In May 1940 the citizens of
Savannah, Georgia., named the Savannah Municipal Airport the Hunter Municipal Airfield, later Savannah Army Air Base,
Hunter Air Force Base, then Hunter Army Air Field in his honor. In July 1940 he was attached to the Office of the Military Attaché in
London, England, as a Military Observer. He returned to the United States in December 1940 and was stationed at
Orlando Army Air Base, Fla., as commanding officer of the
23rd Composite Group. In February 1942, he was assigned to Headquarters
Army Air Forces,
Washington, D.C., and in May 1942 joined the
Eighth Air Force at
Bolling Field, Washington, D.C. That same month he accompanied that organization to the
European Theater of Operations, with headquarters in London, as commanding general,
VIII Fighter Command. In this position he affected the first trans-Atlantic flight of AAF planes without the loss of life or equipment. He also directed the first
P-47 fighter-bomber sweeps over the continent. and
Queen Elizabeth are greeted by Major General Frank Hunter and Major General
Ira C. Eaker of the 8th U.S. Army Air Forces on the occasion of their visit to
Duxford,
Cambridgeshire on 26 May 1943. It was upon Brigadier General Hunter's recommendation that the
Eagle Squadrons (which had American pilots in the service of the United Kingdom) were transferred from the
Royal Air Force to become the
4th Fighter Group in September 1942. In May 1943, Hunter was relieved of his command for his failure to obey a directive issued by his superior, General
Ira C. Eaker mandating use of wing tanks on P-47 fighters. He returned to the United States in August 1943 and was named commanding general of the
First Air Force, where he was charged with training replacement air crews. His tenure in this command was marred by his involvement in maintaining
racial segregation in the U. S. Army, thus provoking the
Freeman Field Mutiny of the
Tuskegee Airmen. In 1944 the
Earl of Halifax, then Britain's ambassador to the U.S., presented to General Hunter, in the name of the
King of England, the
CBE, "Commander of the military division of the most excellent order of the British Empire." Just a year earlier the general had been awarded the
Legion of Merit for "exceptional services" in planning and executing the movement of air echelons of the
Twelfth Air Force from
Great Britain to
North Africa. His other awards include the
Distinguished Flying Cross and
Purple Heart. Among the units under Hunter's command was the all Negro
477th Bombardment Group stationed at Freeman Field in Seymour, Indiana. Hunter was commanding general when 104 African-American were subjected to military court martial for trying to integrate the base's officer club in early 1945. Hunter earned the reputation of being a rabid racist. This information is omitted from Hunter's biography because the U.S. Army Air Forces' strict segregation policy. In October 1945 he was assigned to a detachment of patients at Air Force Regional Hospital, Miami District, and later was admitted to
Walter Reed General Hospital. He was rated a command pilot, combat observer and technical observer. Throughout his lengthy flying career, he survived three bail outs, one of which was from an altitude of 500 feet over a frozen lake, and two broken backs, both of which kept him in the hospital for a year. He became known as one of the Army's top stunt, test and racing pilots. ==Post World War II==