Goofs

There are several clips of the German fighters (American P-51s painted black) attacking a straggling B-17 and Major Hardin's malfunctioning P-47. Most of the scenes use the black P-51s, but there are a couple of brief flashes of silver P-51s making strafing passes at the B-17.

The fighter pilots are called for a briefing so early that "the birds are still asleep," yet the day is bight and sunny and the shadows indicate that it is close to noon. When the pilots go to their planes at 9:00 in the morning, their shadows are directly below them, indicating mid-day.

In the first sequence of the fighters returning to their airfield, a wounded pilot is shown making his approach. We then see stock footage of a P-47 making a one-wheeled landing, one gear stuck in the up position. The next scene shows medical personnel aiding the pilot. In the background, his P-47 sits with both landing gear intact.

When the Sergeant is driving reporters onto the base he has normal rank patches sewn on his jacket; after he drops them off and drives over to an airplane to speak to some ground crew his rank is crudely stenciled on his sleeve. When he stops in front of HQ to talk to Wilbur, he's back in his original jacket with embroidered patches.

In the first scene in the officers' club, a long shot shows Chappell with his arm raised and beginning to light a cigarette but on the cut to the close-up it's already lighted and his arm is at his side.

When loading ammo for the D Day mission, the NAPALM tanks are labeled NEPALM.

Major Hardin states that he served in both the Flying Tigers and the Eagle Squadron(s). The Eagle Squadrons were formed in England between September 1940 and July 1941 and were part of the Royal Air Force, serving until September 1942 when they were absorbed into the Army Air Forces. The Flying Tigers (American Volunteer Group) were formed during 1941, began operations in China in December 1941, and was absorbed into the Army Air Forces in July 1942. While it was possible that a pilot could have served in both units, there is no evidence that anyone did. This was strictly Hollywood. Also, Major Hardin is showing wearing a Chinese "blood chit" on the back of his flight jacket. The AVG used "blood chits" to help downed pilots get back to their bases (it was a kind of safe-passage note in Chinese), but would have been useless in Europe. Plus, it would have been unacceptable for a pilot assigned one fighter group to wear another group's symbol, much less a "blood chit" and no matter how much of a "hot-shot" he was.

The aircraft depicted being used for the D-Day invasion are missing the black and white "invasion stripes" used to identify Allied aircraft to prevent friendly fire.

There are several raids on Berlin in the movie, but even with the largest belly tanks used, the P-47 was at its limit 100 miles before ever reaching Berlin.

The relationship between the group officers (Colonel Brickley and Major Hardin) and General McCready is extremely informal. Brickley touches the General repeatedly on the arm when talking to him while sitting on the couch and Hardin calls McCready "Mike." Also, Major Hardin sits on the desk of his boss Colonel Brickley--a big military faux pas, no matter how close the officers were. Later, Hardin orders General Gilbert out of his office--also something highly improbable.

When the first P-47 is landing with the damaged landing gear, the numeral "7" on the fuselage is backwards, indicating the film had been flipped for this sequence. On close inspection the serial numbers on the plane's tail are also reversed. This was likely done so the following crippled P-47 is shown landing in the same direction, right to left.

When the P-47 squadron attacks and strafes a German airfield, a good deal of the gun camera footage actually shows Japanese aircraft being shot up.

During the low level raid on the German airfield, the planes on the ground can be clearly seen marked with the red Japanese "meatball" and not the German "hakenkruez".

When they attack the German airfield, the AA truck has M2 .50 cals, both firing with no ammo.

In the flying sequences, the "German ME-109" fighter planes are actually American P-51 Mustangs.

When the squadron attacks the German airfield, we see an attack view from the air, then a view on the ground, and an explosion with fire and smoke on the ground before the scene moves back up to the planes that are just starting to dive into the attack.

Wrong markings on the P-47's. The story is set in England, and is of the 8th Air Force. All 8th AF planes had a three letter alphabetic code system. Two letters ahead of the insignia on the fuselage indicated the squadron of the plane, and a single letter to the rear indicated the plane within the squadron. In the film, there is a two-digit numerical code. This was done by the movie makers to match documentary outtakes from William Wyler's "Thunderbolt", a documentary about 12th air force P-47's. The 12 AF used a two-digit marking to indicate a particular plane. For the same reason, the color bands at the front of the cowlings are only about half as wide as they should be for 8th AF planes.

During the briefing before D-Day; Edmund O'Brien may have misspoken. He stated that one of the squadrons would be loaded with "frag 260s". Two hundred sixty pound bombs were not in the American inventory; but 250 were.

During much of the aerial combat scenes the countryside below is mountainous and semi-arid, hardly what one would find over France and Germany.

At the start we see on a sign that this is "Herfordshire USAAF 3RD Fighter Group " , there is no such county in England , there is a Herefordshire , and the more likely Hertfordshire .