From the spring of 1942 until early 1944, VIII Bomber Command conducted the strategic bombing operations of U.S. Army Air Force’s Eighth Air Force, focusing on daylight bombing of industrial facilities while British bombers carried out nighttime saturation bombing raids on cities. Because of their range limitations, U.S. fighter planes could not provide escort coverage throughout entire bombing missions, leading to a chilling loss rate during some of the Eight Air Force’s larger raids such as the attacks at Schweinfurt, Regensburg, and Ploesti.
On 22 February 1944, VIII Bomber Command was redesignated as Eighth Air Force, and the original Eighth Air Force was redesignated as U.S. Strategic Air Forces in Europe (and given some operational control over the “new” Eighth Air Force). The change was concurrent with the addition of P-51 and long-range Spitfires to bombing missions, and as a result Eight Air Force’s missions from this point until the end of the war were more far more successful and saw far fewer losses.
By the time of the German surrender, Eighth Air Force had dropped nearly 700,000 tons of bomb in more than 440,000 bomber sorties, losing in excess of 5,100 while downing 11,200 enemy planes. But these numbers carried a sorrowing price tag: the Eighth suffered roughly half of all U.S. Army Air Force casualties, including more than 6,000 dead.
The Eighth Air Force was assigned to Strategic Air Command in 1946, and during the 1950s’ its rebuilding and retooling efforts prevented it from making any major contributions in the Korean War (though it did deploy a fighter wing to the Korean peninsula), acquiring ICBM assets along the way. During the Vietnam War it resumed strategic and saturation bombing missions, culminating in Operations Linebacker and Linebacker II which helped speed peace negotiations at the end of 1972.
Following bombing operations in the First Gulf War, the Eight Air Force was assigned to Air Combat Command in 1992, and in 2010 it was reassigned to Global Strike Command. Throughout that period, the Eighth carried out bombing missions in Southwest Asia and in Iraq and Afghanistan, but never on a scale equal to that of its mission in Vietnam.
Currently, Eighth Air Force is headquartered at Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana, with five bomb wings comprising B-1, B-2, and B-52 bomber under its command.
The design of the Eight Air Force shield was approved on 20 May 1943.