Veterans' Memorial Project

Jay Ira Carpenter

Rochelle, IL

World War I

College: Agricultural, Consumer & Environmental Sciences

Graduation Year: Attended 1912-1914

Service Branch: Army

Rank: First Lieutenant

Date of Birth: 04/01/1893

Date of Death: 07/10/1918

Affiliations: Varsity Football; Phi Kappa Psi

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

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