Bombardier (1943) on Netflix
Officers debate the bombardier's place in the air war. Major Chick Davis backs high altitude precision bombing; Captain Buck Oliver favors new pilots. It comes to a bombing duel.
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- Netflix3.0/5
- IMDb6.0/10987 votes
- Rotten TomatoesNot available
Plot summary
In Washington in 1941, Major Chick Davis tells a staff meeting that the bombardier, working the secret American bombsight, decides what a mission achieves. Captain Buck Oliver puts new pilots first. The two men take the argument into the air, Oliver in a dive bomber and Davis from 20,000 feet in a B-17. Later a bombardier school opens, and Davis arrives with Master Sergeant Archie Dixon to command it. He is uneasy about the base's civilian women administrators, among them Burton Hughes, a general's daughter serving as a secretary. The next cadet class includes Oliver and her brother Tom, and Davis, learning that Oliver and Burton have a past, apologizes for his earlier rudeness. Ground school brings its own troubles: Tom's fear-induced air sickness, Joe Connors's hesitation over committing, and Chito Rafferty's complaint about the shortage of women.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Bombardier (1943)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- With the full cooperation of the U.S. Army Air Forces, every aviation cadet then training at Kirtland Army Air Base was used as an extra, and veteran aircrews assigned there as instructors flew the B-17s in the film's formation shots.
- The film's central conflict over the importance of specialized bombardier training mirrored a real doctrinal fight inside the U.S. Army Air Corps between 1939 and December 1941, in which, as in the film, the proponents of specialized training won out.
- Chito, the Mexican-American supporting character played by Richard Martin, was created by screenwriter Jack Wagner and proved so popular that RKO used him as a sidekick in a series of Westerns, notably with Tim Holt.
- Three attempts at a bombardier school since July 1940, at Lowry Field, Colorado, Barksdale Field, Louisiana and Ellington Field, Texas, came before Col. John D. Ryan established the permanent one at Kirtland, the first step toward a wartime goal of training 30,000 bombardiers.
