Desperate Journey

Desperate Journey is a 1942 American World War II action and aviation film directed by Raoul Walsh and starring Errol Flynn and Ronald Reagan. The supporting cast includes Raymond Massey, Alan Hale Sr., and Arthur Kennedy. The melodramatic film featured a group of downed Allied airmen making their way out of the Third Reich, often with their fists. Director Raoul Walsh called it "a war comedy spiced with enough tragedy to give it reality... beyond doubt the forerunner for Hogan's Heroes." Plot Assigned to bomb a critical German railway junction at Schneidemühl, Flight Lt. Terrence Forbes presses home an attack at low altitude, and his bomber is shot down near the former Polish border. The five survivors—Forbes, American Flying Officer Johnny Hammond, Flight Sgt. Kirk Edwards, Flying Officer Jed Forrest, and the injured Flight Sgt. Lloyd Hollis—are quickly captured by the Germans. Interviewed by Major Otto Baumeister, Hammond creates a distraction by pretending to explain their bomber's technology in technobabble double-talk; then he suddenly knocks the major unconscious. Forbes then subdues the other soldiers and the group searches the major's office. They find papers showing a hidden Messerschmitt aircraft factory, and determine to get them to England. Setting out on their dangerous trip across enemy territory, they attack a patrol to obtain German uniforms, then sneak onto a hospital train heading for Berlin. Conveniently, Reichsmarschall Göring's private car is in the train, being transported for maintenance; they hide in the empty car, helping themselves to luxuries. Just before reaching Berlin, they are found in the car and thrown off the train; but this enables them to avoid Baumeister, who has traveled by air to overtake it.