"Falcons, a sweeping novel of men at war, traces the experiences of two bomber pilots - Ross Colyer, a career-minded, by-the-book officer, and Broderick Templeton III, the pampered son of a U.S. senator - from the dark days of Pearl Harbor to the flak- and fighter-filled skies of the Pacific, European, and Mediterranean theaters during World War II." ""BT" becomes Colyer's lifelong enemy on December 7, 1941, when Ross forces the senator's son to accompany him at gunpoint as he tries to save a B-17 from Japanese planes strafing Hickam Field in Honolulu. Templeton, whose father is chairman of the Senate committee for Military Affairs, is infuriated by Ross's treatment of him and becomes a dangerous antagonist when the two meet again in England." "Their rivalry provides the framework as Falcons tells the story of how the young Americans who flew the bombers coped with the rapidly changing environment into which they were plunged. Prewar airpower advocates believed that "the bombers will always get through." Flaws in their thinking became evident when Americans began paying a terrible toll in men and machines as they fought their way to attack fiercely defended targets." "Falcons is more than a story of World War II, however. It is a tightly plotted character study of men caught up in the crucible of war. Author Ray Rosenbaum, himself an Eighth Air Force bomber pilot whose air force career spanned three decades, provides truly authentic descriptions of aerial combat and provocative insights that can come only from one who was there."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved