Chester

Private **Chester** is the Assistant Radio Operator of the B-17D bomber named the *Mary-Ann*.

On December 6, 1941, at Hamilton Field, near San Francisco, the *Mary-Ann* and its crew are being readied for a flight across the Pacific to Hawaii.

With the United States at peace, the *Mary-Ann* and the rest of its squadron are ordered to fly without ammunition to Hickam Field at Pearl Harbor. As it happens, the *Mary-Ann* flies right into the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. In its aftermath, the beleaguered B-17 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 and a small dog, *"Tripoli"*, the Marines' mascot on Wake Island.

When they land at Clark Field, Master Sergeant Robert White, the *Mary-Ann's* Flight Engineer & Crew Chief, learns that his son was killed on the first day trying to lead his squadron into the air. Soon after, Captain Michael Aloysius Quincannon Sr. volunteers his bomber for a one-aircraft mission against a Japanese invasion fleet, but the *Mary-Ann* is attacked by enemy fighters and forced to abort after losing two engines. The badly wounded Quincannon orders his men to bail out, then blacks out. Seeing this, Sergeant Joe Winocki remains aboard and pilots the crippled *Mary-Ann* to a successful belly landing, unable to lower the landing gear.

Having told a dying Quincannon that the *Mary-Ann* is ready to fly, the crew works feverishly through the night to repair their bomber using parts salvaged from other, damaged B-17s, as the Japanese Army closes in. Private **Chester** volunteers to fly as gunner in a two-seat fighter aircraft defending Clark Field. In aerial combat, the pilot is killed, so Chester bails out; he is shot repeatedly and killed by a Japanese fighter pilot while descending helpless in his parachute. Winocki and White shoot down the fighter. When the armed Japanese pilot stumbles from the burning wreckage, a furious Winocki machine-guns him repeatedly. The exhausted aircrew barely manages to finish their repairs as the airfield comes under heavy ground attack. With help from the Marines and Army soldiers, the *Mary-Ann*, now returning fire with her machine guns, roars down the runway and flies again.

As their B-17 heads for Australia, with Rader as the reluctant pilot and the wounded Lt. William Williams as co-pilot, they spot a large Japanese naval invasion task force directly below. The crew radios the enemy's position and circles until reinforcements arrive; the *Mary-Ann* then leads the bombing attack that destroys the Japanese fleet.

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 *Mary-Ann*, including Rader, now a B-17 pilot. As their bombers take off, President Roosevelt's words are heard in a stirring voice-over, while the assembled air armada heads towards the rising sun and victory.