Book Description

The attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, solved the problem for a lot of American kids who wanted to be Army pilots but didn't meet the two years of college requirement for acceptance into the aviation cadet program. In mid-1942, under wartime pressures, the Army Air Corps dropped that requirement and made an exception for applicants who could pass a stiff written test. As the result of that momentous change, many high school kids soon found themselves sporting second lieutenant bars and flying fighters with 2,000-horsepower engines - before they reached their 21st birthdays! A group of those very young men came together from both the East and West Coasts of the U.S. when they were assigned to the 360th Fighter Squadron with the 8th Air Force in England to take part in the invasion and the critical air battles over Germany during 1944-45. They began flying combat missions in Republic P-47 "Thunderbolts," but in late 1944 switched to flying North American P-51 "Mustangs." Most of them had their high school sweethearts, but as healthy young officers wearing a pair of wings they soon found new romance, not only in the skies they flew but with crops of eager young girls who found these handpicked and glamorous pilots to be of special interest. Under wartime stress, romances were quick to bloom and promises hastily made. But the war had a way of changing people, as high school kids quickly grew into men with deeper values and an understanding of what life is really about. This is the story of some of those wartime romances that blossomed within the cauldron of war - some to flare brightly and flicker out, while others lived on.