Task: Story Composition
Input (English): Fact1: Penrose is assigned to B Flight under Flight Lieutenant David Archdale, Fact2: squadron is flying Douglas Boston bombers, Fact3: Archdale has him posted to controller school, Fact4: United States Army Air Forces B-17 Flying Fortress bombardment group takes over airfield, Fact5: American airmen participate in first attack
Output (English): Pilot Officer Peter Penrose John Mills is posted in the summer of 1940 as a pilot to the fictional No. 720 Squadron,N 1 at a new airfield, RAF Station Halfpenny Field. He is a very green 15hour sprog Bristol Blenheim pilot and is assigned to B Flight, under Flight Lieutenant David Archdale Michael Redgrave. When No. 720 Squadrons commanding officer, Squadron Leader Carter Trevor Howard, in his second but first credited film role, is shot down, Archdale takes over. While Penrose develops into a firstclass pilot, he meets Iris Winterton Renee Asherson, a young woman living with her domineering aunt at the Golden Lion hotel in the nearby town. Archdale marries Miss Todd Rosamund John, the popular manageress of the hotel, who is known to everyone as Toddy. The Archdales later have a son, Peter. The action flashes forward to May 1942. The squadron is now flying Douglas Boston bombers. When Penrose shows signs of strain from extensive combat, Archdale has him posted to controller school, but is himself shot down and killed over France on Penroses last mission. Penrose had been courting Iris, despite her aunts disapproval, but Archdales fate weighs heavily on his mind. Not wanting Iris to suffer if the same happened to him, he stops seeing her. No. 720 Squadron is sent to the Middle East, but Penrose remains behind as a ground controller for a United States Army Air Forces B17 Flying Fortress bombardment group, which takes over the airfield. He befriends USAAF Captain Johnny Hollis Douglass Montgomery and Lieutenant Joe Friselli Bonar Colleano. On 17 August 1942, the American airmen participate in the first attack by the USAAF on Occupied France, later ruefully acknowledging that they underestimated the difficulties involved. Afterwards, Penrose is posted to flying duties with an RAF Avro Lancaster bomber unit. In 1944, Penrose, now a squadron leader and pathfinder pilot, makes an emergency landing at Halfpenny Field, where he meets Iris again. Iris had decided to leave her aunt for good and join up. Toddy persuades a stillreluctant Penrose to propose to Iris, saying that she did not regret her own marriage in spite of her husbands death. Hollis, who has formed a platonic relationship with Toddy, is killed while crashlanding a damaged returning bomber rather than bail out and risk it crashing into the village.