Plot
The setting of the film is an airfield called RAF Halfpenny Field (pronounced "ha'penny"). The action takes place in 1940, 1942 and 1944.
Pilot Officer Peter Penrose (John Mills) is posted in the Summer of 1940 as a pilot to (the fictional) No 720 Squadron, at a new airfield, RAF Station Halfpenny Field, as a very green '15 hour sprog' Bristol Blenheim pilot and is assigned to B Flight, under Flight Lieutenant David Archdale (Michael Redgrave).
When No 720 Sqn's commanding officer, Squadron Leader Carter (Trevor Howard, in his second but first credited film role), is shot down, Archdale takes over. While Penrose develops into a first-class pilot, he meets Iris Winterton (Renee Asherson), a young woman staying with her domineering aunt at the Golden Lion pub in the nearby village. Archdale marries Miss Todd (Rosamund John), the popular manageress of the hotel, who is known to everyone as Toddy. The Archdales later have a son, Peter.
The action flashes forward to May 1942 when No 720 Sqn is now flying Douglas Bostons. When Penrose shows signs of strain from extensive combat, Archdale has him posted to controller school but is himself shot down and killed over France on Penrose's last mission. Penrose had been courting Iris, despite her aunt's disapproval, but Archdale's fate weighs heavily on his mind. Not wanting Iris to suffer if the same happened to him, he stops seeing her.
No 720 Sqn is sent to the Middle East but Penrose remains behind as a ground controller for a United States Army Air Forces B-17 Flying Fortress bombardment group, which takes over the airfield. Despite cultural differences Penrose befriends USAAF Captain Johnny Hollis (Douglass Montgomery) and Lieutenant Joe Friselli (Bonar Colleano). On 17 August 1942 the American airmen participate in the first attack by the USAAF on Occupied France, ruefully acknowledging that they underestimated the difficulties involved. Afterwards Penrose is posted to flying duties with an RAF Avro Lancaster bomber unit.
In 1944 Penrose, now a Squadron Leader and pathfinder pilot, makes an emergency landing at Halfpenny Field, where he meets Iris again. Iris had decided to leave her aunt for good and join up. Toddy persuades a still-reluctant Penrose to propose to Iris, saying that she did not regret her own marriage in spite of her husband's death. Hollis, who has formed a platonic relationship with Toddy, is killed while crash-landing a damaged returning bomber rather than bail out and risk it crashing in the village.
On initial release the film was popular in Britain but performed poorly in the US.
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