 Yeates' original choice of title was the much more apt, bleaker "Wingless Victor".Yeates was credited with five enemy aircraft shot down in World War I (2 + 3 shared).Some of the characters of the book have real names of pilots who served in 46 Squadron at the time, like ace George Edwin Thomson (21 enemy aircraft shot down, called "Tommy" in the book, and who is transferred to Home Establishment before April 1918), Harry Noel Cornforth Robinson (called "Robinson" in the book, 10 aircraft destroyed), and Horace Gilbert Wanklyn Debenham ("Debenham" in the book, six enemy aircraft destroyed).