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Take the Wings of the Morning

by Cal Carpenter

272 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #02-0055; ISBN 1-55369-242-X; US$24.00, C$27.95, EUR19.50, £14.00

Three men in the aerial dogfighting in the skies of France in 1918: a hillbilly country preacher, a wealthy, conniving politician whose ambition is to be President of The United States and a vengeful German ace.

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About the book      About the author      Sample excerpts      Catalogue info

About the Book A young western North Carolina hillbilly preacher follows a heart-felt conviction that he must become a fighter pilot in World War I. To fight and kill is against his every, deeply held belief, but no amount of prayerful questioning produces any other answer. He goes through Army Air Service training and on to France, convinced his God has a reason. He finds that reason in the war-torn skies over France. His best friend is a millionaire politician from Boston. This is a man who has convinced himself into flight training and the cockpit of a French made pursuit aircraft over the Western Front, in a ruthless drive for his own secret ambition - to use a highly publicized war record in a successful run to be President of the United States. Their adversary is a German ace, a seasoned veteran of the war on the ground and in the air. This is a man who, though deeply patriotic is, by the climactic year of 1918, thoroughly disillusioned and driven only by a bitter hatred of his enemies because of the death of a Belgian girl he loved. She had died in his arms after a British bombing of his airfield The story follows through training and fighting in the air in the rickety, underpowered aircraft of World War I. Great attention is given to the aircraft handling, gunnery and maneuvers in the dogfights that made the life expectancy of a fighter pilot over the Western Front less than a month. The overall story of the war, aircraft, engines, guns and equipment is historically accurate. The flight characteristics of the aircraft is detailed by the author who trained in and flew aircraft "not much changed" from those depicted.

About the Author "Cal" Carpenter is Colonel Clarence A. Carpenter, U. S. Air Force (Retired), wartime pilot and Meteorologist. He lives on ALMAR Farm, a 70-acre retirement home near Rosman, N. C., in the scenic Great Smoky Mountains. He retired in l966, at the age of 44, to "do just what I wanted to." This has included dabbling in farming, animal husbandry (including the legendary Wild Russian Boars he writes about in his earlier book, "The Walton War and Tales of the Great Smoky Mountains"); and writing his experiences on the farm in his earlier "The Best from ALMAR Farm in Western North Carolina". He was a part-time newspaper columnist, winner of several state and one national journalism awards; feature writer and feature editor. His earlier aviation stories have been published in "Air Force and Space Digest" and other magazines. He was born in Macon County, near Franklin, North Carolina. His family moved to Canton, North Carolina and he attended North Canton Elementary School and Canton High School--was graduated in the class of l939. Later he received the BS Degree in Meteorology from Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida, and the Master of Science degree in Meteorology from the New York University, Graduate School of Engineering, New York, New York. He attended several other schools post-high school, in service and service-connected. A senior pilot, Col. Carpenter flew C-46, C-87 and B-24 variations over the "Hump" in the India-China Theater in l943 and l944, during World War II. In l948-49, during the Berlin Airlift, he served as Staff Weather Officer at Airlift Headquarters and flew C-54 aircraft across Communist East Germany into Berlin. In l958 he was a military meteorologist and pilot at the nuclear bomb tests at Eniwetok and Bikini, Marshall Islands. At the time of his retirement, he was serving as Staff Meteorologist at the Air Force Cambridge Research Laboratories and the Electronic Systems Division of the Air Force Systems Command, at Hanscom Air Force Base, Massachusetts.

Sample Excerpt

Prolog

There is a metal plaque on the foundation stones of a little church, atop a wooded knoll in the Great Smoky Mountains of western North Carolina. But it cannot be seen now. The church foundations have settled into the red clay subsoil of its hilltop and later brick construction on the old foundations has completely hidden that pathetic reference to the past.

The marker was put there by a man in remembrance of a friend. It was the final act of love, of a love story - the story of the loves of three men. One, for political power; another for a woman; and another for his friend and his God.

There are only a few people living who have ever seen the marker and they have probably forgotten it, for they never knew the story of its being there. And even if the present generation of church goers could see it, it would mean nothing to them, for everything has changed so much with the years that any connection with the story it represents would be too hard to imagine.

Sixty years have walked the treadmill of time since the story began in the summer of 1917. The trees on the knoll have grown from struggling saplings into giants of their species: each spring putting on new growth, each summer maturing in promised greenery; each fall dressing in gay coats of many colors and dancing in the chill winds from the mountains; awaiting their white bridegroom, the wedding sleep and new birth again in the spring.

The knoll has been extensively landscaped and in the area around new roads have been cut and paved and new homes built. The whole scene has changed with new growth of manmade works and the steady march of nature. Even the atmosphere has changed, for the Knight paper plant has done something about its chemical stink, something no one ever thought would happen.

The words on the marker are, no doubt, long rusted away beneath the ground. But once they read:

     Greater love hath no man than this,
     That a man lay down his life
     For his friends.

          John XV, 13

Catalogue Information