A First Rate Novel - Rated 
This book is written by a man who experienced World War II first hand. The novel itself is about the experiences of a young B-24 bomber pilot, flying what was at the time one of the largest and most well armed bomber aircraft of the second world war, and at the age of barely 20 years old, little more than a boy.
The young pilots and their crews had to fly across the channel into Germany with very little, or sometimes no fighter protection and then withstand prolonged periods of anti aircraft fire from which there was no protection. Evasive action could not be taken, particularly as they were flying in tight formation. It was just pot luck whether you got through it or got shot down. They then had to drop their bombs at the target and face the flak all over again.
The pilots were told, do 25 missions and then you can go home for a while. Some of them never even made it back from their first mission. The same horrendous conditions also applied of course to the British crews as well as the Americans.
Because of his experiences in the War, the author brings a strong feeling of reality to the book and makes you almost feel part of the crew. Sitting in the base bar, waiting to see if it closed early, which meant there would be a mission next morning. Being stood down again because the weather, either at the target or around the home base precluded the planes taking off. The elation of being spared the mission only to find that the aircraft would leave as soon as the weather cleared. The heartache of losing a close friend, knowing that as the pilot you are ferrying these men to possible death.
It is a book that makes you think, and realise how lucky you were to be spared the almost barbaric conditions of fighting a war in which comradeship is the only thing that kept a lot of men from going insane.
The hero of the book Ted Norman has his own demons. Recurring nightmares of a particular mission on which he was the co-pilot and his captain was killed in the seat beside him, leaving Ted to get the aircraft and the surviving crew back home, although he had several superficial wounds himself.
Compelling, dramatic and very readable. - Rated
For much of the book I was captivated by the hero of our story who was so young and within weeks became so old.
The book chronicles the flying career of Theodore (call me Ted) Franklin Norman, drafted, before his time, to fly B-24 Liberators out of sleepy Southern England during the last two years of the war. His own target is to achieve his 25 missions so that he can return home to the States a war veteran, a hero perhaps.
The author tells it well. The boy (and yet a man) becomes something of a talisman to his crew members but suffers his own recurring nightmares as the mission tally mounts. It is a moving story, sometimes comic, often dramatic and, despite the usual everyday monotony of being a pilot awaiting mission orders, it is never boring.
The reader can empathize with him as he fights his own personal guilt as to why he survives when others, including many of his own crew, don't make it home. The detailing of the bombing runs, the finely tuned dialogue, the action so vividly portrayed, puts the reader almost in the cabin of these cumbersome aircraft as they struggle to deliver bombs or supplies, often not to the right target but always at the mercy of German fighters and indiscriminate anti-aircraft fire.
Ted Norman's own journey through life is a mixture of happiness, sadness and much sitting in bars or taking advantage of the local female company, when not flying. The reader may well recall their own escapades when still a teenager but probably never with the thoughts of death just around the corner.
A young man who says he was not born to fly but this reader suggests he just didn't realise it until a little later in life!
This is not a novel just for aviation buffs; it's a compelling, moving and dramatic account in its own right that just happens to feature flyers drafted into the Army Air Corps in WWII. If the author has a sequel up his sleeve, I'll be the in the queue to buy the book.
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