The narrator of the story is a nameless pilot who arrived at an airbase in France in 1942, which was occupied by one of the top Luftwaffe fighter wings, nicknamed "the Abbeville Boys" by their adversaries because of their proximity to the city of Abbeville and the fact that the cowlings of their fighter planes are painted yellow. He finds himself assigned to a squadron where 2 of his closest friends (Ulrich and Werner) have already been assigned. He is 19 and presumably has completed his stint with an Ergänzungsgruppe, which was a type of finishing school for soon-to-be Luftwaffe fighter pilots, who received extensive training in the planes they would be flying in combat with a frontline Staffel (squadron).

The narrator manages to survive a series of harrowing missions, witness one newly arrived pilot (George) boasting of his first kill in aerial combat only to be informed later by his commander that he had shot down and killed one of his squadron mates by mistake and would be facing a court-martial (George is distaught upon learning of his mistake and wants to die as a way of removing his shame), and be a part of the desperate fighting put on by his unit and the German military in France following D-Day, which sees his unit evacuated to Germany as the war enters its final months.

The narrator is no glory hound keen on accruing kills in aerial combat and earning high promotion and decorations - though he admits - in one terse sentence - to having earned a few. He loves flying, being part of a fighter Staffel, and has a respect for his opponents in the Royal Air Force (RAF) and United States Army Air Force (USAAF). He is set on doing his duty but, as time goes on, he has no illusions about the war, its impact on Germany, and takes life at face value.

Any reader who comes to this novel expecting to read extensively of the death-defying ballet of dogfights (aerial combats) pitting fighter against fighter, and the perils of attacking enemy bombers bristling with arrays of machine guns spitting out hundreds of rounds a second, will be a bit disappointed. This is a novel that conveys more of the routine frontline experiences faced by the narrator and his feelings about his squadron mates, the war, and his anxieties about it all. (Every now and then, the narrator does punctuate his account with his descriptions of taking on enemy planes in combat and engaging in ground attack missions.)

The book also has several photos attesting to the life of a German fighter pilot in the West during World War II, including one showing the author poised to take off in his Focke Wulf FW 190 fighter.

This is a book I had known about for years. But it was only a few days ago that I acquired it from an online bookseller at a bargain price. Bloemertz (1923-1994) had scored a kill in aerial combat, and was subsequently shot down by a P-47 Thunderbolt fighter in 1943 whilst attacking a B-17 bomber stream. He sustained grievous wounds that kept him away from JG 26 (Jagdgeschwader 26 or the 26th Fighter Wing) for some time. He would return to JG 26, albeit in a non-flying capacity, and serve out the remainder of the war with it