Apprentice Warrior: Born for Flight

As war clouds loom in Europe, David Harrison enters the United States Military Academy at West Point in the summer of 1912. The major thread of the story traces his effort to make sense out of his passion for flight, his extraordinary intuition, the ideals of West Point and a prospective career in the Army. A secondary theme is the development of the airplane for combat. During the summer of 1915, one year before his graduation, the two themes become entangled. Major Billy Mitchell sends David to London to discover what military airpower is all about. He visits factories and front line squadrons, meets designers and pilots. Suddenly, everything he believes about himself and his future is challenged one July afternoon when he witnesses death in the skies of France....