To Soar with the Eagles Book

To Soar With The Eagles is the sequel to the author's first book, Mama's Boarding House, picking up where Mama's Boarding House leaves off. His new book follows his training as a pilot in the Royal canadian Air Force in 1941, and his World war II service in Europe with both the Royal Air Force and the United States Army Eighth Air Force from 1942 through 1944. Returning to the United States in November of 1944, after having been shot down on a bombing mission over Germany, being interned in Switzerland and escaping from there, he ends the war in the Air Transport Command, flying four-engine transport planes on the run from California to Hawaii and the Central Pacific Islands.
This book is not about heroes, although there are certainly some heroes in it. Rather, it is about ordinary young men like the author, who, when thrust into the maelstrom of war, somehow found the courage and fortitude to face and overcome the dangers and challengess that confronted them.
Students of World war II, and those simply curious about it, will find that it was not all fighting and bloodshed. For every minute spent in actual combat, there were hours and days of training and preparation. Some of the most interesting parts of this book are the author's descriptions of his training, from learning to march in step, to preparing for his first solo flight in a little Tigermoth biplane.
Reading almost like a diary, To Soar With The Eagles, follows the author's footsteps from the afteerneoon in June of 1941 when he steps down from the Greyhound Bus in Ottawa, Canada, until he is discharged from thre United States Air Force in nineteen forty-six - an old veteran at the age oftwenty-two.