Veterans' Memorial Project

Jay Ira Carpenter
Rochelle, IL

No photo available.

World War I

Years Attended: 1912-1914
College: Agricultural, Consumer & Environmental Sciences
Service branch: Army
Rank: First Lieutenant
Date of Birth: 4/1/1893
Date of Death: 7/10/1918

Varsity Football; Phi Kappa Psi

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Visitor Comments

Lt. Carpenter was one of ten chosen at Fort Sheridan to be trained to fly in the newly formed Air Corps. He was trained in Canada then in Texas, and was assigned to the Royal Flying Corps. He would send wireless reports of troop locations by Morse Code while flying the aircraft. Jay was then sent to France with his plane armed with machine guns to find targets of opportunity. In May, 1918, he went out on patrol with another pilot and neither of them returned. In July, 1918, he was listed as missing in action. In 1921, his body was found in a French cemetery where a farmer had brought Jay after his aircraft crashed on the farm. Lt. Carpenter's body was returned to Lawnridge Cemetery at Rochelle, Illinois, where he now rests.

-submitted by Thomas Carpenter Westin, Uncle