Promoted to
brigadier general in January 1942, he 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. Then, in December 1942, he assumed command of the Eighth Air Force. In a speech he gave to the British that won him favorable publicity, he said, "We won't do much talking until we've done more fighting. After we've gone, we hope you'll be glad we came." Much of Eaker's initial staff, including Captain
Frederick W. Castle, Captain
Beirne Lay, Jr., and Lieutenant
Harris Hull, was composed of reserve rather than career military officers, and the group became known as "Eaker's Amateurs". Eaker's position as commander of the Eighth Air Force led to his becoming the model for the fictional Major General Pat Pritchard in the 1949 movie ''
Twelve O'Clock High''. 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. 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 RAF continues night bombing and we bomb by day, we shall bomb them round the clock and the devil shall get no rest." He personally participated in the first US
B-17 Flying Fortress bomber strike against German occupation forces in France, bombing
Rouen on August 17, 1942. Eaker was promoted to
major 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. To reduce losses to fighters, Eaker was a strong advocate of the
Boeing YB-40 Flying Fortress, a B-17 Flying Fortress which carried additional gun turrets and gunners instead of a bomb load and was intended to act as a long-range, "gunship" escort for conventional bombers. However the YB-40 was not a success in combat. , Lieutenant General
Jacob L. Devers, and Major General
Thomas B. Larkin, 1944. Eaker also strongly advocated work on improving the range of
escort fighters using
drop tanks, Eaker was reassigned as Commander-in-Chief of the
Mediterranean Allied Air Forces, previous commander Tedder having been selected by Eisenhower to plan the air operations for the Normandy invasion. Eaker had under his command the
Twelfth and
Fifteenth 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 the mission 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. He personally led the first raid of
Operation Frantic on 2 July 1944, flying in a B-17 called
Yankee Doodle II and landing at a Soviet base at Poltava in Ukraine. On April 30, 1945, General Eaker was named deputy commander of the Army Air Forces and
Chief of the Air Staff. He retired on August 31, 1947, and was promoted to
lieutenant general in the newly established
United States Air Force on the retired list June 29, 1948. Almost 40 years after his retirement, Congress attempted to pass special legislation awarding
four-star status in the U.S. Air Force to General Eaker, prompted by retired
Air Force Reserve major general and
Senator Barry Goldwater (R-AZ). Goldwater had originally wanted to simply promote Jimmy Doolittle to four star rank, but was told by Air Force Secretary Verne Orr that this would put Eaker in an awkward position because he "had greater responsibilities during World War II." In order to cure this defect the Doolittle promotion was enlarged to include Eaker. Goldwater first proposed a bill of relief that waived both officers' ineligibility for promotion. However, the legislation stalled in the House, which prompted Goldwater to only seek confirmation via the Senate, which was arguably unlawful because of statutory restrictions on general officers that required them to be in active service. On April 26, 1985,
Chief of Staff General
Charles A. Gabriel and Ruth Eaker, the general's wife, pinned on his fourth star. Later, in 1986, the Comptroller General ruled that the promotion was unlawful for pay or benefit purposes due to the lack of implementing legislation. ==Civilian career==