For the computer game, see Fighter Squadron: The Screamin' Demons Over Europe

Fighter Squadron: The Screamin' Demons Over Europe

Fighter Squadron: The Screamin' Demons over Europe is a Windows-based World War II theme combat flight simulator released in 1999. The game was written by Parsoft Interactive and released by Activision. It was designed for the Windows 95/98 operating system...

Fighter Squadron is a 1948 Technicolor

Technicolor

Technicolor is a color motion picture process invented in 1916 and improved over several decades.It was the second major process, after Britain's Kinemacolor, and the most widely used color process in Hollywood from 1922 to 1952...

 war film

War film

War films are a film genre concerned with warfare, usually about naval, air or land battles, sometimes focusing instead on prisoners of war, covert operations, military training or other related subjects. At times war films focus on daily military or civilian life in wartime without depicting battles...

 directed by Raoul Walsh

Raoul Walsh

Raoul Walsh was an American film director, actor, founding member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the brother of silent screen actor George Walsh...

 and starring Edmond O'Brien

Edmond O'Brien

Edmond O'Brien was an American actor who is perhaps best remembered for his role in D.O.A. and his Oscar winning role in The Barefoot Contessa...

 as a maverick World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

 fighter pilot.

Plot

At an American air base in England in 1943, conniving, womanizing Sergeant Dolan manipulates everyone, while insubordinate ace fighter pilot Major Ed Hardin gives his commanding officer and close friend, Colonel Brickley, headaches by ignoring the out-of-date rules of engagement formulated by Brigadier General M. Gilbert. When Major General Mike McCready promotes Brickley to whip a new squadron into shape, Brickley recommends Hardin as his replacement. Despite his misgivings, McCready agrees. To everyone's surprise, Hardin strictly enforces the rules.

One in particular, forbidding pilots to marry, irks his friend and wingman Captain Stu Hamilton. As a result, when his tour of duty ends, Hamilton does not sign up for another one, instead going home to marry his patient sweetheart. However, he returns, hoping to persuade Hardin to overlook his transgression. Hardin refuses to let him back into the squadron, but does weaken enough to let him fly one last mission. Unfortunately, Hamilton is shot down and killed; he admits to Hardin over the radio as his plane plummets to the ground that he was distracted by thoughts of his wife.

McCready decides that he needs Hardin for his staff, but allows Hardin to finish his tour first. His next mission is providing close air support

Close air support

In military tactics, close air support is defined as air action by fixed or rotary winged aircraft against hostile targets that are close to friendly forces, and which requires detailed integration of each air mission with fire and movement of these forces.The determining factor for CAS is...

 for the Allied landings on D-Day. His plane is hit by flak and crashes.

The fighter group is equipped with P-47 Thunderbolts. For Luftwaffe

Luftwaffe

Luftwaffe is a generic German term for an air force. It is also the official name for two of the four historic German air forces, the Wehrmacht air arm founded in 1935 and disbanded in 1946; and the current Bundeswehr air arm founded in 1956....

 fighters, the film used P-51 Mustangs with ersatz German markings.

Cast

• Edmond O'Brien
  Edmond O'Brien
  Edmond O'Brien was an American actor who is perhaps best remembered for his role in D.O.A. and his Oscar winning role in The Barefoot Contessa...
  
   as Major Ed Hardin
• Robert Stack
  Robert Stack
  Robert Stack was an American actor. In addition to acting in more than 40 films, he was the star of the 1959-1963 ABC television series The Untouchables and later served as the host of Unsolved Mysteries.-Early life:...
  
   as Captain Stu Hamilton
• John Rodney
  John Rodney
  John Rodney is a retired American actor, who worked in film and television. He also used the name John Flynn.-Career:He was born in Brooklyn, New York and his career spanned from the 1940s until the 1960s, with over a dozen significant movie roles. He is probably best known to audiences as Deputy...
  
   as Colonel Bill Brickley
• Tom D'Andrea as Sergeant Dolan
• Henry Hull
  Henry Hull
  Henry Watterson Hull was an American character actor with a unique voice, most noted for playing the lead in Universal Pictures's Werewolf of London .-Life and career:Hull was born in Louisville, Kentucky...
  
   as Major General Mike McCready
• James Holden
  James Holden (actor)
  James Holden was an American actor, best known for playing Clay Baker in the TV series Adventures in Paradise.- External links :*...
  
   as Lieutenant Tennessee Atkins
• Walter Reed
  Walter Reed (actor)
  Walter Reed was an American stage, film and television actor. He was born in Fort Ward, Washington. Following a stint as a Broadway actor, Reed broke into films in 1941...
  
   as Captain Duke Chappell
• Shepperd Strudwick
  Shepperd Strudwick
  Shepperd Strudwick was an American actor of film, television, and stage....
  
   as Brigadier General M. Gilbert
• Arthur Space
  Arthur Space
  Charles Arthur Space was an American film, television and stage actor. He was best known as Doc Weaver in the long running television series, Lassie.-Career:...
  
   as Major Sanford
• Jack Larson
  Jack Larson
  Jack Edward Larson is an American actor, librettist, screenwriter and producer. He is best known for his portrayal of photographer/cub reporter Jimmy Olsen on the TV series Adventures of Superman.-Biography:...
  
   as 2nd Lieutenant 'Shorty' Kirk
• Bill McLean
  Bill McLean
  William Malcolm McLean was an Australian soldier and a state and national representative rugby union player who captained the Wallabies in five Test matches immediately after World War II.-Pre-war rugby:...
  
   as Private Wilbur
• Mickey McCardle as Jacobs

Rock Hudson

Rock Hudson

Roy Harold Scherer, Jr., later Roy Harold Fitzgerald , known professionally as Rock Hudson, was an American film and television actor, recognized as a romantic leading man during the 1950s and 1960s, most notably in several romantic comedies with Doris Day.Hudson was voted "Star of the Year",...

has an uncredited role as a pilot in his film debut.