 When interest in Salter's earliest novels, unavailable for decades, resulted in a 1997 re-issue of the novel, Salter made several revisions, the main of which is changing Cleve's surname to "Connell" with no indication why this was done.As with many works based on personal and historical experience, interest has fostered speculation about real-life personalities providing the basis for characters.Salter as James Horowitz had been assigned to D Flight in the 335th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron, which became one of the leading MiG-killing units in Korea while he was a member, scoring 28 victories.