After completing a tour of duty (thirty-five missions) in B-17s, Bert Stiles transferred to a fighter squadron. Just four months later he was killed in action on an escort mission to Hanover, Germany, on November 26, 1944, at the age of 23. Serenade to the Big Bird achieved cult status among aviation enthusiasts for its honest depictions of bomber combat and also won favorable literary reviews for its spare, Hemingway-style prose and its anti-war sensitivity.
