Plot
During pre-war operations from an aircraft carrier off Hawaii, the VB-3 dive bombing squadron (bearing the "High Hat" emblem of Bombing Squadron Four) arrives in a wingover approach to Honolulu; one of its pilots blacks out during the high speed dive and crashes. At the base hospital in Honolulu, LCDR Joe Blake (Fred MacMurray) is concerned that LT "Swede" Larson (Louis Jean Heydt) will not survive. U.S. Navy Doctor, LT Doug Lee (Errol Flynn), convinces the Senior Surgeon (Moroni Olsen) to operate but the pilot dies on the operating table. After Blake blames Lee for rushing the surgery, the doctor decides to become a flight surgeon, and winds up being trained at the U.S. Naval Air Station in San Diego by a number of instructors, including his nemesis, LCDR Blake. A sub-plot involving the romantic adventures of Blake, Lee and a group of mechanics, introduces Mrs. Linda Fisher (Alexis Smith) as a love interest for the two rivals, Blake and Lee.
On completion of his flight training, LT Lee is posted as an assistant to a senior Navy surgeon, CDR Lance Rogers (Ralph Bellamy), who is working to find a solution for altitude sickness that affects pilots in dive bombers. Lee flies with Blake as his pilot in a camera-equipped aircraft and observes Blake blacking out. He experiments with a pneumatic belt that will keep blood above the heart and successfully flight tests it himself, although he disobeys regulations in flying by himself. Even though he has qualified as a pilot, Lee is still not trusted, considered a "grandstander" and a "vulture", always there when someone crashes. His judgment over pilots' ability to fly is further resented when he grounds a pilot, LT Tim Griffin (Regis Toomey), who is suffering from chronic fatigue. In anger, Griffin quits the U.S. Navy, and joins the Royal Air Force (RAF) in Canada but visits his old squadron when he is ferrying a new fighter from the Los Angeles factory. On his return flight, Griffin suffers from fatigue and dies attempting to land at an emergency field, completely misjudging his approach.
LCDR Blake finally accepts that the flight surgeon is trying to help pilots survive dangerous high altitude flying, and volunteers as a "guinea pig" pilot for aerial experiments. The first flight test of a pressurized cabin nearly ends in disaster when the aircraft ices up and Blake passes out, forcing Dr. Lee to take over. After ground testing of a new invention jointly developed by Lee and Blake, a pressure suit, Blake is told that he did not pass his most recent physical and will be grounded. Taking off without permission, Blake carries out the aerial testing of the new suit anyway, but when the oxygen regulator fails, he loses consciousness and fatally crashes. His notes are salvaged from the wreckage, however, and mass production of the suit can begin. In the final scene, Blake's self-sacrifice is acknowledged while Rogers and Lee are honored for their pioneering work in protecting pilots flying at high altitude.
An ongoing motif involving cigarettes in National Air Races cases that each of the "High Hats" squadron pilots carries, continues into the final sequence where LT Lee throws LCDR Blake's cigarette case out over the Pacific as a final tribute.
Read more about this topic: Dive Bomber (film)
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