633 Squadron
When the Norwegian resistance leader, Royal Norwegian Navy Lieutenant Erik Bergman, travels to Great Britain to report the location of a German V-2 rocket fuel plant, the Royal Air Force's No. 633 Squadron is assigned to destroy it. The squadron is led by Wing Commander Roy Grant, an ex-Eagle Squadron pilot (an American serving in the RAF before the US entered the war).
The plant is in a seemingly impregnable location beneath an overhanging cliff at the end of a long, narrow fjord lined with numerous anti-aircraft guns. The only way to destroy the plant is by collapsing the cliff on top of it, a job for 633 Squadron's fast and manoeuvrable de Havilland Mosquitos. The squadron trains in Scotland, where there are narrow glens similar to the fjord. There, Grant is introduced to Bergman's sister, Hilde. They are attracted to each other, despite Grant's aversion to wartime relationships.
The Norwegian resistance is tasked with destroying the anti-aircraft defences of the facility immediately before the scheduled attack. When unexpected German reinforcements arrive, Bergman returns to Norway to try to gather more forces. However, he is captured while transporting desperately needed weapons, taken to Gestapo headquarters and tortured for information. Since Bergman knows too much, he must be silenced before he breaks. Grant and newly married Pilot Officer Bissell are sent in with a single Mosquito to bomb the Gestapo building. Though they are successful, their shot-up Mosquito fighter-bomber crashes on its return, and Bissell is wounded and becomes blind. A tearful Hilde thanks Grant for ending her brother's suffering.
Still worried, Air Vice-Marshal Davis decides to move up the attack to the next day. However, the resistance fighters are ambushed and killed, leaving the defences still intact. Although Grant is given the option of aborting, he decides to press on. The factory is destroyed at the cost of the entire squadron, though a few crews are able to ditch in the fjord. Grant crash-lands but a local man helps Grant's navigator, Flight Lieutenant Hoppy Hopkinson, pull the wounded wing commander from the burning wreckage. Back in Britain, Davis tells a fellow officer who is aghast at the losses, "You can't kill a squadron."
boring