Uzal Girard Ent

Uzal Girard Ent was an American Army Air Force officer who served as the commander of the Ninth and the Second Air Forces during World War II.

Biography
Ent was born on March 3, 1900, in Northumberland, Pennsylvania. He served in the infantry from 1917 to 1919, and was commissioned into the US Air Service from West Point in 1924.

After graduating from the Command and General Staff College in 1938 he served as a military attaché at the American Embassy, Lima, Peru from July 1939 until October 1942, acting as the senior neutral military observer on the Peruvian side after their boundary war with Ecuador.

He was Chief of Staff to the U.S. Army Forces in the Middle East from October 1942 until February 1943. He then served as Commanding General, 9th Bomber Command, 9th Air Force from February to December 1943, and led 178 B-24s in "Operation Tidal Wave" &mdash; the bombing raid on the oil fields at Ploieşti, Romania, on August 1, 1943 &mdash; before being appointed Chief of Staff and then Commanding General, 2nd Air Force, based at Colorado Springs, Colorado. In September 1944, it was General Ent who selected Lieutenant Colonel Paul Tibbets to put together an organisation and train them to drop atomic weapons from B-29 bombers. Given Tibbets and two other names by General Arnold, General Ent replied without hesitation, "Paul Tibbets is the man to do it."

In October 1944, Ent was seriously injured in the crash of a B-25 on takeoff at the Fort Worth Army Airfield, Texas. Paralyzed from the waist down he learned to walk again using braces. He retired (disability in line of duty) in 1946 with the rank of major general. He died at Fitzsimons General Hospital in Denver, Colorado, on March 5, 1948.

Awards

 * Distinguished Service Cross with Oak leaf cluster
 * Distinguished Service Medal with Oak leaf cluster
 * Legion of Merit
 * Distinguished Flying Cross with Oak leaf cluster
 * Air Medal with Oak leaf cluster

His foreign decorations include
 * Commander, Order of the British Empire (United Kingdom)
 * Order of the Condor of the Andes (Bolivia)
 * Commander, Order of Ayacucho (Peru)
 * Aviation Cross, First Class (Peru)

Honors
In 1951, an Air Force base opened near Colorado Springs, Colorado, and was named in the general's honor. Ent Air Force Base was the initial home to the North American Air Defense Command (NORAD) from 1957 until 1963 when the command center moved to a highly secure facility within Cheyenne Mountain. Ent AFB then became the Ent Annex to the Cheyenne Mountain Complex in 1975, and the facility was subsequently closed in 1976.

The Ent Federal Credit Union was also named in his honor.

Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) Post 8298 in General Ent's hometown of Northumberland, Pennsylvania, is named "Major General Uzal G. Ent" to honor his memory.