Fredrick I . Eglin Frederick Irving Eglin ( February 23 , 1891 – January 1 , 1937 ) was a career officer in the United States Army Air Service and United States Army Air Corps . He was killed in an air crash on January 1 , 1937 , and Eglin Field ( later Eglin Air Force Base ) , Florida , was named in his honor on August 4 , 1937 . Eglin joined the Indiana National Guard in 1911 while a student at Wabash College , and first began Federal service in June 1916 , serving on the U . S . border with Mexico . In 1917 he was commissioned in the Indiana Guard after the United States entered World War I and was assigned to pilot training . After earning his rating as a pilot and a commission in the Aviation Section , U . S . Signal Corps , Eglin remained at the school as a flying instructor . Eglin received a Regular commission in the Air Service on July 1 , 1920 and commanded several squadrons in the United States and the Philippines . He served three years as a senior instructor and commander at the Advanced Flying School at Kelly Field , Texas , after which he studied at both the Air Corps Tactical School ( ACTS ) and the Command and General Staff College . After a four year tour at the ACTS as an instructor and department director , Eglin was promoted to lieutenant colonel and assigned to the headquarters of the GHQ Air Force , where he was serving as a staff officer at the time of his death . Early years . Eglin , born in New York City on February 23 , 1891 , was orphaned at a young age . He was educated through high school in New York , but was admitted to Wabash College in Crawfordsville , Indiana , through the intercession of a Wabash alumnus . He was a multi - sport college athlete , playing halfback in football , forward in basketball , and the middle infield in baseball . Among his friends were classmate Kent Lambert , a Crawfordsville native who became a career Army officer , and his brother Ward Lambert , who became head basketball coach at Purdue University . Eglin graduated from Wabash with the class of 1914 , took up residence in Crawfordsville , and became an athletics coach . During his freshman year at Wabash , Eglin enlisted in the Indiana National Guard , advancing while a student from private to sergeant in Company B , 2nd Indiana Infantry , a unit that traced its history to the Battle of Tippecanoe . In 1914 , shortly before graduation , he was appointed Regimental Sergeant Major on March 4 , 1914 , serving in that capacity until his commissioning in 1917 . He also met and married Mary Lucille Oda , also of Crawfordsville . They had two children , Frederick Junior , born November 19 , 1922 , and Harriet Jane , born in 1925 . Frederick Eglin , Jr . graduated from West Point in 1944 , became a pilot in the United States Army Air Forces , and flew Boeing B - 17 Flying Fortress es with the 401st Bomb Group in England during World War II . Lucille Eglin was an artist known to many in the Air Corps as its " unofficial artist " from the portraits and landscapes she painted over the signature " MO " at their varied duty stations . Lucille Eglin was killed in a house fire in Washington D . C . two years to the day after her husband ' s death and was buried in his plot at Arlington National Cemetery .