converting C-130 Hercules transporters into heavy bombers. With some modifications, the transport aircraft were made capable of carrying up to of explosive ordinance. Having conducted trials to test and prove the converted bombers' efficiency, Hall volunteered to lead the first bombing mission over a strategically vital bridge in Kathua, Jammu and Kashmir on 11 September 1965. The mission was fraught with danger as the unarmoured transport-turned-bomber was highly vulnerable to Indian anti-aircraft guns. However, the mission's ultimately successful outcome prompted the Pakistani high command to authorize thirteen more strategic bombing runs with converted C-130s, including the precision striking of Indian heavy guns at Attari, on the banks of the BRB Canal. The success of these missions proved that Hall had hit the bullseye with his innovative idea, for which he was awarded the Sitara-e-Jurat by the Government of Pakistan in 1965. Retirement and migration to the U.S. Eric Hall sought to retire from his military service in 1977, immediately after the conduction of a successful U235 project. He received an honourable discharge from the Pakistan Air Force in 1978 and was made Director-General of the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) for the Government of Pakistan, a position he would remain in until the early 1980s. After seizing power in a coup d'état and establishing a military dictatorship, General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq drafted a new version of the Constitution of Pakistan, and immediately began implementing aggressive Islamist policies. Due to these policies' scrutinization of religious minorities and rising intolerance in Muslim-majority Pakistan, Hall, a Christian, relocated to Maryland in the United States. Settling down in Gaithersburg, he founded Hall Enterprises, Inc. with his wife Marjorie in August 1982. The company engaged in the business of importing and exporting Pakistani furniture, giftware and military spare parts. Hall suffered from a stroke in June 1998, after which he died at Shady Grove Adventist Hospital in Rockville, Maryland at the age of 75—he is survived by his wife and two children. References |- 1922 births 1998 deaths Royal Air Force pilots of World War II Royal Air Force officers Pakistan Air Force air marshals Pakistani aviators Pakistani people of Anglo-Burmese descent Pilots of the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965 Recipients of Sitara-e-Jurat Pakistani Christians Project-706 Chiefs of Air Staff, Pakistan Pakistani emigrants to the United States Pakistani air attachés British World War II fighter pilots