Ira C. Eaker

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U.S. Army LtGen Ira C. Eaker, deputy commander of the Army Air Forces.
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U.S. Army LtGen Ira C. Eaker, deputy commander of the Army Air Forces.

Ira Clarence Eaker (13 April 1896 – 6 August 1987) was a general of the United States Army Air Forces, who commanded the Eighth Air Force during World War II.

Eaker was born in Field Creek, Texas, in 1896, the son of a tenant farmer. He attended Southeastern State Teachers College in Durant, Oklahoma, then joined the US Army in 1917. He was appointed a second lieutenant of Infantry, Officer's Reserve Corps, and assigned to active duty with the US 64th Infantry Regiment at El Paso, Texas. On November 15, 1917, he received a commission in the Regular Army.

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[edit] U. S. Army Air Corps

Eaker remained with the 64th Infantry at El Paso until March 1918, when he was placed on detached service to receive flying instruction at Austin and Kelly Fields in Texas. Upon graduation the following October, he was rated a pilot and assigned to Rockwell Field, California.

In July 1919, he transferred to the Philippine Islands, where he served with the Second Aero Squadron at Fort Mills until September 1919; with the Third Aero Squadron at Camp Stotsenburg until September 1920, and as executive officer of the Department Air Office, Department and Assistant Department Air Officer, Philippine Department, and in command of the Philippine Air Depot at Manila until September 1921.

Meanwhile, on July 1, 1920, he transferred from the Infantry to the Air Service and returned to the United States in January 1922, for duty at Mitchel Field, N.Y., where he commanded the Fifth Aero Squadron and later was post adjutant.

Captain Ira Eaker with a Boeing P-12
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Captain Ira Eaker with a Boeing P-12

In June 1924, Eaker was named executive assistant in the Office of Air Service at Washington, D.C., and from December 1926, to May 1927, he served as a pilot of one of the planes of the Pan American Flight which made a goodwill trip around South America. He then became executive officer in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of War at Washington, D.C.

In September 1926, he was named operations and line maintenance officer at Bolling Field, Washington, D.C. While on that duty, he participated as chief pilot on the endurance flight of the Army plane, "Question Mark", from 1 to 7 January 1929, establishing a new world flight endurance record. Eaker and his co-pilot Carl Spaatz were also awarded the DFC for this achievement. In 1930, he made the first transcontinental flight entirely with instruments.

In October 1934, Eaker was ordered to duty at March Field, Calif., where he commanded the 34th Pursuit Squadron and later the 17th Pursuit Squadron. In the summer of 1935, he was detached for duty with the Navy and participated aboard the aircraft carrier USS Lexington, on maneuvers in Hawaii and Guam.

Eaker entered the Air Corps Tactical School at Maxwell Field, Ala., in August 1935, and upon graduation the following June entered the Command and General Staff School at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., from which he graduated in June 1937. He then became assistant chief of the Information Division in the Office of the Chief of Air Corps at Washington, D.C., and in November 1940, assumed command of the 20th Pursuit Group at Hamilton Field, Calif.

[edit] World War II

Promoted to brigadier general in January 1942, he was assigned to organize the VIII Bomber Command and to understudy the British system of bomber operations; then in December 1942, he assumed command of the Eighth Air Force in England. Eaker drew much of his initial staff, including Captain Frederick W. Castle, Capt. Beirne Lay, Jr., and Lt. Harris Hull, from former civilians rather than career military officers, and the group became known as "Eaker's Amateurs".

Throughout the war, Eaker was an advocate for daylight "precision" bombing of military and industrial targets in German-occupied territory and ultimately Germany -- of striking at the enemy's ability to wage war while minimizing civilian casualties. The British considered daylight bombing too risky, and wanted the Americans to join them in night raids that would target wider areas, but Eaker persuaded a skeptical Winston Churchill that the American and British approaches complemented each other in a one-page memo that concluded, "If the R.A.F. continues night bombing and we bomb by day, we shall bomb them round the clock and the devil shall get no rest." He personally led the first US B-17 bomber strike against German occupation forces in France, bombing Rouen, 17 August 1942.

Eaker was promoted to lieutenant general in September 1943. However, as American bomber losses mounted from German defensive fighter aircraft attacks on deep penetration missions beyond the range of available fighter cover, Eaker may have lost some of the confidence of USAAF Commanding General Henry Arnold. When General Dwight D. Eisenhower was named Supreme Allied Commander in December, 1943, he proposed to use his existing team of subordinate commanders in key positions, including Lt. Gen. James Doolittle. Doolittle was named Eighth Air Force Commander, and Arnold concurred with the change.

Eaker was re-assigned as Commander-in-Chief of the Mediterranean Allied Air Forces, having under his command the 12th and 15th U.S. Air Forces and the British Desert and Balkan Air Forces. He did not approve of the plan to bomb Monte Cassino in February, 1944, considering it a dubious military target, but ultimately "signed off" and gave in to pressure from ground commanders; historians of the era now generally believe Eaker's skepticism was correct and that the ancient abbey at Monte Cassino could have been preserved without jeopardizing the allied advance through Italy.

On 30 April 1945, General Eaker was named deputy commander of the Army Air Forces and chief of the Air Staff. He retired 31 August 1947, and was promoted to lieutenant general on the retired list 29 June 1948.

[edit] Awards and decorations

[edit] Civilian career

Eaker was a vice president of Hughes Tool Company and Hughes Aircraft (1947–57) and of Douglas Aircraft (1957–61).

While stationed in New York in the early 1920s, Eaker studied law at Columbia University. Eaker went back to school in the early 1930s at the University of Southern California and received a degree in journalism. With Henry Arnold, Eaker co-authored This Flying Game (1936), Winged Warfare (1937), and Army Flyer (1942). Starting in 1962, he wrote a weekly column, carried by many newspapers, on military affairs.

Eaker was inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame, in Dayton, Ohio, in 1970. Over his 30 years of flying, General Eaker accumulated 12,000 flying hours as pilot.

On 10 October 1978, President Jimmy Carter, authorized by act of Congress, awarded in the name of the congress, a special Congressional Gold Medal to General Eaker, for contributing immeasurably to the development of aviation and to the security of his country.

Almost 30 years after his retirement, Congress passed special legislation awarding four-star status to General Eaker, prompted by Senator Barry Goldwater and endorsed by President Ronald Reagan. On 26 April 1985, Chief of Staff General Charles A. Gabriel and Ruth Eaker, the general's wife, pinned on his fourth star.

Eaker died 6 August 1987 at Malcolm Grow Medical Center, Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland, and is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.


Blytheville Air Force Base was renamed Eaker Air Force Base on 26 May 1988; the base was closed on 6 March 1992. Military to civilian conversion began, and public aircraft began using the decommissioned base. The military still uses the renamed Arkansas International Airport.

[edit] External links

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