Book excerpt: They called them the “Brylcreem boys” -- the young flyers who streamed into England from the first declaration of war, the kids with the jaunty grins and the willingness to take terrible risks. Among them were thousands of young Canadians, many barely out of high school, all delighted to leave behind humdrum lives in dusty, post-Depression Canada for the irresistible chance to learn to fly and help beat the Germans. Doug Harvey was one of them -- a nineteen-year-old from Toronto who joined the RCAF, and in 1942 found himself a pilot in the elite Canadian No. 6 Bomber Group.