Nearly 3000 fighter pilots fought for the Royal Air Force during the Battle of Britain. 18% of them died during the German air offensive of 1940, and another 27% had been killed by the end of the war. Rather than writing another account of the battle from a tactical or strategic perspective, Bishops writes a sort of group biography of the Fighter Boys. The battle itself gets fair treatment, for sure, but this is a history of the pilots, not the battle.

The English Army and Navy were historically a reflection of their society’s classes. Commissions went to the nobility and to the rising gentry. Private soldiers and seamen were from the working classes. The RAF’s fighter pilots were a new thing. Pilots were traditionally officers, but the technical skills need to fly and fight meant that family of origin couldn’t play as prominent a role in their selection. Most pilots were from well off families who could afford a public school (what in American would be called a “private school”), but many came up via technical schools. The relative egalitarianism of the pilot ranks were part of the stage being set for a post-war society.

Bishop surveys the wealth of diaries, interviews, and memoirs left behind by the the pilots. He gives us their impression of training and battle. He lets of ride along as they party, go on leave, and fall in love. He gives us a glimpse of their camaraderie and the loss they felt (and did not feel) when a fellow pilot was killed. The breadth and depth of the source materials allows Bishop to paint a convincing portrait of the pilots who dealt Hitler his first real loss and who allowed Britain to remain the European center of Allied activity against Germany.