| Flying High in Small-Town North Carolina
Days of a Fledgling by Miles Burford is an account of the US military's effect on a small southern city when it becomes host to two military commands. The people and the town become privy to the activities and workings of the military's involvement in World War II, and, in turn, the US military is influenced and changed by the town it inhabits.
It's 1943, and as World War II rages, the administrative headquarters of two small Army Air Force non-flying commands are transferred by presidential decree from the vulnerable Washington area to the remote hills of North Carolina.
At a local North Carolina airport, a newly imported young officer works towards earning his pilot's wings. Burkhart-or "Burk" as people learn to call him-learns the ways of small-town life, meeting people and gathering practical experience as he gathers his flying hours. He's on his way to getting his Service Pilot training-he's not a military pilot.
Also a transplant to the area is Paul MacClaren-or "Mac," a middle-aged pilot officer assigned to the headquarters, who has no administrative skills or experience. His flying ability secures him a prestigious position among the officers who aren't pilots,. Soon his ambition gets the best of him and he becomes hungry for promotion, rank, and power.
The two men meet and are immediately in conflict, but they also share a strange similarity. Both have love affairs of great intensity and honesty, and the outcome of each of their relationships bears the tragic scars of the war years.
Days of a Fledgling has all the excitement and adventure of good fiction, and it has a historical understanding of its times. Each chapter has its own glossary so that military terms are accessible to all. |
