''Air Force'' is a 1943 American

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

aviation film directed by

Howard Hawks Howard Winchester Hawks (May 30, 1896December 26, 1977) was an American film director, producer and screenwriter of the classic Hollywood era. Critic Leonard Maltin called him "the greatest American director who is not a household name." A ...

and starring

John Garfield John Garfield (born Jacob Julius Garfinkle, March 4, 1913 – May 21, 1952) was an American actor who played brooding, rebellious, working-class characters. He grew up in poverty in New York City. In the early 1930s, he became a member of ...

, John Ridgely, Gig Young,

Arthur Kennedy John Arthur Kennedy (February 17, 1914January 5, 1990) was an American stage and film actor known for his versatility in supporting film roles and his ability to create "an exceptional honesty and naturalness on stage", especially in the origi ...

, and Harry Carey. The film was distributed by Warner Bros. and produced by

Hal B. Wallis Harold Brent Wallis (born Aaron Blum Wolowicz; October 19, 1898 – October 5, 1986) was an American film producer. He is best known for producing '' Casablanca'' (1942), '' The Adventures of Robin Hood'' (1938), and ''True Grit'' (1969), along ...

and

Jack L. Warner Jack Leonard Warner (born Jacob Warner; August 2, 1892 – September 9, 1978) was a Canadian-American film executive, who was the president and driving force behind the Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank, California. Warner's career spanned some ...

. Made in the aftermath of the Pearl Harbor attack, it was one of the first of the US patriotic films, sometimes referred to as wartime

propaganda Propaganda is communication that is primarily used to influence or persuade an audience to further an agenda, which may not be objective and may be selectively presenting facts to encourage a particular synthesis or perception, or using loaded ...

. The film's storyline revolves around an actual incident that occurred on December 7, 1941. An aircrew ferries an unarmed 1940 series

Boeing B-17C Flying Fortress The Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress is a four-engined heavy bomber developed in the 1930s for the United States Army Air Corps (USAAC). Relatively fast and high-flying for a bomber of its era, the B-17 was used primarily in the European Thea ...

heavy bomber, named the ''Mary-Ann,'' across the

Pacific The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the contine ...

to the

United States Army Air Corps The United States Army Air Corps (USAAC) was the aerial warfare service component of the United States Army between 1926 and 1941. After World War I, as early aviation became an increasingly important part of modern warfare, a philosophical r ...

base at Hickam Field. They fly right into the middle of the Japanese air

attack on Pearl Harbor The attack on Pearl HarborAlso known as the Battle of Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service upon the United States against the naval base at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Territory of Hawaii ...

and the beginning of America's major involvement in the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

. An uncredited

William Faulkner William Cuthbert Faulkner (; September 25, 1897 – July 6, 1962) was an American writer known for his novels and short stories set in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County, based on Lafayette County, Mississippi, where Faulkner spent most o ...

wrote the emotional deathbed scene for Ridgely, who played the commander and pilot of the ''Mary-Ann''.

Plot

On December 6, 1941, at Hamilton Field, near San Francisco, the crew of the ''Mary-Ann'', a U.S. Army Air Corps B-17C, are ordered across the Pacific to

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only stat ...

, one of a flight of nine Flying Fortress

bomber A bomber is a military combat aircraft designed to attack ground and naval targets by dropping air-to-ground weaponry (such as bombs), launching torpedoes, or deploying air-launched cruise missiles. The first use of bombs dropped from an air ...

s. Master Sergeant Robbie White, the ''Mary-Ann''s crew chief, is a long-time veteran, whose son Danny is an officer and pursuit (fighter) pilot. The navigator, Lieutenant Monk Hauser Jr., is the son of a hero of the

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

Lafayette Escadrille. The pilot is Michael "Irish" Quincannon Sr., the co-pilot is Bill Williams, and the bombardier is Tom McMartin. Sergeant Joe Winocki is a disgruntled gunner who, as an aviation cadet in 1938, washed out of flight school after he caused a mid-air collision in which another cadet was killed. Quincannon was the flight instructor who requested a board of inquiry into the accident. With the United States still neutral, the ''Mary-Ann'' and the other B-17s fly, fully equipped except for ammunition, to Hickam Field. They arrive on December 7, 1941, during the Japanese

. In its aftermath, the tired crew is ordered, with little rest, to fly first to

Wake Island Wake Island ( mh, Ānen Kio, translation=island of the kio flower; also known as Wake Atoll) is a coral atoll in the western Pacific Ocean in the northeastern area of the Micronesia subregion, east of Guam, west of Honolulu, southeast of T ...

, and finally to

Clark Field Clark is an English language surname, ultimately derived from the Latin with historical links to England, Scotland, and Ireland ''clericus'' meaning "scribe", "secretary" or a scholar within a religious order, referring to someone who was educate ...

in the Philippines, both also still under Japanese attack. En route, the crew listens to President Franklin D. Roosevelt ask Congress for a declaration of war. They take along two passengers: fighter pilot Lieutenant Thomas "Tex" Rader and a small dog, "Tripoli", the Marines' mascot on Wake Island. When they land at Clark Field, White learns that his son was killed while trying to lead his squadron into the air during the first attack. Soon after, Quincannon volunteers his bomber (the only one available) to attack a Japanese invasion fleet, but the ''Mary-Ann'' is swarmed by enemy carrier fighters and forced to abort after losing two engines. The fatally wounded Quincannon orders his men to bail out, then he blacks out. Winocki remains aboard and pilots the ''Mary-Ann'' to a successful

belly landing A belly landing or gear-up landing occurs when an aircraft lands without its landing gear fully extended and uses its underside, or belly, as its primary landing device. Normally the term ''gear-up landing'' refers to incidents in which the pilot ...

when he is unable to lower the landing gear. Having told the now dying Quincannon that the ''Mary-Ann'' is ready to fly, the crew works feverishly through the night to repair their bomber, scavenging parts from other damaged B-17s, as the Japanese Army closes in. Chester, the assistant radio operator, volunteers to fly as gunner in a two-seat observation plane. They are caught in an enemy air raid. Chester bails out after the pilot is killed, but is machine-gunned while descending in his parachute, then strafed to death on the ground. Winocki and White shoot down the Zero fighter with .30 caliber machine guns. When the pilot stumbles from the burning wreckage, Winocki shoots him. The crew barely manages to finish the repairs and refueling when the Japanese overrun the airfield. With help from Marines and Army soldiers, ''Mary-Ann'' takes off, her waist machine guns returning fire. As they head to Australia, with Rader as the reluctant pilot and the wounded Williams as co-pilot, they spot a large Japanese naval invasion task force directly below. The crew radios the enemy's position and circles until reinforcements arrive; the ''Mary-Ann'' then leads the attack that devastates the Japanese fleet (this dramatic sequence mirrors the real events of the

Battle of the Coral Sea The Battle of the Coral Sea, from 4 to 8 May 1942, was a major naval battle between the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) and naval and air forces of the United States and Australia. Taking place in the Pacific Theatre of World War II, the batt ...

). Later in the war, a bombing attack on Tokyo is finally announced to a roomful of bomber crews, among them several familiar faces from the ''Mary-Ann'', including Rader, now a B-17 pilot. As the bombers take off, President Roosevelt offers inspiring words in

voice-over Voice-over (also known as off-camera or off-stage commentary) is a production technique where a voice—that is not part of the narrative (non- diegetic)—is used in a radio, television production, filmmaking, theatre, or other presentation ...

, as the air armada heads towards the rising sun.

Cast

Production

Director Howard Hawks credited the concept of the film to Lieutenant General Henry H. Arnold, Commanding General of the

Army Air Forces The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF or AAF) was the major land-based aerial warfare service component of the United States Army and ''de facto'' aerial warfare service branch of the United States during and immediately after World War II ...

, based on the experiences of a flight of B-17s that left Hamilton Field, California, on the night of December 6, 1941, and literally flew into the war the next morning at Pearl Harbor. Executive producer Jack Warner was adamant that the film be ready for release by 7 December 1942, the first anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor. To that end, miniatures for battle sequences were filmed in May and June 1942, before completion of the script and storyline. Although pre-production work had already been done, the official start of the production on 18 May 1942 was tied to the War Department's approving the script. Development of the film was concurrent with scriptwriting by Dudley Nichols, with some characters based on Air Corps personnel Hawks met while traveling to Washington, D.C., to confer with Arnold and the War Department Motion Picture Board of Review.Orriss 1984, p. 67. Nichols's script, submitted 15 June, was 207 pages long (twice that of a normal feature-length film), had its initial 55 pages devoted to "character development," and was not finished. Principal photography, consisting of aerial shots and exteriors, took place at

Hendricks Army Airfield Hendricks Army Airfield was a World War II United States Army Air Forces base located 6.6 miles east-southeast of Sebring, Florida. History Hendricks Army Airfield is a former United States Army Air Forces base. It was used during World War II ...

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and ...

. For water scenes and shooting miniatures shots, MacDill Field, Florida; Randolph Field, Texas; and

Santa Monica Bay Santa Monica Bay is a bight of the Pacific Ocean in Southern California, United States. Its boundaries are slightly ambiguous, but it is generally considered to be the part of the Pacific within an imaginary line drawn between Point Dume, ...

, California, were used. Shooting began 18 June 1942, using a rented mock-up of a B-17 interior, in which the 10 principal characters performed for a month. The company then moved by train to

Drew Army Airfield Tampa International Airport is an international airport west of Downtown Tampa, in Hillsborough County, Florida, United States. The airport is publicly owned by Hillsborough County Aviation Authority (HCAA)., effective December 30, 2021. The ...

, Florida, at the end of July to spend the next month shooting aerial sequences coordinated by Paul Mantz, chief pilot and aerial technical coordinator for the production.Orriss 1984, p. 64. Drew was selected because of fears that use of aircraft marked as Japanese might cause panic on the West Coast. At the end of August, Hawks returned to Hollywood and engaged

to rewrite two scenes, including the death of the ''Mary-Ann''s pilot. By then, the film, scheduled to be completed by 17 September, was three weeks behind schedule and only half completed. Production featured a celebrated clash between producer Hal Wallis and Hawks over the latter's constant changing of dialogue as scenes were shot. Hawks was briefly replaced on 4 October by Vincent Sherman, but returned from "illness" on October 10 to take back primary direction. Sherman remained as second-unit director to assist with completion of the film, which wrapped on 26 October 1942, failing to shoot 43 pages of script and 33 days over schedule, too late to meet its 7 December release date. Wallis wrote that AAF Captains Sam P. Triffy and Hewett T. Wheless were technical advisors to the film, and that Triffy in particular made significant contributions to the storyline, dialogue, and sets.< "Shorty" Wheless had previously been a B-17 aircraft commander in the Philippines with the 19th Bomb Group and had been one of the survivors evacuated to Australia in December 1941. He was at Randolph Field, Texas, in the process of appearing as himself in the Academy Award-winning short film ''

Beyond the Line of Duty ''Beyond the Line of Duty'' is a 1942 American short propaganda film, directed by Lewis Seiler. The documentary film reenacted the life and career of United States Army Air Corps Captain Hewitt T. "Shorty" Wheless. Following the attack on Pea ...

'' when he assisted on ''Air Force''.

Aircraft

The U.S. Army Air Forces provided the various aircraft that appear in the film: * Ten Boeing

B-17 The Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress is a four-engined heavy bomber developed in the 1930s for the United States Army Air Corps (USAAC). Relatively fast and high-flying for a bomber of its era, the B-17 was used primarily in the European Theater ...

B/C/D Flying Fortresses were from

Sebring, Florida Sebring ( ) is a city in the south-central Florida and is the county seat of Highlands County, Florida, United States, nicknamed "The City on the Circle", in reference to Circle Drive, the center of the Sebring Downtown Historic District. As of ...

. The majority were actually RB-17Bs upgraded to B-17C/D standards, as was the B-17 that portrayed ''Mary-Ann''. The bomber's on-screen, "wartime security" serial number 05564 (actually "40-5564") is listed in the film credits. The bomber's ''actual'' serial number was 8584 ("38-584"), being so marked on the left side of the vertical tail. In the film's beginning

stock footage Stock footage, and similarly, archive footage, library pictures, and file footage is film or video footage that can be used again in other films. Stock footage is beneficial to filmmakers as it saves shooting new material. A single piece of stoc ...

flight ĺine sequence, an early model YB-17 can be seen in the background of the bomber lineup. * North American AT-6 Texans and Republic P-43 Lancers were painted as Japanese fighters. *

Bell P-39 Airacobra The Bell P-39 Airacobra is a fighter produced by Bell Aircraft for the United States Army Air Forces during World War II. It was one of the principal American fighters in service when the United States entered combat. The P-39 was used by t ...

s and Curtiss P-40C Warhawks from Drew Army Airfield portrayed the AAF fighters. * Six Martin B-26C Marauders from MacDill Field were painted as Japanese bombers. The "real" ''Mary-Ann'' was reported lost in the Pacific shortly after production wrapped, according to information attributed to the production's technical advisor; actually, no early Flying Fortresses served for long in Pacific combat after Pearl Harbor. Two early RB-17B aircraft, upgraded to the later series "D" standards, played the ''Mary-Ann''; AAF serial numbers 38-584 and 39-10 (briefly seen in background projection as John Garfield boards the aircraft) were reclassified in late 1943 as instructional air frames; following the war, both were scrapped in January 1946."Tampa in the 1940s."
''tampapix.com.''. Retrieved: July 25, 2011. Another claim, attributed to a newspaper article, was that the real ''Mary-Ann'' went on tour to promote the film, then was assigned to

Hobbs Army Air Field Hobbs Army Airfield was an airfield used during World War II by the United States Army Air Forces Air Training Command as part of the Western Flight Training Center. It is located in the vicinity of Hobbs, New Mexico. History On 18 December 1 ...

, New Mexico, then later to Amarillo Army Air Field, where it was assigned to a ground school.

Historical inaccuracies

The basic premise of ''Air Force'', that a flight of B-17s flying to reinforce the defense of the Philippines flies into the attack on Pearl Harbor, reflects actual events. From that point on, however, all of the incidents are fictitious. No B-17 reinforcements reached the Philippines; the survivors of those already based there retreated to Australia less than two weeks after the war began. The major bombing mission depicted at the film's climax most closely resembles the

five months later. Miniature shooting for its battle scenes was filmed in May and June 1942, concurrent but probably coincidental with Coral Sea and the

Battle of Midway The Battle of Midway was a major naval battle in the Pacific Theater of World War II that took place on 4–7 June 1942, six months after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor and one month after the Battle of the Coral Sea. The U.S. Navy under ...

. Anti-Japanese propaganda in the film included scenes in which the aircrew is forced to land on

Maui The island of Maui (; Hawaiian: ) is the second-largest of the islands of the state of Hawaii at 727.2 square miles (1,883 km2) and is the 17th largest island in the United States. Maui is the largest of Maui County's four islands, whic ...

Island and are shot at by "local Japanese". There is a later assertion by the Hickam Field commander that local vegetable trucks from Honolulu knocked the tails off parked P-40 fighters as the attack began. Also, Lieutenant Rader claims that a Japanese civilian blocked the road in front of his car, as he hurried to the airfield, and then shot at him with a shotgun. As detailed in Walter Lord's book ''Day of Infamy'', later investigations proved that no Japanese-American was involved in any kind of

fifth column A fifth column is any group of people who undermine a larger group or nation from within, usually in favor of an enemy group or another nation. According to Harris Mylonas and Scott Radnitz, "fifth columns" are “domestic actors who work to un ...

sabotage during the Pearl Harbor attack. In ''Air Force'', a tail gun is installed on the ''Mary-Ann''. The Flying Fortress used in the film played the part of a 1940 Boeing B-17C; no early B-17s, series "A" through "D", were fitted with a tail-mounted machine gun at the factory. That feature was not officially added until Boeing rolled out its heavily redesigned B-17E series. In the film, however, a member of the ''Mary-Ann''s aircrew makes a improvised field modification, removing the tail cone and creating a manned, single machine gun position. In real life, some aircrews did install a broomstick painted black in the clear tail cone to discourage attacks from the rear. As detailed in Herbert S. Brownstein's Flying Fortress volume ''The Swoose: Odyssey of a B-17'', a few B-17D aircrews field-installed a remotely controlled (via a pullcord) .30 caliber machine gun in their tails.

Reception

Critical acclaim followed the film's premiere. ''Air Force'' echoed some of the emotional issues that underlay the American public's psyche at the time, including distrust of Japanese Americans. In naming it one of the "Ten Best Films of 1943",

Bosley Crowther Francis Bosley Crowther Jr. (July 13, 1905 – March 7, 1981) was an American journalist, writer, and film critic for ''The New York Times'' for 27 years. His work helped shape the careers of many actors, directors and screenwriters, though his ...

of ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' characterized the film as "... continuously fascinating, frequently thrilling and occasionally exalting ...". When seen in a modern perspective, the emotional aspects of the film seem out of proportion, and although it has been dismissed as a piece of wartime propaganda, it still represents a classic war film that can be considered a historical document. When initially released, ''Air Force'' was one of the top three films in commercial revenue in 1943. Later reviews of ''Air Force'' noted that this was a prime example of Howard Hawks's abilities; "''Air Force'' is a model of fresh, energetic, studio-era filmmaking". ''Air Force'' placed third (behind ''

The Ox-Bow Incident ''The Ox-Bow Incident'' is a 1943 American Western film directed by William A. Wellman, starring Henry Fonda, Dana Andrews and Mary Beth Hughes, with Anthony Quinn, William Eythe, Harry Morgan and Jane Darwell. Two cowboys arrive in a ...

'' and '' Watch on the Rhine'') as the best film of 1943 selected by the National Board of Review of Motion Pictures.

Box office

According to Warner Bros. records, the film earned $2,616,000 domestically and $1,513,000 internationally.

Awards and nominations

''Air Force'' editor George Amy won the 1944

Academy Award for Best Film Editing The Academy Award for Best Film Editing is one of the annual awards of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). Nominations for this award are closely correlated with the Academy Award for Best Picture. For 33 consecutive years, ...

, defeating his counterparts on ''

Casablanca Casablanca, also known in Arabic as Dar al-Bayda ( ar, الدَّار الْبَيْضَاء, al-Dār al-Bayḍāʾ, ; ber, ⴹⴹⴰⵕⵍⴱⵉⴹⴰ, ḍḍaṛlbiḍa, : "White House") is the largest city in Morocco and the country's econom ...

'', ''

For Whom the Bell Tolls ''For Whom the Bell Tolls'' is a novel by Ernest Hemingway published in 1940. It tells the story of Robert Jordan, a young American volunteer attached to a Republican guerrilla unit during the Spanish Civil War. As a dynamiter, he is assigne ...

'', ''

Five Graves to Cairo ''Five Graves to Cairo'' is a 1943 war film directed by Billy Wilder and starring Franchot Tone and Anne Baxter. Set in World War II, it is one of a number of films based on Lajos Bíró's 1917 play ''Hotel Imperial: Színmű négy felvonásban ...

'', and '' The Song of Bernadette''. Dudley Nichols was nominated for Best Writing, Original Screenplay; Hans F. Koenekamp, Rex Wimpy, and Nathan Levinson for Best Effects, Special Effects; and

Elmer Dyer Elmer Dyer, A.S.C. (August 24, 1892 – February 8, 1970) was an American cinematographer, the first film cameraman to specialize in aerial photography. Dyer was born in Lawrence, Kansas and died in Hollywood. During World War II Dyer was assi ...

James Wong Howe Wong Tung Jim, A.S.C. (; August 28, 1899 – July 12, 1976), known professionally as James Wong Howe (Houghto), was a Chinese-born American cinematographer who worked on over 130 films. During the 1930s and 1940s, he was one of the most sou ...

, and

Charles A. Marshall Charles A. Marshall (July 21, 1898 – January 8, 1985) was an American cinematographer. He was nominated at the 16th Academy Awards for the film ''Air Force''. He shared the nomination with Elmer Dyer and James Wong Howe. This was in Best Cinem ...

for Best Cinematography, Black-and-White."The 16th Academy Awards (1944) Nominees and Winners."
''oscars.org''. Retrieved: June 22, 2013.

Radio adaptation

''Air Force'' was presented on '' Lux Radio Theatre'' 12 July 1943. The adaptation starred Harry Carey and

George Raft George Raft (born George Ranft; September 26, 1901 – November 24, 1980) was an American film actor and dancer identified with portrayals of gangsters in crime melodramas of the 1930s and 1940s. A stylish leading man in dozens of movies, Raft is ...

Home media

Howard Hawks' ''Air Force'' was released on DVD in 2007 by Turner Entertainment and Warner Bros. Entertainment. The single DVD disc also contains the special video features: the Oscar-nominated

Technicolor Technicolor is a series of Color motion picture film, color motion picture processes, the first version dating back to 1916, and followed by improved versions over several decades. Definitive Technicolor movies using three black and white films ...

drama short ''Women at War'', two Warner Bros. patriotic war cartoons, ''The Fifth-Column Mouse'' and ''Scrap Happy Daffy'', and the drama's theatrical release trailer.

In popular culture

An ''Air Force'' plot detail is loosely referenced in the film ''

Pulp Fiction ''Pulp Fiction'' is a 1994 American crime film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino, who conceived it with Roger Avary.See, e.g., King (2002), pp. 185–7; ; Starring John Travolta, Samuel L. Jackson, Bruce Willis, Tim Roth, Vin ...

'' (1994) during

Christopher Walken Christopher Walken (born Ronald Walken; March 31, 1943) is an American actor. Prolific in film, television and on stage, Walken is the recipient of numerous accolades including an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, and a Screen Actors Guild Awa ...

’s monologue playing Captain Koons. Koons recounts the story of boxer

Butch Coolidge ''Pulp Fiction'' is a 1994 American crime film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino, who conceived it with Roger Avary.See, e.g., King (2002), pp. 185–7; ; Starring John Travolta, Samuel L. Jackson, Bruce Willis, Tim Roth, Ving Rhame ...

’s grandfather’s watch: Butch’s grandfather, facing certain death at the hands of the Japanese at the WWII battle of

, gives his watch to a gunner on an Air Force bomber by the name of Winocki.

References

Notes

Citations

Bibliography

* Dolan, Edward F. Jr. ''Hollywood Goes to War''. London: Bison Books, 1985. . * Evans, Alun. ''Brassey's Guide to War Films''. Dulles, Virginia: Potomac Books, 2000. . * Hardwick, Jack and Ed Schnepf. "A Buff's Guide to Aviation Movies". ''Air Progress Aviation'', Vol. 7, No. 1, Spring 1983. * Hickey, Lawrence J. (with Birdsall, Steve; Jonas, Madison D.; Rogers, Edwards M.; and Tagaya, Osamu). ''Ken’s Men Against the Empire: The Illustrated History of the 43rd Bombardment Group During World War II'' (Volume I: Prewar to October 1943, The B-17 Era). International Historical Research Associates, 2016. . * McCarthy, Todd. ''Howard Hawks: The Grey Fox of Hollywood''. New York: Grove Press, 2000. . * Orriss, Bruce. ''When Hollywood Ruled the Skies: The Aviation Film Classics of World War II''. Hawthorne, California: Aero Associates Inc., 1984. .

External links

* * * * * * {{B-17 family 1943 films 1940s war films American aviation films American black-and-white films American World War II propaganda films 1940s English-language films Films scored by Franz Waxman Films about the United States Army Air Forces Films directed by Howard Hawks Films produced by Hal B. Wallis Films set in the Philippines Films set in Tampa, Florida Films whose editor won the Best Film Editing Academy Award Pearl Harbor films Films with screenplays by Dudley Nichols Warner Bros. films World War II films based on actual events American war films Pacific War films