Pierpont Morgan Hamilton was nephew of American financier JP Morgan and great-great-grandson of Alexander Hamilton. He enlisted in the aviation section of the Signal Reserve Corps in August 1917, and and went on to serve as an instructor in aerial navigation and bombing, before being honourably discharged in December 1918



Hamilton was re-appointed to the US Army Air Forces in February 1942, reporting for active duty as a liaison officer with the RAF in Washington DC. He was dispatched to London in June 1942, where he worked as intelligence and operations officer in the Office of Combined operations, and assisted with planning assaults on occupied Europe and North Africa. In October 1942 Hamilton was appointed Assistant Chief of Staff in the Western Task Force. He received the Medal of Honor for ground actions on 8 November 1942 during the early hours of Operation Torch, the invasion of North Africa.



In December 1942, Hamilton became Intelligence Officer in the North African Theatre Advanced Headquarters, and was later appointed Operations and Intelligence Staff Officer of the Northwest African Tactical Air Force (NATAF). He returned to the US in March 1943, to worked at Army Air Force Headquarters, and was relieved from active duty in March 1946.