Kessen no ôzora e

A class of Japanese sailors are trained to become combat pilots. During their first break, they stop at the nearby home of one of their number, and sister Setsuko Hara and younger brother Masaru Kodaka are inspired to the national cause: she runs a kindergarten on the base for the permanent staff's children, and he tries out to become a cadet.

Looking at it, it looks like a pure propaganda film: everyone is enthusiastic, everyone works hard, everyone succeeds. In an American film, of course, there would be one guy who doesn't get it at the beginning, and his plot arc would be to get it at the end. Several of the recruits would wash out, and yet realize there are other ways to serve; and, of course, comic relief by Abbott & Costello and the Andrews sisters.

That doesn't mean this was not carefully planned as entertainment. It's a difference in the national character. Americans view themselves as individuals fitting into the war machine that America became during the Second World War. The Japanese clearly viewed themselves differently.

It's directed by Kunio Watanabe. I don't believe I've seen anything else by him, but he's clearly a very competent director; in a career that stretched from 1929 to 1970, he directed 128 features. He died in 1981, age 82.