On January 27, 1943, nineteen-year-old Dick Harper received orders to report to Miami Beach, Florida, to begin Aviation Cadet training, with the lofty goal of becoming a combat pilot in the United States Army Air Corps. He’s leaving the security of his hometown of Greensboro, North Carolina for strange, unknown places and an uncertain future, with the ultimate purpose of fighting a war.
It was a huge turning point in his life. In The Cream, Harper offers a retrospective of his personal experiences in Aviation Cadet training during World War II. He details his odyssey as he travels from a small Southern town and experiences the dangerous and exciting days and months of pilot training. He shares the disappointments and triumphs, humor and pathos, of his quest for the coveted Silver Wings of a combat pilot. He provides a frontline, inside view, of the rigors and exhilaration of this training.
A memoir, The Cream narrates the hopes, frustrations, camaraderie, and ideals of the young men who earned, or attempted to earn, Silver Wings as pilots in the United States Army Air Corps during World War II.
