A big challenge to writing a book like this, one imagines, is sorting through the massive amount of information you have and laying it out in a smooth way. Yea, this project was my toughest. Woven through are descriptions of how men coped with that beastly environment and what factors shaped the outcome and duration of the struggle. Yet, air warfare was extremely complex. Some accounts make it sound like Star Wars.
Planes go up, they do battle, and some come back.
In truth the most basic operation was created by an increasingly complex military apparatus that allowed a relatively small number of combatants to get at each others' throat. I tried to capture the fabric of the conflict not just victories claimed and bombs dropped. Waste a year fishing and playing computer games and then writing till 2AM for a year and a half when things got rolling. Some authors have great discipline. Others can't get a book out the door in a decade.