In the early days of the US involvement in WWII, things were amazingly grim. Over a period of several weeks, they not only were attacked at Pearl Harbor but lost battle after battle throughout the Pacific. Because of this, the government wanted a hero...someone who they could believe in and convince them that the war was winnable. That hero was Captain Hewitt Wheless...a man who was given the Distinguished Service Cross after somehow landing his badly battered B-17 bomber after a bombing run gone awry. In this film, Warner Brothers studio increased the public's awareness of Hewitt by featuring him in this short film about his life and military career.
The film follows Hewitt from his joining the Army Air Corps just before WWII and shows him working his way towards winning his wings. Then the film re-creates the bombing run. Now here is where things go somewhat wonky for folks like me who know WWII aircraft....and are obsessive about it. The attack is somewhat sloppy as instead of using planes that looked like the Mitsubishi Zero fighter, they used a wide variety of planes---including quite a few German Stuka dive bombers. To the non-plane enthusiast, it would be like substituting a VW Bug for a Ford Mustang...very obvious and sloppy. Still, despite the technical problems, it IS an interesting and true story and is worth seeing.
By the way, Hewitt remained in the service and eventually became the head of the Strategic Air Command.
The film follows Hewitt from his joining the Army Air Corps just before WWII and shows him working his way towards winning his wings. Then the film re-creates the bombing run. Now here is where things go somewhat wonky for folks like me who know WWII aircraft....and are obsessive about it. The attack is somewhat sloppy as instead of using planes that looked like the Mitsubishi Zero fighter, they used a wide variety of planes---including quite a few German Stuka dive bombers. To the non-plane enthusiast, it would be like substituting a VW Bug for a Ford Mustang...very obvious and sloppy. Still, despite the technical problems, it IS an interesting and true story and is worth seeing.
By the way, Hewitt remained in the service and eventually became the head of the Strategic Air Command.