Air Force

Air Force (Howard Hawks, 1943) The day starts out like any other for the crew of the "Mary-Ann" the B-17 "Flying Fortress" no. 05564 of the 48th bomber wing out of Hamilton Field, California: they are assigned to fly to Hickam Field in Hawaii. The date, December 6, 1941.

They're a motley crew: The pilot is Michael Aloysius Quincannon (John Ridgley), his co-pilot Bill Williams (Gig Young) who's sweet on the sister of bombadier Tom McMartin (Arthur Kennedy); Monk Hauser Jr. (Charles Drake) is the navigator and son of a pilot from the Lafeyette Escadrille; master sergeant Robbie White (Harry Carey Sr.) is the crew-chief, aided and abetted by his assistant Weinberg (George Tobias) a native New Yorker (as he's only too glad to tell you); "Minnesota" Peterson (Ward Wood) is the radio operator and the rookie on the flight is his assistant, Private Chester (Ray Montgomery), who is wide-eyed, wet behind the ears, and only too eager to be on the plane; in marked contrast to him is gunner Joe Winocki (John Garfield) who was washed out of flight school by his instructor Quincannon and has no love for the air force...or the mission...or his pilot.

Winocki is the bad apple in the barrel. the fly in the ointment, the wrench in the works. Hawks likes his groups to run like well-oiled machines, but there's no drama without a bit of sand in the gears. Winocki doesn't really fit in, or his attitude doesn't allow him to fit in. 

His bitterness informs his posture and every remark that comes out of his mouth. He grates. He's an outsider (self-imposed) that goes against the grain of the collective. He's not a professional, that important term in the world of Howard Hawks, and if he's going to fit in—become part of the crew—he'll have to change, and in a turn-around that would impress Sergeant York.

He even has a crack on his lips in the most dramatic part of the movie—when the crew gets in radio-range of Hawaii, they hear, instead of landing instructions from the tower...nothing. A turn of the frequency and they intercept Japanese radio transmissions backed by the sound of gunfire. "Who're you listening to...Orson Welles?" he snears, before White shuts him up.

No. They're listening to Pearl Harbor, dying.

Quincannon and the other pilots get through to Hickam, enough for them to warm them off to land somewhere else. The squadron splits up, and "The Mary-Ann" makes its way to Maui, but not before they make a pass over the Harbor at Oahu and gaze out their windows at the devastation. The shots of the carnage are overhead shots of burning models. Far more representative are the darkened faces of the crew, their faces only illuminated from the fires below as they look out in disbelief.

It's a bit surreal, almost "Twilight Zone-ish:" taking off near San Francisco, the U.S. was at peace, and seven hours across the Pacific later, they're landing in the middle of a war they weren't expecting and, not having any armaments on these flights, for which they're unprepared. And under the worst of conditions. The Maui area on which Quincannon makes his landing isn't an airfield, it's just bare ground and the landing is inelegant and damaging, impairing one of their landing gear. The crew gets out, and split up—determined not to be stuck there, one group sets about to fix the gear, while Williams and Hauser do a little scouting of the vicinity. What they find, unfortunately are Japanese snipers who follow them to the B-17 and start firing on it—there's just enough time to get back in the air and head back for Hickam.

The airfield is a jumble of destruction, but the crew get ample opportunity to get intel, visit McMartin's sister who was injured in the attack, and pick up some mail from the soldiers to get home, and a fighter pilot Lt. "Tex" Rader (James Brown), who was involved in that accident, winning him the suspicions of McMasters and Williams. Then they have to get to Wake Island. On the way, they listen to President Roosevelt declare war on Japan, determine that McMasters sister will pull through. But, the reception at Wake isn't warm, Wake knows that their time is limited before they're overrun; they want the "Mary-Ann" off the island and in the air to the Philippines.

Williams and Quincannon listening to the declaration of war.

They take mail from Wake and one piece of contraband—a dog named "Tripoli" which has a running gag that the mutt barks every time he hears the name "Moto." Of course, it's against regulations, but the crew warms to the dog, even rigging up an oxygen mask for it when they get to higher altitudes. They then finish their grueling odyssey of "7,000 consecutive miles" to land at Clark Field in Manila, where the news is grim, and the "Mary-Ann" becomes involved in aerial combat for the first time on their journey...and in the war.

The third act is mostly action, for the first time in the film. Overall, the emphasis is less on combat—in these early days of the war—but more on perseverance despite hardship, playing on the American self-image of "stick-to-itiveness" that allows them to last no matter how much punishment they take. In that way, Air Force is a companion piece to They Were Expendable, John Ford's tribute to the Navy during the darkest days of the Pacific war, where victory is uncertain, but survival is the nearest thing to victory that can be achieved. Certainly, it added to recruitment efforts with its gung-ho spirit and its dramatic manipulations to seek revenge.

Of course, you expect that in a war film—while the war is going on, and certainly from movies of that time period. The basis of Air Force has its roots in some reality—there really was a a squad of B-17's that flew out of San Francisco to the Philippines on December 6th only to find their first stop at Pearl Harbor destroyed. The rest of the movie is fanciful, and even extends to outright lies about "treacherous" Japanese citizens forming sniper squads and using vegetable trucks at Pearl Harbor to damage planes on the ground (the Japanese bombers had an easy enough time of that as the planes were all grouped together on the ground—take out one and you took out a lot of them). There weren't any fifth columnists in Hawaii, not one—only victims of the attack. But fear, rumor, and suspicion make better stories than truth. All of those elements led to the internment of Japanese-American citizens during World War II—but only on the West Coast extending out to Salt Lake City. Truth is usually the first casualty of a war.