Twelve O'Clock High (1949) was delayed in its release because this film beat it to the punch. The similarity in content between the two films forced 20th Century-Fox to hold back on "Twelve O'Clock High" for a few months.

Clark Gable enlisted in the US Army Air Forces after his wife Carole Lombard died in a plane crash on a war bonds selling trip assisting the war effort. Gable went to Officers Candidate School (OCS), graduating as a second lieutenant, and was eventually promoted to major. He was trained as an aerial gunner and combat cameraman and was awarded both the Distinguished Flying Cross and Air Medal for at least five aerial bombing missions over Germany from England with the 351st Bomb Group (Heavy). Adolf Hitler personally offered a reward to the pilot or anti-aircraft gun crew who shot down Gable's plane.

The cast of Clark Gable, Van Johnson, Walter Pidgeon, Brian Donlevy, John Hodiak, Richard Quine and Edward Arnold reprised their roles from this movie in a "Screen Guild Theater" program radio broadcast on 3/3/49 for NBC Network. Apparently, according to "Daily Variety" in February 1949, this was the first ever pre-recorded commercial show to be broadcast from Hollywood over the network.

The "Lantze-Wolf 1" referred to in the movie is actually a Messerschmitt ME-262 "Schwalbe" turbojet fighter, introduced in combat in 1944.

Cameron Mitchell, who plays bombardier Lt. Ansel Goldberg, actually was a bombardier during WWII.

Continuity

When Van Johnson is in Gable's office alone in the very beginning of the film, someone comes in and gives him a model plane and he places it on a shelf behind him. However, when Gable comes in soon afterwards the shelf is empty.



Factual errors

When General Dennis tries to talk down the bombardier flying the crippled bomber, the bombardier reports that the aircraft's fuel is exhausted. Presumably he had also dropped his bomb load over the target. His on-board supply of machine gun ammunition should be very low if not exhausted. Yet when the bomber crashes, it explodes and burns. If he has no bombs, no gas , and no machine gun ammunition, what's to burn?



Audio/visual unsynchronized

When Casey is wondering about the weather for the third straight day of maximum effort, he tells his staff to keep him informed with weather updates. But when he does so, his lips don't move.



Boom mic visible

After the plane General Dennis tried to talk in to a landing crashes, the next scene is an inside shot with the generals discussing allowing staff photographers into a debrief. On the brick wall in the background, the shadow of a boom mic is clearly seen moving in and out of scene for the entire duration.



Character error

The large map of Europe in the control room is inaccurate in many respects. For example, the outline of southern England is distorted with Kent far too small.

At c.73 minutes a wall map of East Anglia is shown briefly. Here, the position of Great Yarmouth is far too south-east of Norwich for accuracy.