Pushing the Envelope: The Career of Fighter Ace and Test Pilot Marion Carl

Carl's life story is the stuff of film scripts and TV miniseries. At Midway and Guadalcanal he became the first Marine ace of WW II. He was a test pilot in the pioneer days of jet aviation, flying early versions of almost every model of fighter adopted by the U.S. armed forces and flew clandestine reconnaissance missions over China in the 1950s. More than a pilot with the ``right stuff,'' Carl, as a brigadier general, commanded the first Marines to land in Vietnam; in 1973 he retired as Inspector General of the Marine Corps. Unfortunately, Carl's cursory, lifeless narrative reads like a collection of after-action reports. Even the collaboration of Tillman, a leading aviation writer, fails to give Carl's career its appropriately dramatic impact. Photos not seen by PW. (Apr.)