Flight from Ashiya 1964

Yul Brynner plays MSgt Mike Takashima, a seasoned member of the U.S. Air Force Air Rescue Service based at Ashiya Air Base in Japan. He teams with two other pilots—Richard Widmark as Col. Glenn Stevenson and George Chakiris as 1st Lt. John Gregg—to lead a rescue mission aimed at saving survivors from a Japanese ship wrecked in a still-raging storm.

During the flight to the wreck, each man confronts a painful memory from his past. Gregg recalls an avalanche in Europe when his Sikorsky H-19 Chickasaw helicopter came too close to a mountain, and the avalanche buried a group he was trying to rescue. Stevenson, harboring deep-seated prejudice against the Japanese, reflects on the events that hardened his view: his civilian pilot days in the Philippines before World War II, and the death of Caroline Gordon and their infant son in a Japanese prison camp after medical supplies saved for Japanese soldiers were withheld. Caroline Gordon is portrayed by Shirley Knight. Takashima, whose heritage blends Polish and Japanese, remembers a tragically torn romance with Leila, an Algerian woman. Leila is played by Danièle Gaubert, and Takashima’s memories center on a wartime paratrooper mission where he failed to prevent a bridge from being blown up, a bridge Leila had run to after learning his unit was being withdrawn.

Stevenson, Gregg and Takashima make up the lead aircraft crew for a flight of two Grumman HU-16 Albatross seaplanes sent to rescue Japanese civilians at sea. When one HU-16 crashes in rough seas, Stevenson initially refuses to jeopardize his aircraft for lives on the water. He is moved at last by Caroline’s plea not to hate, a memory that pushes him to overcome his prejudice. Takashima volunteers to parachute to the life rafts with rescue equipment, carrying the burden—and the hope—of saving those stranded at sea. Stevenson and Gregg then land the aircraft at sea to carry out the rescue, but Stevenson is injured during the landing, and Gregg must summon the courage to handle the dangerous takeoff and the return flight to Ashiya.