A capable but unremarkable war story, Squadron Airborne follows a week in the life of a Spitfire squadron during the Battle of Britain. It's a conventional telling and doesn't have any surprises: there's lots of aerial combat and mental strain, with some skirt-chasing when back on base. There's a novice pilot who must learn to grow up quickly if he's to survive, a paternal squadron leader, and the usual cast of supporting characters.

The book takes a while to warm up, and it loses its focus sometimes with such a large cast of characters in such a short span of time, but it's perfectly readable once it settles. It's by no means a masterpiece – the closest it gets to a spark is the odd special phrase or passage, such as "the sun, catching the undersides of the Spitfires, turned them into a line of bright gold crosses" (pg. 67), or the part where one pilot, watching a German plane come apart, recognises that they themselves could be in that situation soon enough "but for the grace of God, and eight guns, and the armour-plate" (pg. 145).

Aside from such moments, Squadron Airborne is a routine, almost stolid read, with its only point of note being that it focuses on the ground crew almost as much as it does the pilots (author Elleston Trevor was himself an RAF engineer during the Battle). However, for the most part, regular readers of war fiction will find it much of the same. ( )