Eaker, Ira Clarence, born 13-04-1896 Field Creek, Texas,
the son of the tenant farmer Young Yancy Eaker and Dona Lee, born Graham Eaker. The family moved to Kenefic, Oklahoma, in 1912.. Ira attended Southeastern State Teachers College in Durant, Oklahoma, and then joined the United States Army in 1917.. He was appointed a second lieutenant of Infantry, Officer’s Reserve Corps and assigned to active duty with the 64th Infantry Regiment at Camp Bliss, El Paso, Texas.
The 64th Infantry was assigned to the 14th Infantry Brigade on 20-12-1917, to be part of the of the 7th Infantry Division
when it deployed to France.



In July 1919, he transferred to the Philippine Islands, where he served with the 2d Aero Squadron at Fort Mills until September 1919; with the 3d 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.
Captain Ira Eaker with a Boeing P-12.
Promoted to Brigadier General in January 1942, Eaker was assigned to organize the VIII Bomber Command
, which became the Eighth Air Force, in England and to understudy the British system of bomber operations. The successes of Bomber Command were purchased at terrible cost. Of every 100 airmen who joined Bomber Command, 45 were killed, 6 were seriously wounded, 8 became Prisoners of War, and only 41 escaped unscathed, at least physically. Of the 120.000 who served, 55.573 were killed including over 10.000 Canadians. Of those who were flying at the beginning of the war, only ten percent survived. It is a loss rate comparable only to the worst slaughter of the First World War trenches. Only the Nazi U-Boat force suffered a higher casualty rate. Then, in December 1942,Eaker assumed command of the Eighth Air Force.
Much of Eaker’s initial staff, including Captain Frederick Walke Castle, later Brigade General of the Air Force, (see Castle)











and 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.
Ira Eaker and Major General Carl Spaatz
were two brilliant officers whose careers intertwined, from before the famous flight of the Question Mark in 1929 to the sending of the Eighth Air Force against Germany.



Death and burial ground of Eaker, Ira Clarence.




He retired 31-08-1947 and died at the old age of 91 of heart failure, on 06-08-1987, in the Malcolm Grow Medical Center, Andrews Air Force Base, Camp Springs, Maryland. Eaker, here with Bomber Harris on the right




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