Fact1: Mary-Ann and crew are being readied for flight across Pacific, Fact2: Danny White long-time veteran in is West Point graduate and pilot Army Air Corps son, Fact3: navigator is son of World War I hero of Lafayette Escadrille, Fact4: disgruntled gunner washed out of flight school, Fact5: son was killed on first day trying to lead squadron into air
Output: On December 6, 1941, at Hamilton Field, near San Francisco, a United States Army Air Corps B17D bomber named the MaryAnn and its crew are being readied for a flight across the Pacific. Master Sergeant Robbie White Harry Carey, the MaryAnns crew chief, is a longtime veteran in the Army Air Corps, whose son, Danny White is a West Point graduate, an officer, and a pilot. The navigator, Lt. Monk Hauser Jr. Charles Drake, is the son of a World War I hero of the Lafayette Escadrille. The pilot is Michael Aloysius Irish Quincannon Sr. John Ridgely, the copilot is Bill Williams Gig Young and the bombardier, Tom McMartin Arthur Kennedy. Sergeant Joe Winocki John Garfield is a disgruntled gunner who, as an aviation cadet in 1938, washed out of flight school after he was involved in a midair collision in which another cadet was killed. Quincannon was the flight instructor who requested that the board of inquiry dismiss Winocki. The navigator and bombardier also washed out of pilot training. With the United States at peace, the MaryAnn and the rest of its squadron are ordered to fly without ammunition to Hickam Field at Pearl Harbor, Territory of Hawaii. As it happens, the MaryAnn flies right into the Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.Note 2 In its aftermath, the beleaguered B17 crew is taxed to the limit, as they are ordered on, with little rest, first to Wake Island, and then on to Clark Field in the Philippines, both locations also coming under heavy Japanese attack. While en route, the crew listens to President Franklin D. Roosevelt ask Congress for a declaration of war. They take along two passengers to Clark Field: fighter pilot Lt. Thomas Tex Rader James Brown and a small dog, Tripoli, the Marines mascot on Wake Island. When they land at Clark Field, White learns that his son was killed on the first day trying to lead his squadron into the air. Soon after, Quincannon volunteers his bomber for a oneaircraft mission against a Japanese invasion fleet, but the MaryAnn is attacked by enemy fighters and forced to abort. The badly wounded Quincannon orders his men to bail out, but then blacks out. Seeing this, Winocki remains aboard and makes a belly landing, being unable to lower the landing gear. Having told a dying Quincannon that the MaryAnn is ready to fly, the crew works feverishly through the night to repair their bomber with parts salvaged from other, damaged B17s, as the Japanese Army closes in. Private Chester volunteers to fly as gunner in a twoseat fighter aircraft defending Clark Field. In aerial combat, the pilot is killed, so Chester bails out; he is shot and killed by a Japanese fighter pilot while descending helpless in his parachute. Winocki and White shoot down the fighter. When the armed pilot stumbles from the burning wreckage, a furious Winocki machineguns him repeatedly. The exhausted aircrew barely manages to finish their repairs as the airfield comes under ground attack. With the help of the Marines and Army soldiers, the MaryAnn takes off under fire. As their B17 heads for Australia, with Rader as the reluctant pilot and the wounded Williams as copilot, they spot a large Japanese naval invasion task force below. The crew radios the enemys position and circles until reinforcements arrive; the MaryAnn then leads the bombing attack that destroys the Japanese fleet the missions portrayed in these Coral Sea sequences mirror reallife events. In the final scene, a bombing attack on Tokyo is finally announced to a roomful of bomber crews, among them several familiar faces from the MaryAnn, including Rader, now a B17 pilot. As their aircraft take off, President Roosevelts words are heard in a stirring voiceover, while the assembled air armada heads towards the rising sun and victory.