Alexander has been a journalist and columnist for the Intelligencer Journal in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, for nearly twenty years and has won numerous state-level awards for excellence in journalism. The clubs flight to Paris was the fatal TWA Flight 800, which has been a major life changing event for him. This was a person who, at best, was fully committed to the killing that was required of a German fighter pilot; or at worst, was fully indoctrinated into the Nazi Party.

Adam has written a stunning, eye-opening, and breathtaking story of the lives of WWII pilots from both sides of the European Theater, and I dare say his is probably the most complete and best accounting I have ever read, especially from the German fighter pilot's side. While this book is the story of the two pilots, Charlie Brown (yes that’s really his name) who was piloting the B-17 and Franz Stigler, who was flying the ME109, this narrative is mainly Stigler's story.I think this is an uplifting read, demonstrating that even in the horror and wastefulness of war there are still men who can see past flags and uniforms and pardon a defenseless enemy he could easily kill. I feel the urge to light 3 times the amount of fireworks, and eat triple servings of watermelon, all while whistling American the Beautiful, to simply imply that, "Yes, I am a very proud American who is extremely grateful for our WWII vets. His story of the last days of the war is heart rending, esp when he gives in to the pleas of one of his young pilots, who really has no business flying such a high performance aircraft, and lets the young man fly a combat sortie.

Highly recommend to anyone who wants to read a moving and beautiful story of the decency of one German pilot and the men who lived because of him. While ace records keepers might wonder where his score would be today since he claimed hardly any kills for years after sparing this one crew - that's the point! But Charlie did not understand, not did he realize that the German gunners on the North Sea shore did not fire because they saw one of their own with the American plane and figured he was going to take them down over the water.Still, I read it through because somewhere in all this, I learnt a lot more about what life was like for German airmen supporting the Africa Corps in WW2. Franz had good luck in meeting the great ace Hans Marseilles who gave him advice on the best way to shoot down enemy aircraft which was simply to get close until the enemy airplane filled your gun-sight and you were so close you could not miss. They all abandoned their posts and fled, afraid of being held responsible, or cowardly died by suicide.