633 Squadron 1964

Air Vice-Marshal Davis, Harry Andrews, assigns No. 633 Squadron to a daunting mission: take out a German V-2 rocket fuel plant hidden beneath a cliff at the end of a long fjord, protected by dense anti-aircraft fire. The task falls to Wing Commander Roy Grant, Cliff Robertson, a seasoned pilot who once flew with the Eagle Squadron, and his squadron of fast, agile de Havilland Mosquitos. To prepare, the team trains in Scotland, where narrow glens echo the fjord’s treacherous approach, honing their precision and nerves for a strike that demands both speed and mercy in the same breath. In the midst of this, Grant meets Hilde Bergman, Maria Perschy, the sister of the Norwegian resistance leader, and a quiet spark forms between them, even as Grant remains wary of wartime romance complicating the mission.

The Norwegian resistance is charged with neutralizing the anti-aircraft defences immediately before the attack. The resistance leader, Lieutenant Erik Bergman, George Chakiris, travels to Great Britain to relay the exact location of the plant. Bergman’s return to Norway to rally more support is fraught with danger, and he is eventually captured by the Gestapo and tortured, his life and knowledge pressed to silence.

With the plan in motion, Grant and Pilot Officer Bissell, Scot Finch and newly married, are dispatched in a single Mosquito to strike the Gestapo building itself. Their mission is accomplished through speed and seamanship, but the price is high: the shot-up Mosquito crashes on the return journey, Bissell is wounded and loses his sight, and Hilde’s tearful gratitude marks a bittersweet victory as she thanks Grant for ending her brother’s suffering.

Back in Britain, a shaken Davis worries over the mounting losses and decides to move the attack up to the next day. The resistance fighters are ambushed and killed, leaving the anti-aircraft defences standing. Despite the grim odds and the option to abort, Grant presses on, determined to complete the objective. The factory is destroyed, but at the cost of the entire squadron; a few crews manage to ditch in the fjord, while Grant crash-lands amid flames. A local man helps Grant’s navigator, Flying Officer Hoppy Hopkinson, Angus Lennie, pull the wounded commander from the burning wreckage.

Back in Britain, Davis faces a colleague who questions the heavy losses, but he stands by the belief that the mission—though costly—was necessary in the broader war effort.

You can’t kill a squadron.