grandchildren and one great-grandchild.^[3]