Plot
The film follows a pilot and crew of a World War II-era Douglas C-47 Skytrain (the military version of the DC-3) who try to survive after a forced emergency landing in the uncharted wildlands near the Quebec-Labrador border. The pilot, Dooley (John Wayne), is a former airline pilot, who, like many others, was pressed into duty hauling war supplies across the northern route to England. Icy conditions force the aircraft to land, and with the difficulties of navigating far from settled country, they can provide only an approximate position to rescuers.
After finding a frozen lake for a landing field, while waiting for rescue, Dooley must keep his men alive in the extreme winter cold with temperatures plummeting to -40 degrees F. Back at Air Transport Headquarters, Col. Fuller (Walter Abel) gathers fellow airmen (played by Lloyd Nolan, James Arness, Andy Devine and Paul Fix) who are determined to find the downed crew before hunger and the winter do them in. Wellman provides internal narrative for the stoic characters. There is tension and a fear-filled meeting among the search pilots when no one is quite sure about what to do, since a wrong decision could doom the missing crew.
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—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
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