This is a book about the great selfless contributions of those who preserved the free world from the tyranny of a "thousand years of darkness". The story is about a young San Francisco boy of Irish descent growing up prior to the advent of WWII. His father, a seaman, had sailed off to Australia and never returned leaving him as the only male in his family of a mother and two young sisters. He is restless and not a very diligent student in high school but he earns money working on Fisherman's Wharf as a dependable helper with the fishing fleet after school and on holidays. He falls in love with the daughter of a fishing boat captain and shortly after is beset by two tragedies; the death of his mother and the death of his sweetheart. Shortly after, Pearl Harbor is bombed on Dec. 7, 1941 and the world is thrown into war. The boy, now a young man, joins the Army and later qualifies for pilot training. The story from here relates his WWII experiences as a combat pilot of a B-26 Marauder and who, before the great Normandy invasion, meets an Irish girl on leave and falls in love again. The story has a gratifying ending and resolution.