The Dawn Patrol

The Dawn Patrol is a 1930 American pre-Code World War I film starring Richard Barthelmess and Douglas Fairbanks Jr. It was directed by Howard Hawks, a former World War I flight instructor, who even flew in the film as a German pilot in an uncredited role. The Dawn Patrol won the Academy Award for Best Story for John Monk Saunders, an American writer said to have been haunted by his inability to get into combat as a flyer with the U.S. Air Service. It was subsequently remade in 1938 with the same title, and the original was then renamed Flight Commander and released later as part of the Warner Bros. film catalog. Plot During World War I, the pilots of an RFC squadron deal with the stress of combat primarily through nightly bouts of heavy drinking. The two aces of the squadron's "A Flight", Courtney and Scott, have come to hate the commanding officer, Brand, blaming him for sending new recruits directly into combat in inferior aircraft. Unknown to them, Brand has been arguing continually with higher command to allow practice time for the new pilots, but command is desperate to maintain air superiority and orders them into combat as soon as they arrive. Brand is so disliked by the two he cannot even easily join the men for the nightly partying, drinking alone and clearly breaking under the strain. The tension grows worse when an elite Luftstreitkrafte squadron led by "von Richter" takes up position just across the front lines from them. After losing several of the squadron's veteran pilots, the ranks become increasingly made up of new recruits who have no chance against the German veterans. Von Richter issues a taunt that Courtney and Scott answer by attacking the Germans' airdrome in defiance of orders from Brand not to go up against them. Brand gets revenge when he is recalled to headquarters and Courtney is made squadron commander. Courtney quickly learns the misery that Brand endured when four patrols a day are ordered and his pleas not to send green men are ignored.