The real strength of the book is in how it demonstrates the power of desire as a driving force: in intellectual curiosity, national myth-making and in writing history. Turner strips away the hero worship, the bravado and veneer of 'derring do' to show us some very human portraits of men at war.

The title to be read and discussed is sign-posted and on sale for the whole of the previous month (with a discount for those who make it known they intend to come) and everybody is welcome, whether first-timer, part-timer or regular-timer. Luke Turner's tender account of servicemen's transgressive private lives, transforms our understanding of the Second World War . He goes inside the machines of war and strips away uniform cloth to discover the true depth and complexity of men of war as creatures of love, fear, hope and desire. But to keep ourselves on our toes, we have a rule that author gender is alternated, girl-boy-girl-boy, and the continents always rotated (with occasional glitches).

Turner prefers to explore the lives of everyday actors, figures such as Henry Denton, an army officer who became a ballet dancer after being found ‘temperamentally unfit’ to fight by military tribunals. The army which fought for the Allies was largely composed of conscripts who were not necessarily respectful of military mores and martial manners.

He spent hours watching Sunday war films, poring over stories of derring-do and relishing in birthday trips to air museums. A brilliant piece of writing which ALSO gave me a handy shortlist of WWII fiction/memoir to continue my reading. He spent hours painstakingly constructing models of his favourite aircraft, watching Sunday afternoon war films, pouring over stories of derring-do and relishing in birthday trips to air museums. But the real strength of the book is in how it demonstrates the power of desire as a driving force: in intellectual curiosity, national myth-making and in writing history. And hooray to Luke Turner for producing a thought provoking and entertaining alternative to the Airfix model rendition of men at war.

Now, as an adult who has come to terms with a masculine identity and sexuality that is often erased from dominant military narratives, he undertakes a refreshingly honest analysis of his fascination with the war. This book is full of stories that intriguingly, lustfully and hilariously complicates Britain's cosy and homogenous national myth about how people in that era acted, thought and felt. I stayed up late rewinding a brief, tender conversation between two sailors, furtive and embarrassed as though I were watching porn. During a battlefield tour school trip, he experienced the agony of sleeping in a bunk just feet away from his teenage crush, hoping for contact while surrounded by a history that fascinated him.

This seemingly uncomfortable fit is heightened by the emergence of lad culture in the 90s and an increasingly jingoistic exhumation of the fallen soldiers for nationalistic and increasingly far-right causes. Turner fearlessly interrogates the war-obsession of 1970s boyhoods and unearths some extraordinary testimonies and stories from the frontlines. Armed with the knowledge of a war aficionado, Turner cements his seat at the table alongside those who might resist his queer narrative of World War II.For a while, the Second World War provided me with an escape from my peers, with my weak body, physical ineptitude, and confused sexuality’, Turner reflects: ‘but I was starting to feel like I was nothing like this generation who were held up as heroes.