Serenade to the Big Bird is a literary memoir of life as a B-17 pilot. It's short, and somewhat digressive as Stiles wanders through his childhood, dames, leave on London, but the passages in the air are non-technical and electric. Flying is easy and beautiful. Flying in tight formation through flak and fighters is anything but. Death is a constant presence in the air over Germany, a swift and violent in any number of ways as vulnerable ships fall out of formation and get shredded.

After his tour in B-17s, Stiles transferred to fighters where he was shot down and killed in November, 1944. It was a waste, as all of war is, but I can't help but be reminded of Ed Rasimus' thoughts, "Flying fighters is simply an assignment, but being a fighter pilot isn’t. Being a fighter pilot is a state-of-mind. It’s an attitude toward your job, toward the mission, toward the way you live your life. You don’t have to fly fighters to be a fighter pilot. You’ve simply got to have the attitude."