Chasing the Wind: A Story of British and German Pilots in the Battle of Britain
Dealing with slightly over four months in the summer and fall of 1940, the story follows both the British and the Germans in a series of battles, leading to the decisive Battle of Britain. We get to know a fascinating array of over 100 named characters and learn a lot about the structure and functioning of the air forces on both sides of the war. Ms. Schrader’s prose shines when she is describing the day-to-day life of pilots and the auxiliary personnel. Those pages are utterly fascinating and undoubtedly very well researched. I had no clue that I could so thoroughly enjoy a war-related story. Her detailed descriptions of the planes, procedures, battles and just simple day to day operations at the airfields are spellbinding. She leaves very little, if anything, to the imagination. We are confronted with bad officers, impressive leadership, superior pilots and those who have hardly flown, great camaraderie, immense loathing, utter exhaustion, cold meals, unreasonable demands, brilliant bravery and incredible compassion, defiance and propaganda, personal growth and discovery, mutilation, death, miraculous rescues and much more. I found this side of the story absolutely fantastic and completely enjoyable. Interlaced with this side of the story are several of the “boy-meets-girl” stories, such as Robin/Emily, Jako/Klaudia, Axel/Rose, Ernst/Klaudia, MacLeod/Lettice…While I understand the desire to make the characters better rounded and more “human,” all of those stories seemed to me way too clichéd and stereotypical. Dashing boy chases gorgeous girls, meets girl next door, falls in love with her, marries her…Pretty, but naïve girl is seduced and abandoned by a bad boy, her eyes are opened and she realizes that the shy and rather ordinary young man loves her truly, so she falls in love with him in an instant… Sounds familiar? I thought so. There is a part of me that wishes Ms. Schrader would just stick to the historic and military stuff, since she really excels in those pages. The book could certainly benefit from some rigorous editing, which would shorten it by about a third. In this day of instant gratification there are not too many readers who will grab a fiction book of over six-hundred pages. The overabundance of characters, plots and subplots can be overwhelming at times, as can be the copious use of RAF slang, occasionally incorrect German and numerous acronyms. Some of the descriptions are unnecessarily detailed or repetitive, particularly those that have very little impact on the story. Any attentive reader will soon learn that Robin’s hair falls on his forehead – and will be reminded of it often enough through the book… If I could give this book a dual rating, I would give it five stars for the flying related pages and two for romance. As it stands, I wholeheartedly recommend “Chasing the Wind” to any history buff or fan of flying.
Reviewed by Paige Lovitt for Reader Views (8/07) Helena Schrader has put her PhD in History to perfect use in writing “Chasing the Wind.” She incorporates her extensive knowledge of WWII history into a novel that also incorporates suspense, romance and adventure. As I read the story, I couldn’t help wishing that I had read a book like this when I was taking history classes in college. It would have given me a different perspective on the actual historical events. Even though it was a fictional novel, it opened my eyes to what people were really experiencing at the time. She does this by showing you what is happening through the eyes of the characters. As in every war, times were tough. Social classes had to mix with each other. Officers who came from the aristocracy still seemed to have more privileges than the lower classes, however, when shot, they still bled the same. The women who were put to work to help the cause worked in close contact with men. This created a whole new set of problems involving affairs of the heart. Some of the women ended up being used and disrespected; others, who fell in love, had to deal with the worry of their men having their planes shot down. The main characters in this story each seem to have a starring role. Many of them are dealing with feelings of inadequacy either in their jobs or relationships. They have to develop their strength from within in order for them to be able to grow. Unfortunately, tragedy befalls some of them before they are able to accomplish this.
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