This film takes place during World War II on a fictitious USAAF bomber base in England, referred to as Steeple Bassington. It was released to local California audiences only in the summer of 1969, and stars Christopher George as the no-nonsense, by-the-book bomb group commander Colonel Brandon, who develops a plan to attack a heavily defended German aircraft factory using 1,000 bombers, that if successful, could turn the tide of the air war in the allies favor. The remainder of the cast is a proverbial who's who of TV-Movie character actors of the day including J. D. Cannon, Laraine Stephens, Gavin MacLeod, Ben Murphy, Bo Hopkins, and Charles Dierkop. British actor Gary Marshal portrays Wing Commander Howard, a free-spirited and highly successful RAF fighter ace, who's been assigned to the base to teach fighter tactics to Brandon's hard luck outfit, the 103rd Heavy Bombardment Group. The cliche riddled script is predictable, and the combat sequences are a hastily prepared mishmash of wartime footage, movie clips, and cheesy, low budget airplane sets. In spite of all that, I actually found this movie to be semi-entertaining; the acting is competent and believable, and the use of actual B-17 aircraft for the location flying scenes, including the extremely LOW buzz job of the field, was particularly satisfying. In addition, historical credibility was enhanced by the period control tower, base operations, and maintenance buildings that were constructed on the site of what is now Santa Maria Public Airport, formerly known as Santa Maria Army Airfield, which was an actual B-25 and P-38 pilot transition training base during WWII.
