Cirrus@Austlit

'Wings Without Halo' is fiction with a difference - it is based on fact. Thousands of young Australians are at this moment having the same experiences as jimmy Conlan and Ben Brandon and probably, feeling much the same way about them.

This story has only one object - to give you a humanised and accurate account of just what happens when a young fellow joins the Air Force. The author is indebted to the officers and men of the Flinders Street Recruiting Depot, and of the Laverton and Point Cook stations, for their courtesy to him and their help in giving him the data on which this fictional tale of their magnificent service is built.

He hopes that because 'such-and-such' in the story could not have happened because of 'so-and-so' they will not be irritated, but, remembering that they are reading fiction, will admit that it COULD have happened if places and men and machines and dates had only been shifted round a little!

Needless to say, the characters in the story are imaginary and do not refer in any way to living persons.