A bit of an obscure movie, and one that is perhaps a bit underrated, is the 1969 film “The 1000 Plane Raid.” Today, the cinematic effort is completely forgotten by film fans in general, but it is notable for vintage aircraft enthusiasts in that three flyable B-17s were gathered for the production. The trio of Flying Fortresses and a pair of Tallmantz cameraship B-25s were based at the Santa Maria, California, airport during January 1968 for the on-location filming. They spent two weeks flying from the airport and using a corner of the airfield redressed as an Eighth Air Force heavy bomber group headquarters.
Background Details of “The 1000 Plane Raid”
The film starred actor Christopher George, better known for his role as Sam Troy in the 1960s television series The Rat Patrol. George had also appeared in several films, including a more interesting role as the bad guy in the 1966 John Wayne film El Dorado. George is joined in The 1000 Plane Raid by a slew of later 1970s TV actors including Ben Murphy, J.D. Cannon, and Gavin MacLeod. Also on the screen is Laraine Stephens as Lt. Gabrielle Ames, a fellow AAF officer and the love interest for George’s character, Col. Greg Brandon. All the acting is a bit stiff and uneven, giving the film the feel of a TV movie and not a major Hollywood effort.
The story was co-written by Robert Vincent Wright, a screenwriter whose credits lay mostly with episodic television of the 1950s and 1960s such as “Maverick” and “Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea,” and Donald S. Sanford, a screenwriter with both TV and movie credits who also wrote several episodes of TVs “12 O’Clock High” in 1964. The screen play is surprisingly credited as an adaptation of Ralph Barker’s 1965 book on the first RAF 1,000 plane bombing raid, flown in 1942 against Cologne, Germany. The film story, of course, has no resemblance at all to the real 1942 raid and is, instead, more of a knock-off and mixture of two classic war films: the 1948 film “Command Decision” and the 1949 film “12 O’Clock High.” Of course, just about all films that depict the U.S. Eighth Air Force in action owe a nod of familiarity to both the earlier films.
The plot of “The 1000 Plane Raid” is straightforward. In 1943, Col. Greg Brandon commands the fictional 103rd Bomb Group from England’s Steeple Bassington, and suffers the angst of sending young airmen to their deaths every day. He has put forward a plan for a maximum effort 1,000 plane raid to destroy a German target, knowing many airmen will die in their falling B-17s but also knowing that the raid will shorten the war and save many more soldiers in the end. The upper “brass,” in typical Hollywood fashion, is opposed to the raid because the cost will be too high, and even Col. Brandon begins to have his doubts. After much gnashing of teeth and verbal battles, the 1,000 plane raid is flown and Brandon is vindicated. There are the expected subplots, one of which involves the cowardice of a young pilot and he, too, ends up vindicated in the end. Another subplot depicted a brash, snobbish RAF Spitfire pilot assigned to Brandon’s group to teach the bomber pilots enemy fighter pilot tactics.
The Santa Maria Location For Filming
The Santa Maria, California, airport, known then and now as Capt. G. Allan Hancock Field, was selected as the place to reconstruct the bomber base for the fictional 103rd Bomb Group. The town of Santa Maria is located on the central California coast between Vandenberg AFB and Morro Bay, about 100 miles northwest of Los Angeles. Its general topography doesn’t really resemble that of England, but it’s near the ocean and there is green foliage (albeit California eucalyptus trees) available, so it fit the requirements of the admittedly limited budget production values for the film. Santa Maria was used as a wartime P-38 pilot training facility, so it already had the atmosphere of a wartime base with a triangular runway pattern, a perimeter taxiway, and remote hardstands around the periphery of the airfield.
From viewing the movie today, it is evident that some time, effort, and money went into the set dressing. A hangar, operations building, and military control tower were either adapted or custom built for the film. Period vehicles, mostly jeeps and trucks, are widely seen, as were other small items such as signs, bicycles, and tents are spread about the set, located on the west side of the airport.
The Three B-17s Used To Make “The 1000 Plane Raid”
B-17G 44-83684
The producers of the film secured the services of three B-17s for the January 1968 exterior shooting. The Air Museum, now operating as Planes of Fame at Chino, California, but then based at the nearby Ontario airport, provided B-17G s/n 44-83684. An ex USAF drone-director DB-17P, 44-83684 was placed on loan from the USAF to Ed Maloney’s “The Air Museum” in September 1959, upon its retirement as the last active USAF manned B-17 the prior month. This B-17G, operating as N3713G, was better known as the “Piccadilly Lily,” the starring hardware in the TV series 12 O’Clock High filmed between 1964 and 1966 at nearby Chino airport. Though the B-17 was never actually flown for the television production, it was used as set dressing and taxiing scenes. The series was canceled in November 1966, and its last original episode aired in January 1967. N3713G sat at Chino in the ensuing year between the end of the TV series and January 1968 when it was prepared for the filming at Santa Maria. It arrived at Santa Maria still as the Piccadilly Lilly but quickly went under the paint gun to become Bucking Bronco with fuselage squadron codes “DF-A” and a tail serial number “124485” added that matched the real wartime Memphis Belle, this done for footage culled from the wartime documentary of the same name. The flight crew consisted of Don Lykins, a Western Airlines pilot, Bob Grider, and museum owner Ed Maloney.
B-17G 44-83525
The second B-17G was also an ex USAF DB-17P, this one coming from Tallmantz Aviation at Orange County Airport southeast of Los Angeles. This was B-17G 44-83525, operating as N83525. Tallmantz had arranged the lease from the USAF in 1967, and the company spent many months trying to get the Fortress airworthy from its storage location at Davis-Monthan AFB at Tucson, Arizona. It was finally ferried from Tucson to Orange County on Friday, January 12, 1968, by Tallmantz pilot Jim Appleby. Weeks behind schedule, the airplane was hurriedly prepared for the film role in the ensuing two days, as it was due in Santa Maria on the following Monday morning.
A peculiar camouflage scheme of olive drab and grey, applied by studio technicians, replaced the 1950s vintage USAF marking and natural metal finish. The name and nose art of Balls of Fire was added. As an item of interest, the airplane was marked as B-17F 42-5053, a genuine 305th Bomb Group B-17F that operated with the 366th Bomb Squadron out of Chelveston with the Eighth Air Force. This particular airplane really did carry the squadron codes of “KY-L,” duplicated with the film markings, though there is no record that the actual airplane carried the name Balls of Fire. The real 42-5053 was lost in action in July 1943. It is notable that someone in the film production took such care in choosing the markings for this B-17.
On Monday morning, pilots Appleby and Frank Pine took FAA check rides in N83525, flying from Orange County. In the early afternoon, the B-17 left for Santa Maria with Appleby and film pilot Skip Marsh at the controls. Flying along with the B-17 was one of the specially equipped Tallmantz B-25 cameraships, B-25N N1042B, with Frank Pine and Frank Tallman at the controls.
B-17F 42-29782
The third B-17 to be used for the filming was B-17F 42-29782, then owned and operated by Aircraft Specialties of Mesa, Arizona, as N17W. Long a veteran aerial sprayer and air tanker, N17W was pulled from fire duty to take part in the filming and was the first B-17 to arrive at the Santa Maria location. Two Aircraft Specialties tanker pilots, whose identities have eluded researchers, operated the air tanker. Its bright tanker markings were replaced by a standard AAF camouflage scheme once on location.
The tail serial representing 42-3613, squadron codes “GK-A,” and the “triangle A” of the 91st Bomb Group were added. The serial number 42-3613 was in reality assigned to a Curtiss C-46A, but both it and the squadron codes were applied by the film makers to exactly match those used in the belly landing scene from the 1948 film 12 O’Clock High that was incorporated into The 1000 Plane Raid. The nose art and markings of Can Do were added to N17W for the movie, and it is interesting that Can Do was the motto of the 305th Bomb Group, which is also represented by the markings on 44-83525. Can Do was also the name of a 305th Bomb Group B-17G.
Location Filming of “The 1000 Plane Raid”
The three B-17s were on hand at Santa Maria on Monday, January 15, 1968. Twelve days of filming ensued, ranging from air-to-air photography of the B-17s, set scenes with the actors, takeoff and landing shots, and aircraft movement scenes with the B-17s taxiing. Two crash scenes were filmed. In one case, the right main landing gear of 44-83684 was lowered into a trench to make the airplane askew. A DC-7 wing section, painted to match, was positioned between the cameras and B-17, and fire pots and smoke pots strategically positioned to complete the illusion of the crash site. In the other crash scene, 42-29782 had both its main gears rolled into trenches to make it appear the airplane had suffered a belly landing.
How the Filmmakers Used the B-17s
Viewing the completed movie, some observations can be made. Most of the aerial flying was done with 44-83684 and 44-83525. 42-29782 sat most of the film out as backdrop to mechanical work being done on the supposed “hangar queen.” It finally takes to the air for the last part of the movie, and is the central part is the belly landing scene that ends the film. Of course, as noted above, the B-17F was not actually belly landed; instead, color-tinted footage of the 1948 Paul Mantz belly landing was inserted. That Mantz landing is still spectacular 60 years after it was filmed.
A clear highlight of the film is the low-level buzz job done by Lykins, Grider, and Maloney in 44-83684. The shots, filmed on Wednesday, January 17, consisted of six very low passes made across the movie set and shot from four different camera angles. The resulting footage was used in several sequences in the completed film but was featured in a scene where the RAF pilot teaches the cowardly AAF pilot how to do his job and, evidently, “makes him a man.” It rivals the similar scenes shot for The War Lover in 1961 when the B-17 was flown by John Crewdson.
The primary Tallmantz cameraship, B-25N N1042B, suffered from a bad main tire soon after it arrived at Santa Maria, and was replaced by stable mate B-25H N1203, the original Mantz Cinerama camera plane still owned and operated by Tallmantz. The air-to-air photography was mostly done with Frank Pine at the controls of the B-25. Near the end of the shooting schedule, the B-25 and two B-17s, 44-83864 and 44-83525, were dispatched over the Pacific Ocean offshore for a series of gunnery runs with the B-25 diving towards the pair of B-17s for footage to depict a fighter attack. Ed Maloney was also filmed flashing a light from the radio compartment of 44-83684 towards the cameras in the B-25 for a scene used in the completed film.
For those movie watchers with a particular interest in B-17s, watch for the scene shot using the broken Plexiglas nose from an A-26 mounted on 44-83525. It depicts a crew breaking out the “glass” to remove a dead bombardier from the airplane. It is a bit unusual as the flat bomb sight panel is facing upwards instead of downwards and the sound of the “glass” being broke out is quite distinctive, even though real Plexiglass would not break out like glass. 44-83525 is immediately recognizable in all its scenes as the propellers remain USAF polished and were not painted black. Also, watch for actor Ben Murphy, as a B-17 aircraft commander, moving the engine throttles forward and backwards so rapidly during one takeoff scene as to be ridiculous and one is amazed that the shot made it into the film. And, of course, oxygen masks only dangle from flight helmets; they are never worn nor needed. Such, however, is Hollywood and this is neither the first nor the last such film to take such liberties.
On the other hand, there were obvious efforts on someone’s part to incorporate some real history. The concept of using heavily armed B-17 “gunship escorts,” actually developed as the XB-40 program, is mentioned as part of the mission planning though not actually depicted on the “big” mission. During the assembly scenes real bomb groups from real Eighth Air Force bases are mentioned. There are actually just enough little authentic parts of the movie to lend it just a bit of credibility and suggest that technical advisor Maj. Robert W. Gossman knew something about the air war over Europe.
Film Production of “The 1000 Plane Raid” Moves to the Studio
On Friday, January 26, the location filming was completed. The movie set was broken down and packed, and the three B-17s were soon dispatched back to their home bases. The actors and film crew headed for one of the Samuel Goldwyn studios in Hollywood to complete four weeks of shooting the interior scenes.
The studio filming utilized the Fox Studios B-17 forward fuselage mockup for the interior shots. This mockup was assembled from a USAF B-17G, s/n 44-83387, first lent to Fox for the filming of the 1949 movie “12 O’Clock High.” This particular airframe had never actually seen service with the AAF or USAF; it was stored from its acceptance date in February 1945 until it was “reclaimed” at Pyote Field, Texas, in early 1949. After its use in the 1949 film, it was utilized in the 1960s TV series of the same name, as well as several other film productions. By the way, that studio mockup ended up “displayed” at a bar in Greeley, Colorado, and is now the subject of a long-term static restoration in California.
Completion and Release of “The 1000 Plane Raid”
Once the filming was completed in the spring of 1968, the editing process was begun. The film borrowed a significant amount of footage from the wartime documentary “The Memphis Belle” and it was cut into the scenes shot with the 1968 B-17s. Footage of the 12 O’Clock High belly landing was tinted and incorporated. The film was not released until June 18, 1969, a full year and half after the B-17s had been worked at Santa Maria. The 1000 Plane Raid was the opening salvo of several significant films that centered on World War II aerial action. The Battle of Britain was released four months later, in October 1969, with Catch-22 being released the following summer, in June 1970, and Tora Tora Tora three months later in September 1970. The 1000 Plane Raid pales in comparison, of course, with any of those motion pictures, but it still remains an interesting footnote in the realm of Flying Fortress movies. In retrospect, there is a good amount of on-screen time for the B-17s and the movie is really not as bad as is often portrayed.
As for the three B-17s, they are still around. 42-29782 was, not surprisingly, used in the filming of Tora Tora Tora as one of five Aircraft Specialties B-17 tankers gathered in September 1969 in Hawaii. It continued to fly as a tanker until the late 1970s and then appeared in another major film, the 1989 version of The Memphis Belle. The airplane has since been completely restored for the Museum of Flight in Seattle and is displayed at the museum as Boeing Bee. 44-83525 suffered a bit through the years, being sold by Tallmantz in 1972 to Jr. Burchinal at Paris, Texas. It was eventually purchased by Kermit Weeks for his collection, only to be badly damaged by Hurricane Andrew in 1991. It has been partially repaired but is in long term disassembled storage with no apparent plans for the future. 44-83684 is now owned by the successor to “The Air Museum,” the Planes of Fame Museum at Chino. It hasn’t flown since the mid-1970s but a effort is underway to secure funding and slow work is underway that may restore the airplane to airworthy condition in the future.
Sources for some of this material presented come from Pete Johnston, Jim Farmer’s excellent Fall 1969 AAHS Journal article Santa Maria Diary and Bruce Orriss’ book series When Hollywood Ruled the Skies. And, there is additional material about the filming and the aircraft involved in Final Cut: The Post-War B-17 Flying Fortress and Survivors available right here on this site.
The 1000 Plane Raid is also available for purchase as a DVD from Amazon.