The book describes Mowat's transformation from a young man hoping to share the perceived glory of his father's generation's victory in The Great War to a combat veteran struggling to cope with the seemingly unending loss of his friends.

There he spent another year training, seeking adventure by unauthorized experimentation with unexploded bombs dropped by German bombers.

After individually describing the deaths of his friends lost during the first six months of the Allied advance northward into Italy, e.g. at the bloody Battle of Ortona, Mowat ends his story weeping by the stretcher of an unconscious friend with an enemy bullet in his head[1] as the optimism of youth is replaced by despair.

[2] Military historians focused on statistics and timing have criticized inaccuracies in Mowat's perception-based recollections[3] of the events in which he was involved.

[4] Others have recognized the 35-year delay in preparing such vivid recollections for publication as evidence of slow recovery from combat stress reactions.