Frank O'Driscoll Hunter (December 8, 1894[1] – June 25, 1982) was a World War I flying ace, being credited by the United States Army Air Service with downing nine enemy aircraft.

Assigned to the 103rd Aero Squadron in May 1918, on his first combat patrol Hunter downed two German planes and landed safely despite being wounded.

[citation needed] He transferred to Camp Anthony Wayne, Pennsylvania., in September 1926 as a pilot with the Composite Air Corps Squadron, and returned to Selfridge Field in December 1926.

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.

[citation needed] 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.

[citation needed] 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.

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.

[6] 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."

[citation needed] 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.

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.

[citation needed] General Hunter retired from the Army Air Forces on March 31, 1946, and returned to his home state of Georgia.

[citation needed] The Georgia Historical Society houses and makes available for research a collection of General Hunter's papers.