…One of Our Aircraft is Missing September 12, 2006
Posted by John Hodson in : Film & DVD Reviews, War Films , trackbackBefore the main feature, a short story…
It was at my father’s wake, nearly 16-years-ago now, that Albert, his eldest brother, recounted what I thought was - is - a brilliant wartime tale.
Albert was a mid-upper turret gunner and wireless operator serving in a Halifax squadron out of Lincolnshire. The old man of the crew (he was nicknamed ‘grandad’; he had just celebrated his 29th birthday), he was responsible for a pre-sortie ritual that the boys - in true RAF fashion - were loathe to break.
Some months earlier, Albert had been caught short just before clambering on board and despite his many layers of clothing - several centimetres from his bulky sheepskin flying jacket to his electrically heated undersuit - had taken a leak on the mighty four-engined bomber’s starboard wheel. The raid was hell, the squadron copped a blizzard of flak outbound and on return…but Albert’s ‘plane didn’t boast so much as a scratch. It was obvious to all why. The pre-flight piss was now on the superstitious crew’s check-list, because the first time they didn’t do it…well, the consequences didn’t bear thinking about.
So, the armourers are making final adjustments to the bomb load, the last glimmers of a blinding sun on a frosty, crisp, autumn evening, just disappearing below the copse of trees at the far end of the runway. A picture postcard English scene, save for the entire crew standing round the larger than man-sized wheel and hosing it down, the golden showers sending up great wafts of steam from the centre of the circle.
Mid-flow, and to the side, there is a tremendous thud, and the ground gives a ponderous shudder. One of the 500lb weapons has just fallen from the bomb bay, slammed into the tarmac, and is rolling threateningly towards them, a villainous looking grey cylinder filled with volatile high explosives. What kind of fuse has been fitted to this damn thing? They don’t hang around to find out.
They run. Well, they waddle. Swiftly.
Eight men, each clad as the ‘Michelin Man’, bounding, across the airfield pan, their flies undone, pants around their hips, their tackle flapping, the boys well and truly out of the barracks. The crew careered into the long grass at the edge of the tarmac, tried to bury themselves into the cool Lincolnshire earth and clamped their hands over heads. Eyes squeezed tightly shut, they waited for an explosion that would leave a crater the size of Grantham and hurl them, far, far into the air like so many loose limbed stunt dummies.
Of course, it didn’t go off. But that was the end of that particular irrationality.
That was the only story Albert, who won the Distinguished Flying Cross (subsequently stolen) when he stayed in his turret and nearly froze to death after his heated suit packed in, told me. I suspect his other memories of flying over a hostile Europe, while below him simply millions of Axis troops were trying to kill him, weren’t as much fun as nearly being blown to kingdom come by his own deadly pay load.
Albert is one of the reasons I’m drawn to wartime flying films, and in particular the film reviewed here. From the ‘posh’ end of the family, I didn’t have much contact with him as a child, but I was deeply impressed by him as a person though he didn’t know it. He’s heading into the sunset now, 93-years-old next month, unaware that he’s one of my heroes. Bless him.
Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger had made four films together when they came to 1942’s …One of Our Aircraft is Missing, and it’s the first picture, jointly produced with J. Arthur Rank’s British National, they made under the banner of their own company The Archers.
A propaganda film intended to stiffen the backbone, …One of Our Aircraft is Missing is a reversal of the previous year’s 49th Parallel, with ’our’ boys trying to make it home across enemy territory instead of a German U-Boat crew in Canada. It’s also a love letter both to Bomber Command - whose losses were piling up - and to the people of occupied Holland, made at a time when those backbones were still most firmly against the wall. While it may be a flag-waver, the piece also displays a fierce intelligence and deftness of touch for which The Archers became almost universally admired.
The inspiration for the story is revealed at the start of the film; the execution of Dutch farm workers by the Herrenvolk for helping downed RAF crews, and the title itself, a phrase familiar to radio listeners at the time when the BBC would end news of nightly raids with the words‘one (or more) of our aircraft is missing’.
The narrative is very simple; the crew of an RAF Wellington, call-signed ‘B’ for Bertie, fly to bomb Stuttgart. After completing their mission, they are hit by flak and limp home on one engine. When that too starts to stutter and fail, they abandon the aircraft and the six crewmen bail out, 30 miles from the Dutch coast, the enemy all around them. They have to escape back to England…somehow.
The crew is representative of Britain, or at least what Britain should be; fighting back, fearless, indomitable, cheerful under fire. Lead by their young, fresh-faced pilot John (Hugh Burdon), there’s also bluff Yorkshireman and co-pilot Tom (Eric Portman, getting a rare chance to employ the accent of his native Halifax), Welshman Bob (former footballer Emrys Jones), actor Frank (Hugh Williams given an opportunity for some theatrical in-jokes, and to dress up as a woman), West Countryman Geof (Bernard Miles with his ’simple man’ schtick) and the sage Sir George, the elder statesman of the crew (in truth, too old to fly) played by the always excellent Godfrey Tearle.
In typical Archers fashion the Germans themselves are not demonised per se. They are, at one point sympathised with as ’an unhappy people’ and flying out to bomb the city, the crew discuss their happier memories of Stuttgart and its inhabitants (Pressburger was educated at the University there), but that still doesn’t stop Tom dropping a bottle of warm urine out of the hatch from which he’s just bombarded the Germans with propaganda leaflets. When the boys of ‘Bertie’ hit the deck, it’s a different story - taken in by sympathetic Dutch, they find the Germans are, unsurprisingly, hated by the occupied Hollanders.
Robert Helpmann has the thankless task of being the only Dutch villain, a dandified quisling, who gets his just desserts. Polyglot Peter Ustinov shows off his Dutch playing the church padre (his first screen role), look out in the same scene for Alec Clunes (father of Martin and the very spitting image…) as the organist who plays with fire, taking the rise out of a menacing Nazi. You’ll also spot Powell himself, by the way, as the airfield despatcher, orchestrating the raid as well as the film.
But the glue that holds the film together is the escape itself; two key Dutch underground strands lead by two actresses, first Pamela Brown as the spirited ‘Else Meertens’, then Googie Withers as ‘Jo de Vries’, all shoulder pads and attitude. These are strong, independent women, of a type that a war in which the menfolk, by necessity, desert the household, produced by the bucket load, but also which the Archers relished in portraying.
Says Else, with as much defiance as she can muster: ‘Do you think that we Hollanders who threw the sea out of our country will let the Germans have it? Better the sea.’
Pressburger gives Jo another speech, one which must have given some comfort to those at home that gave thought to the fact that we were actually bombing these occupied countries, and that midst the ruins must lie the bodies of innocents as well as the enemy. As the engines of another Bomber Command raid thrum overhead, Jo points out of the window to the streets below: ‘You see? That’s what you’re doing for us. Can you hear them running for shelter? Can you understand what that means to all the occupied countries? To enslaved people, having it drummed into their ears that the Germans are masters of the Earth. Seeing these masters running for shelter, seeing them crouching under tables. And hearing that steady hum night after night. That noise which is oil for the burning fire in our hearts.’
It’s stirring stuff now, but must have fired the spirits of cinema audiences in blacked-out and blitzed Britain. The ‘Boys Own’ escape is nicely handled, with a mixture of tension, high drama and light comedy, the democracy the crew forms in adversity a counterpoint to the dictatorship on display previously in 49th Parallel. All in all, a very neat package put together by a team that would go on to become cinema giants; not just P&P themselves, but David Lean in the editing room (where the foundations of his genius lay), and Ronald Neame handling cinematography.
There are some blissfully beautiful shots - the setting sun glinting off the skin of the Wellington’s sturdy geodetic frame, the little row boat gliding up the harbour ‘neath a bomber’s moon. A word too for the production design and special effects - the bombing scenes, the crash of ‘B’ Bertie and the locations; Lincolnshire successfully disguised as the Netherlands - all wonderfully well done.
Legend has it that Noel Coward visited the set during filming and was so impressed that he plundered members of the production team - most famously Lean and Neame - for In Which We Serve.
There’s no score by the way, not a note, save for the incidental music (the triumphal playing of the Dutch national anthem, Frank listening to his wife singing on the radio, etc.), and the rhythm of those aircraft engines.
Universal’s recent R2 DVD of the film is really quite good. While not perfect, the print used is in pretty good shape and the transfer is detailed with excellent contrast. The mono English soundtrack (no other track is available) is also similarly decent. Typically for Universal, there are no extras.
…One of Our Aircraft is Missing may not be regarded as front rank Powell and Pressburger, but even second class P&P rates higher than most. Highly recommended.
Comments»
A majestic piece of writing John. My warmest thanks.
[…] I name checked my Uncle Albert in my review of One Of Our Aircraft Is Missing. Aged 93, and in poor health for many years, Albert died a couple of days ago. […]
Thank you for writing these notes . I watched this film as a child with my father in the 1950’s when, as ex RAF, he explained everything to me. I must have seen it a 100 times since and have visited the sites in Boston Licolnshire. At ‘the Stump’ and the town location I visited with my wife I was speechless for a full 5 minutes. I had just walked into a familiar safe place - a film set. The ripples of this film extend for me from 1941into the present days. We have a tiny flat in Holland and I speak the language. Hugh Burdon has much to answer for. The film remains a tribute to the 50,000 dead of Bomber Command and the Dutch civilians who died in WW2. Thanks..
Thank you for taking the time to comment Colin; very much appreciated. I too was lucky enough to visit several Lincolnshire airfields, some operational, some deserted, the ghosts of their Merlin engines echoing across the pan. Spine-tingling stuff.
I was a child just outside London during the war. Having just watched the film I have nothing but admiration for these guys. My admiration also extends to those who made this film.Stirring stuff and on a technical level,considering there was a war on, brilliantly done…thanks if you can hear me lads.