Halpert was a B-17 navigator who flew thirty-five missions out of England over Germany. Navigators, for some unfathomable reason, had a desk that was only a few inches off the floor, which meant they spent most of their time on their knees during the flights. Halpert vividly describes his "dread" -- he, too, used the word to describe how they felt about missions ( see my review of [b:Bloody Skies A 15th Aaf B-17 Combat Crew How They Lived and Died|2811990|Bloody Skies A 15th Aaf B-17 Combat Crew How They Lived and Died|Melvin W. McGuire|/images/nocover-60x80.jpg|2837910]-- and the intricate relationships of the crew members, who totally relied on each other to return safely.

There were always accidents: bombs that fell on top of the plane below (McGuire has a photo of just such an incident), mid-air collisions between friends while trying to form up before crossing the Channel, and horrifying crashes while trying to lift overloaded planes into the air. Any engine failure on takeoff inevitably resulted in a massive conflagration.

I suspect many of the incidents recounted by Halpert in the novel probably really took place. For example, one of the planes reported a stow-away. The bundled him into some blankets and found an extra oxygen bottle, but the man, a clerk, decked out in his Class A uniform, waited until they reached a high altitude and stepped out of the plane through the waist gunner's opening -- without a parachute. They later learned one of his close friends had been killed on a mission.

Given the extraordinarily high casualty rate among aircrews, the only analogy that springs to mind is soldiers in World War I climbing out of their trenches into the face of enemy machine guns to recapture a few square yards of mud.

There has to be a better way. ( )