Under a War-Torn Sky

The novel’s protagonist, Lieutenant Henry Forester, is a 19-year-old copilot in the US Eighth Air Force, the youngest pilot in his squadron. He joined the Air Corps two weeks after graduating from high school, choosing not to take up a college scholarship he had been awarded. Henry grew up with his parents on a 150-acre farm in Richmond, Virginia. He is close to his mother, Lily, but often intimidated by his harsh father, Clayton. He keeps a picture of his pretty friend Patsy, who lives on the neighboring farm, pinned up beside his cot in the barracks where he is stationed in England.

Henry is more than six feet tall, with straight blond hair, although he looks younger than his age. He does not have much beard to shave in the mornings and is once referred to as being “babyfaced” (9), which draws attention to his naivety and relative innocence at that start of the novel. Henry is a polite young man who consistently demonstrates kindness and empathy for others—traits that will prove especially important to his journey through Nazi-occupied territories. Despite his youth, Henry has made 14 bombing missions during the war and is about to embark on his 15th when the novel opens.