The book is about a fifteen-year-old Jewish boy named Jack Raab who is from the Bronx. The book takes place in 1944 as Hitler and the nazis are running rampant throughout Europe.
Young Jack Rabb, who runs away from his family, lies about his age using his brother's birth certificate to join the Air Force. Jack gets assigned to training to be a part of a bomber crew. He is worried about the older men figuring out he is lying about his age. Jack never receives mail from his family and visits a girl he met in Maimi Florida instead of visiting his family which attracts suspicion from his peers.
Jack finishes training and gets deployed in England as a door gunner. The group's first mission is a success but the missions only get worse from there. On one mission Jack almost gets killed by shrapnel and on another mission one of their engines fails and they have to land in the English canal and wait for rescue. Several missions later the crew is flying over Czechoslovakia when they miss their timing and have to turn around and try again. As they are getting ready for their next run their plane gets hit and they have to parachute out. One of Jacks's friend gets killed while parachuting down but he makes it to the ground and runs away.
After several days of hiding he is captured and sent to a military camp where he is imprisoned with other soldiers. He becomes friends with another American soldier in the prison. He and other prisoners are marched to a prison camp where their captors run away from the Russian soldiers.
The next day the prisoners learn that the war is over and Hitler is dead. As they are returning to the American camps, Jack sees that the civilians of Germany are all dead or starving killed by either bombs or starvation.
When Jack returns to the camp he learns that he is the only survivor of his crew. When he returns to America he contacts his family and they beg him to return home. Jack reveals his true age to the Air Force and they honorably discharge him from service. Jack goes back to school where he tells to his peers about the war. Jack tells them that war is a terrible thing and that he never wants there to be another one.
I liked this book and I thought it was a good book to read. This is one of the few books I might read a second time.
I overall enjoyed this book and thought it was a good book. I would recommend reading this book in chapters because it is well broken up into its chapters.
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