Fact1: Joseph McConnell aspires to be pilot even going AWOL to take private lessons, Fact2: military police are waiting for him at airport and to avoid arrest, Fact3: Mac With military police on leaves by back window trail, Fact4: Sykes recommends Mac 's promotion and transfer to medical school in Texas, Fact5: bomber flying over is attacked by new German jet aircraft and after crash landing France
Output: In 1941, Joseph Mac McConnell, Jr. Alan Ladd, a private in the Army medical corps near Fitchburg, Massachusetts, aspires to be a pilot, even going AWOL to take private lessons. While flying with his instructor, he realizes that military police are waiting for him at the airport and to avoid arrest, he parachutes out of the aircraft and hitches a ride with teenager Bob Brown Robert Ellis. Bob takes Mac home with him where he meets Bobs mother Sarah Selby, young brother Ronnie Ray Ferrell and sister Pearl June Allyson, whom Mac nicknames Butch. With the military police on his trail, Mac leaves by a back window and returns to the base, where his superior, Sgt. Sykes Frank Faylen, sentences him to the stockade. Mac sneaks out and returns to the Brown home to see Butch, and later, after a brief courtship, proposes to her at a boxing match. Sykes reluctantly gives his permission and recommends Macs promotion and transfer to a medical school in Texas, but the transfer comes through on the McConnells wedding day, preempting their honeymoon. At the new base, Mac persuades his instructors that he belongs in flight school. When he is transferred to Washington state, a pregnant Butch returns home. During Christmas leave, Mac tries to hitchhike across country, but gives up when he realizes he will not arrive in time for the birth. Again in trouble, Mac is sentenced to sentry duty but learns about his daughters birth from fellow student, Ty Whitman James Whitmore. Despite wanting to become a pilot, Mac is assigned as a navigator on a Boeing B17 Flying Fortress bomber. While flying over France, his bomber is attacked by a new German jet aircraft and after crash landing, the aircrew is rescued. In peacetime, Mac is miserable at a desk job in Nebraska. When Ty tells him about the Air Forces recruitment of experienced fliers, he volunteers. Butch supports Macs decision. Feeling he was born to fly, Mac makes his first solo flight on one of the new jet aircraft. Mac is transferred from base to base with his family, which eventually includes another daughter and son. Before he is sent to fight in the Korean War, Mac takes Butch on a picnic in Apple Valley, California, where he has bought property and plans to build a house. Aircraft passing overhead fly in the missing man formation which Mac explains that the pilots are honoring a colleague who was killed. Note 1 In Korea, Mac helps to rescue men on a downed aircraft in the middle of enemy territory. During another mission, his North American F86 Sabre is shot down over the sea and he must parachute to safety. Mac becomes the top ace in the conflict, downing 15 MiG15 fighters. He is named the first triple jet ace in history, but after shooting down his 16th MiG, Ty and his superiors fear that he is getting tired and reckless and transfer him stateside to train new pilots. Back home, Mac is given a heros welcome and meets the president. When the family settles down in Apple Valley, their neighbors present them with the keys to a house specially built for them. Ty, now a colonel, asks Mac to take a job testing new jets but Butch is afraid for his safety. Mac tests the F86H Sabre, the newest version of the F86, flying faster and faster, despite Tys warning to slow down. Suddenly the controls are frozen and Ty radios Mac to bail out. Believing that he can regain control, Mac is killed in the subsequent crash. Butch sees aircraft overhead in the missing man formation, and realized what happened. Months later, Ty takes Butch to the base where she learns that modifications prompted by Macs accident, will save lives.