Eric Gordon Hall (12 October 1922 – 17 June 1998) was a Pakistani fighter and bomber pilot, and former Director-General of the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA). A two-star general in the Pakistan Air Force, Hall had served as the Vice Chief of Air Staff and was one of the most distinguished pilots belonging to the Christian minority who had participated in all of the major India−Pakistan wars, most notably the First Kashmir War, the Second Kashmir War and the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971. He had also served as the Director-General of the Pakistan Air Force's Air Force Science Research Laboratories (AFSRL) where he led atomic weapons research efforts as part of Pakistan's nuclear technology project. Early life Hall was born on 12 October 1922 into a Christian Anglo-Burmese family in Rangoon, Burma, British India (present-day Myanmar). His father was a combat engineer in the British Army, and went missing in action during the Japanese invasion of Burma in 1941, shortly after which he was declared dead. Due to the Japanese invasion and outbreak of war in Burma, the women in Hall's family were airlifted to India while the men fled on foot. Arriving in Dibrugarh, Northeast India a few weeks later, Hall was hospitalized for a short time before he enlisted in the Royal Air Force and was subsequently deployed to Burma, where he flew sorties against Japanese forces as a Hawker Hurricane fighter pilot. During the Partition of India in 1947, Hall opted for the new Dominion of Pakistan, shifting himself and his family to Lahore. He transferred his service to the Royal Pakistan Air Force, where he continued his military career. Commands and diplomatic career During his service in the Pakistan Air Force, Hall commanded a number of air bases and also served as the Commandant of the PAF Air War College. In 1960 and the early 1970s, Hall served as a defence and air attaché at the Embassy of Pakistan in Washington D.C. Indo-Pakistani War of 1965 Leading up to the outbreak of the Second Kashmir War between India and Pakistan in August 1965, Hall was in command of PAF Base Nur Khan in Chaklala, Rawalpindi as a Group Captain (Colonel). Knowing that war was imminent after the failure of the Pakistan Army's Operation Gibraltar in Jammu and Kashmir, he was conscious of the Pakistan Air Force's lack of specialist aircraft. Hall hit upon the idea of