Second blast in the R.A.F. trilogy begun with Wings Against the Sky (1979). In volume one, young Mike, a Yank, joined the R.A.F. and was followed into it by British friend Keith. Mike loves Keith's foster-sister Eileen, and Keith loves a W.A.A.F. five years older than himself. She's Jenny and is now recovering from a leg wound (she was crippled by a bomb blast), but though casual sex is okay, she resists Keith's deeper importunings. Meanwhile, Mike's romance with Eileen nosedives when she joins the First Sea Lord's staff at the Admiralty, becomes an officer herself, and (eventually) becomes pregnant by a dastardly naval flight lieutenant--a back-street abortion will nearly kill her, leaving her half-witted. As for the war itself, the battle of Britain progresses in the air, with Keith and Mike in the same squadron and watching their buddies die. Hough follows the month-by-month progress of the air war during the fateful summer and fall of 1940 as the R.A.F. deters the planned German invasion. Also, the cad who ruined Eileen is assigned to their squadron, shows himself to be a coward, breaks down, then leads a solo suicide attack into a fleet of German bombers. Fine air-fights, so-so soap.