VIII Air Force Service Command was a logistical support formation of the United States Army Air Forces, supporting Eighth Air Force in the United Kingdom.
On 24 October 1943, General Hugh J. Knerr became commanding general of VIII Air Force Service Command, succeeding General Miller, who took over the IX Air Force Service Command. Since the preceding July, when he assumed the duties of deputy commander of the service command, Knerr had pressed for a reorganization of the Eighth Air Force that would place logistics on the same level with combat operations.
On 11 October, therefore, Knerr was appointed A-4 of the Eighth Air Force. Although nominally still deputy commander of the service command, Knerr had known since mid-September that he would succeed Miller as commander. When this occurred in October, Knerr combined in one person the chief air service offices of the air force. By December the service command had absorbed the personnel and functions of A-4 to become in effect the sole logistical agency entitled to act in the name of the commanding general, Eighth Air Force.
The VIII Air Force Service Command after the establishment of the Ninth Air Force functioned as a de facto theater service command, and its policies were shaped during the last weeks of 1943 by the assumption that it would be officially so designated. At the same time, air service headquarters looked forward to full integration with the highest air headquarters. Developments within the service command since summer, it will be recalled, had tended to divest the headquarters of direct control over operations and thus to shape it as an organization primarily responsible for policy. Increasingly, as operating responsibilities were transferred to the Base Air Depot Area, air service headquarters prepared itself to operate chiefly as a staff agency for the entire theater.
Among its units was the 7th Photographic Group (July 1943-August 1944), and the 27th Air Transport Group (until 1 September 1944).