Richard Chatten The opening credits and martial music seem rather grand to be bearing the infamous name of poverty row purveyors Monogram Pictures - now moving (for them) upmarket and soon to rebrand themselves Allied Artists - by whose standards this production by Walter Mirisch (who later gave us 'The Great Escape') obviously represented a prestige project. Those with a knowledge of US military aircraft will as usual have a great time pointing out all the mismatched aircraft footage (just as trainspotters never tire of pointing out that the rolling stock is all wrong in any film with a railway setting); but the 16mm Kodachrome film shot by enterprising wartime cameramen was already proving a gift that keeps on giving, of which this early production was an early beneficiary, aided by Cinecolor photography by Harry Neumann and art direction and editing by David Milton and William Austin that reasonably unobtrusively blends the original footage with studio work and scenes actually shot on the USS Princeton.The names of Sterling Hayden and Richard Carlson gave a strong hint as to what to expect, and sure enough we get the usual conflict between granite-faced by-the-book disciplinarian Hayden and nice guy Carlson who comes to appreciate the wisdom of Hayden's anti-charm offensive on the new boys (who include a youthful-looking William Schallart in a surprisingly substantial early role as 'Longfellow').The film holds your attention for the most part, although Marlin Skiles' music increasingly emphasises exhilaration rather than grim determination on the part of the flyers; and I did find my attention starting to wander during the final twenty minutes when the excitement was supposed to be at its height.

andrew muhling A story of a green squadron on a US carrier in the Pacific in 1944. When they land on the USS Princetown, they find their new CO is a cold, tough as oak, stickler for the book. The CO also delivers his lines as though he's made of oak. There is plenty of good flying action. I also liked the historical footage of battleships conducting shore bombardment. The plot is leaky and the squadrons' planes morph from Corsairs, to Hellcats and even to Helldivers. It is all pretty predictable and the characters are hard to feel attached to. But I think the hardest thing to stomach is the levity displayed by the US pilots when they are killing people. It's a war people, not a football game.Das Boot, Enemy at the gates or even Tora Tora Tora are a much better bet for your evening battle flick.

a666333 This film seems to never go away. I am not sure why. Perhaps because of Sterling Hayden, perhaps because of the footage of WW2 vintage aircraft and ships. I am fan of both but there is just not much to this. Hayden is on a carrier near Korea and starts recalling his WW2 days and we go quickly to an extended flashback of that. From then on, we get predictable scenes on the carrier involving the various personal issues of the pilots interspersed with stock Navy footage edited into dogfights, formations flying, bombing runs, landings and takeoffs. That is it, don't hope for anything else. The aerial footage itself will not satisfy the purist unless you hope to entertain and flatter oneself with identifying all its inconsistencies. Pilots can take off in a Hellcat, fly in a Corsair, bomb in a Helldiver or Avenger and then land in a Hellcat even though they are supposed to be part of a 1944 Navy fighter squadron which should almost certainly be using Hellcats exclusively. It is really quite an impossible mishmash that would give a good chuckle to any pilot from the time.

Werner This is a rather run-of-the-mill War movie on board an American flat top in the Pacific against the Japs. Definitely not in the class of "A wing and a prayer" or "Tora, Tora, Tora" and, without much background footage, even not up to the mediocre Midway. Education under fire with an as always impressing Sterling Hayden, not much else. Definitely a B-Movie under war movies issued during this area. Consumer commodity stuff not, if you want action, look at the above mentioned movies, if you want it along with history, choose Victory at Sea. Five out of Ten at best for the dogfight at the very end. Actually difficult to crunch out ten lines for this, isn't it.