New Boss for the Eighth

For more than two months the U.S.

Eighth Air Force in Britain has had a new acting commander, to replace wiry, nervous Major General Carl Andrew Spaatz, now head U.S. airman in Africa. Last week the War Department made the appointment permanent, announced the name of the Eighth's new C.O.: Major General Ira Clarence Eaker.

To the Eighth this was no news, and no great wrench, since someone had to replace able, respected "Tooey" Spaatz. To fill his spot, husky, broad-jawed Ira Eaker was the flying people's choice. Like Spaatz, a pilot's pilot by virtue of a long and glamorous flying career, he had also shown himself a first-rate field commander. As head of Spaatz's Bomber Command (whose new boss is still anonymous) he had done a crack job with only a trickle of equipment, in the face of many another disappointment to his hope of building Britain into the No. 1 U.S. air theater.

To a less philosophical man than Eaker, whose dry voice never breaks, never rises, the administrative headaches of building up the Eighth would have long since brought a case of the doldrum blues. When he arrived in England early last year, it looked as if a great force would be built up immediately to join with the R.A.F. in round-the-clock bombing of Germany.

The war's developments caused delay.

Other theaters (e.g., the Solomons) claimed bombers. The North African campaign took planes and trained air crews already in England, to make the nucleus for North Africa's Twelfth Air Force.

Meanwhile the Eighth waits. Its new C.O. still manages to get in some flying at the controls of his own transport. Now & then he finds time to crawl into his own single-seater P-40, take it aloft and wrap it into the knots that clear an airman's head.

But like many an Air Forces general who still counts himself young, 46-year-old Ira Eaker spends most of his daytime hours riding a chair. At nights, visiting his good friend, Air Marshal Sir Arthur Harris of the R.A.F. Bomber Command, or at home with his staff, he discards his cigar, sucks on a pipe and talks.

With Sir Arthur the conversation is often of retirement at career's end, and of Eaker's ambition to own a country newspaper before he dies. (Sir Arthur hopes to run a cattle ranch.) At other times the talk is of all-out air attack, which Eaker loves to discuss with his opposite number (they see eye to eye), and his staff. But in such conversations there is always an undertone of regret at what might have been. Eaker hopes that what might have been still may be--that Britain will yet be a great U.S. base for the all-out bombing of Germany. Like most airmen, Ira Eaker is a sanguine man.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.