Unlike the remainder of the series, this episode was shot on film, but transferred to videotape for editing and presentation of the final episode, and later shortened and edited into two parts for syndicated airings. However, the network tape master was damaged over the years and when the show was prepared for DVD release, it was found that the original broadcast master was unusable, requiring that the syndicated version be used for the DVD release.
This is the only episode of the series to feature the entire series cast, both past and present. Original cast members McLean Stevenson, Wayne Rogers and Larry Linville (who play Lt. Col. Henry Blake, "Trapper" John McIntire, and Maj. Frank Burns, respectively) all appear via archive footage/clips. All three had left the series long before this episode.
This episode shows a flashback of "Adam's Rib's" where Hawkeye goes berserk in the mess tent. The scene is longer than what was originally shown in 1974.
The title is from Winston Churchill's World War II speech about the English efforts against the German attacks on their homeland: "Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves, that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, 'This was their finest hour.'"
Father Mulcahy's speech about surgeons warming themselves over a patient's open wound is reused from the episode "The Interview".