If a soldier today is suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, he or she gets counselling and therapy and treatment. In World War II, it was a different story. Bomber crews were especially horribly treated, in a system that used threats and psychological bullying to make the airmen — many of them not yet twenty years old — climb the ladder again and again to do their almost impossibly dangerous job.

At twenty years old, with twenty-seven missions as a Lancaster bomber pilot under his belt, Del Aucoin is a seasoned veteran of the Second World War. But the strain of flying a bomber over Germany night after night has taken its toll, and Dell chooses to stop flying before he gets himself and his crew killed.

Del's superiors give him his orders: fly again, or face humiliation, imprisonment, and disgrace. Del has to choose between his own sanity and the safety of his crew, between his closest friends and his own life. And once he makes his choice, the long, slow train ride towards his ultimate fate begins.

Based on real accounts of the bomber war, this psychological thriller offers a unique understanding of the airmen who fought one of the most devastating battles of WWII.

Matthew Bin