Book 1 describes the military's lukewarm attitude towards the use of aircraft at the start of the twentieth century, the progress made in the First World War but lost in the years of post-war austerity and the impact of the great depression. This was followed by political and military decisions by men in senior positions who failed to grasp the significance of the air threat from Germany and were incapable of understanding the technical complexity of fighting aircraft and their effective use. The result was that, when the war did come, aircrew were placed in harm's way in aircraft that were little more than death traps. Book 2 recounts the fate of such aircrew.