The Last Mission — William P. Kennedy

In 1943 and 1944, the Army Air Force flew bombing raids over Germany from bases in England. The losses of men and planes were horrific, a lottery of death in which young American Fliers counted each day as their last. One of those fliers now returns to his World War II base. He brings with him the answer to a wartime murder, a crime that was lost in the gap between English law and American military authority. He also brings a burning need to know the fate of the girl he loved, and then abandoned at the war's end. The Last Mission is the story of a life that reached a crossroads at the intersection of war and peace, and the decisions that weren't seen until long after they had been made. Now, back at the base where his manhood was forged, he wonders what might have been if he had taken another direction.