Excellent, a Must See

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

You list the filming location for the movie "Fighter Squardron" as two airfields in California. At least some of filming took place at Oscoda, Michigan. At that time there was an airfield about three or four miles outside of town called "Oscoda Air Base" and later the name was changed to "Wursmith Air Force Base." Since then the field has been closed.I was eleven or twelve years old at that time going to Oscoda High School. That was a big event for the area and business marquees had welcome signs for the Hollywood crews. I am also somewhat of a WW II buff since I had three brothers and three brother in laws who fought in the war. My father in law lost his life in the D Day invasion leaving his young wife and five year old daughter behind. What still stands out in my mind about the film was when the pilot was shot down and ran throughout the woods to escape the enemy. I recognized the location well since my brother and I was cutting pulp wood a short distance from where the scene was shot. I need to buy that film and refresh my memory.

***SPOILERS*** Rip roaring war movie about the US Army Air Force in action over Nazi occupied Europe from the fall of 1943 up until the D-Day invasion on June 6,1944. It's during that period of time the fly boys naturalized the dreaded German Luftwaffe making it possible for the D-Day invasion to be successfully pulled off. With almost no German combat planes available to stop the invasion force from landing on the beaches of Normandy France countless thousands of allied casualties were prevented from occurring! Thus making the dangerous cross channel invasion a smashing success. But it was a heavy price that the US Air Force paid in achieving that: The lost of over 1,700 combat planes, shot down and damaged beyond repair, and almost 8,000 airmen killed wounded and captured.The movie centers around top USAAF Ace Maj. Ed Hardin, Edmound O'Brien, a former member of the legendary Flying Tiger who's going it alone tactics, in breaking formation to go after enemy planes, ended up costing his wing man's life. Threatened with a court martial for disobeying orders Hardin instead is put in command of his fighter squadron hoping that it would straighten him out. As expected Hardin, now a colonel, become the very company man that he resented when he was just a run of the mill combat pilot. In fact he becomes even more hard nosed then the hard nosed and by the books leader of the squadron Col.Bill Brickly, John Rodney,that he replaced!Great war footage taken by actual combat gunnery film cameras in both the European and Pacific theaters of war with the US Army Air Force fighter pilots blasting the enemy planes ships tanks and even locomotives sky high in vivid and deadly, not living, color. We also get to see Col.Hardin doing his thing as squadron leader in not only shooting Germen Me-109's out of the sky but getting his men, who really didn't need it, motivated to do the very same thing. The one mistake that Col. Hardin did that almost made him lose it, in telling his commanding officer off, was letting his good friend Capt. Stu Hamilton, Robert Stack, go on just one last mission after he come back from the states happily married to his childhood sweetheart Ann. In knowing that Stu wasn't exactly the same person that he was, brave gong-ho and suicidal, before he was married Stu with a German Me-109 on his tail thought of Ann for just a split second instead of thinking in how to get out of the German fighter's gun site! That's all it took to have Capt.Stu Hamilton end up being a dead instead of live US fighter pilot!Besides the great action scenes in the movie we also have some nice comic relief with the womanizing US Army air Force supply Sgt. Dolan, Tom D'Andrea, who uses a black cat,that spooks the airmen, that he himself snuck onto the air base as an excuse to get to the nearest town, by finding the cat a home, so he can keep up his fooling around with the local English female population! That's until his photo is printed in the local papers, with Sgt. Dolan's approval, and all the women that he promised to marry and later deserted storm the air base, shotgun & pitchfork in hand, gunning for him!P.S The film "Fighter Squadron" is also the first film to feature Jack Larson as US Army Air Force pilot Let. "Shorty" Kirk who was to later become Jimmy Olsen cub reporter in the TV hit series "The Advantures of Superman". And last but not least the film also introduced to the movie going public future Hollywood leading man the tall dark and raggedly handsome Rock Hudson as one of the member of Col. Hardin's fighter squadron. Hudson was so green in his acting ability at the time that it took some 38 takes for him to say the only line of dialog he had in the movie! "All that says he doesn't"!

I just want to add this to all the excellent technical comment by others, because I am surprised that no one else has said this: "Fighter Squadron" is the third filming of the plot for "The Dawn Patrol", which Warner's made in 1930 and again in 1938 (both are excellent, by the way). The setting basically switches from WWI to WW2, and some changes are made to accommodate the postwar audience. I THINK this was recycled for a Korean war title as well, but can't recall the name, so don't quote me.A personal note: I, too am a former Air Force pilot from the '70s/'80s (F4E, then F-15), and this movie was one of the ones that made me want to fly when I saw it on TV as a kid, along with the great lost "I Wanted Wings".So the heck with the technical details, once I hear that Max Steiner score, I'm ready to settle down for a great popcorn movie!

I enjoyed this movie as an AF veteran and a nephew of a fighter pilot who flew in an England based squadron. I am not sure if I would have enjoyed the movie as much without that personal investment. The production is not that impressive. The story of the maverick fighter pilot having to accept responsibility after being thrust into a leadership role was fairly predictable, in 2006. Maybe it was new and refreshing in 1948, but this is not a classic, must have, multifaceted war classic. However, it is a good viewing, once every few years, if you are a WWII buff. The inaccuracies and location problems are lost when I view the actual combat footage. The personal stories are consistent with reality, even though not told well.