The blustery February winds of 1945 blew up a storm, clawing at Adolf Hitler's dream of a Thousand Year Third Reich, shredding it into confetti. Nevertheless, daily radio broadcasts exhorted everybody to stand fast and keep the faith. After all, our secret miracle weapons would soon reverse Germany 's fortunes of war. Most good Germans did believe, sweating their daily pint of devotion. Housewives, children and old men secured the home front. They dug trenches to stem the rumored advance of enemy hordes toward Berlin , they drilled with Panzerfausts, waiting to knock out tanks should they dare invade our homeland. In spite of cities in rubble and the growing cacophony of war sounds from the border territories, most folks still expected to find a pony under all the Kacke that was coming down if they just kept shoveling. Most. But not all. Some figured if it looked like manure and smelled like manure, it probably was. Faced with unconscionable orders, a special few decided to break lockstep and stop shouting "Sieg Heil!"

This book is dedicated to them. It relives a small historical footnote to the final months of World War II when five teenaged girls, drafted into the German Air Force, were falsely branded deserters and scheduled to be executed as a deterrent to morale problems among the troops. What happened to them, their values, priorities, their will to survive, is preserved by one who lived to tell about it. While the characters and some of the events presented here are fictionalized, the reference frame is real. And the memories of a special camaraderie during a time of trials, tribulations and yes, triumph over the mad dictates of a tottering German war machine transcend the decades. So, as even some Germans mocked the official salute way back then: Sieg Hell