Eighth Air Force

Encyclopedia : E : EI : EIG : Eighth Air Force

B-17 Flying Fortresses Over Europe during World War II

The Eighth Air Force is a numbered air force (NAF) of the major command (MAJCOM) of Air Combat Command of the United States Air Force and it is headquartered at Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana.

In World War II, it was a United States Army Air Forces unit, which carried out daytime bombing operations in western Europe from airfields in eastern England from 1942. The Eighth Air Force was commanded during World War II by Major General Carl A. Spaatz, Major General Ira C. Eaker, and Lt. General James H. Doolittle, the hero of the 1942 B-25 air raid on Tokyo and other cities in Japan. It later became the United States Air Forces in Europe.

The present Eighth Air Force began its existence as VIII Bomber Command and received its current designation when the original Eighth Air Force redesignated to United States Strategic Air Forces (USSTAF). It engaged in combat in the European Theater of Operations during World War II and moved to the Pacific Theater in the final months of the war. Eighth Air Force served Strategic Air Command (SAC) after the war, both in the United States and overseas until SAC was deactivated, then served Air Combat Command since June 1, 1992.

The Eighth Air Force's now commonly-accepted nickname, "The Mighty Eighth", derives from the title of British historian Roger A. Freeman's seminal "History of the U.S. 8th Army Air Force" (Doubleday and Company, 1970). Freeman died in the fall of 2005.

Commands During World War II

First Eighth Air Force

• VIII Air Support Command 1942-43
• VIII Bomber Command 1942-44
• VIII Fighter Command 1942-44

Second Eighth Air Force

• VIII Fighter Command 1944-45

See also

• Joint Functional Component Command for Space and Global Strike (US Strategic Command)

External links

• [Eighth Air Force official website]
• [WWII Bomb Groups - European Theater of Operations (ETO)]
• [The Ruhr - one of the main target of the 8th USAAF in Europe, 1943-1945]

From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.