Spencer Dunmore

This book has a curious similarity to the Bible. Apparently everyone owns it. That doesn't mean they've read it.

The cover of my copy proudly proclaims it a National Bestseller. It is good to see a history sell well, and especially good to see a history involving supreme loyalty and tragic loss be successful. But getting through it was, for me, an incredible chore. The problem is, this is basically a chronicle -- "On such and such date, thus-and-so units of 6 Group flew to somewhere, dropped some bombs, suffered some losses. Here's a human interest story about one of those losses. And so and so won a medal."

Repeat about 600 times, and you have this book. There are a few pages describing the broader objectives, describing the aircraft, discussing the obsessive mindset of "Bomber" Harris, but mostly, it's the story of the raids. After enough of that, it really got hard to tell them apart, even if you ignore all the casualties (most of them civilian) caused by those bombs.

The flip side is, if there are tales of hundreds of raids, there are probably thousands of accounts of individual heroism and suffering. Perhaps, if you are a relative of one of those who fought and died, the book becomes more personal and more meaningful. I am not a Canadian; perhaps it makes all the difference. But if you, like me, lack a personal connection to this book, you may find it very hard going.

Which, when you think about it, is what most of those bomber crews -- so few of whom came back -- experienced also.… (meer)

Ernst Brehme is a German fighter pilot who as the novel opens is reporting to his first front line unit which flies Messerschmidt 109's. It is France, August 1940 and the Battle of Britain is on and Ernst is flying to the British Isles on his first mission. We follow him and his comrades through the chaos in the sky until one day his plane is hit and nurses it home only to crash in a field where a young boy rescues him from the wreck. He eventually meets the boy's mother and starts an affair with her that follows him through much of war despite his learning she is a Jew.

Ernst eventually is transferred to Poland and is part of the invasion of Russia only escaping that disaster just before the fall of Stalingrad. The descriptions of flying planes and fighting a war in Russian winters are worth the price of the book.

Dunmore includes Ernst's meetings with Goring, Hitler and Goebbels to illustrated the incompetence and lack of reality these leaders showed the airmen. The fliers who had been around since 1940 knew their equipment was inferior and that Germany could not compete against the number of planes and men the Allies could keep sending into battle. Still they climbed into their planes and flew off to almost certain death or injury.… (meer)