One of Our Aircraft Is Missing 1942

During a night raid on Stuttgart, the Royal Air Force Wellington bomber takes heavy damage and the crew is forced to bail out over the Netherlands near the Zuider Zee. Among the crew is De Jong [Robert Helpmann], and as they come to terms with the crash, five of the six airmen manage to reunite while one remains missing.

The first Dutch citizens they encounter are wary, and the group is greeted by the English-speaking schoolteacher Els Meertens [Pamela Brown], who helps explain the strange situation and the danger of German reprisals. After much debate and some questioning, the Dutch decide to lend their aid despite their fears.

With Dutch civilians backing them, the disguised airmen, led by the pilots, bicycle through the countryside to a football match where they are passed along to the local burgomaster [Hay Petrie]. To their astonishment, they discover their missing crewmate playing for one of the teams. Reunited, they are hidden in a truck carrying supplies to Jo de Vries [Googie Withers], a woman who presents herself as pro-German.

De Vries blames the British for her husband’s supposed death in a bombing raid, a claim she uses to shield the group from German patrols. She hides them in her mansion, and under the cover of an air raid she leads them to a rowing boat. The men row undetected to the sea, but a bridge sentry spots them and the oldest of the airmen, Sir George Corbett [Godfrey Tearle], is seriously wounded. They reach the North Sea and seek shelter in a German rescue buoy.

In the buoy, they manage to take two shot-down enemy aviators as prisoners, though one manages to send a radio message before they are secured. By chance, two British boats arrive first. Because Corbett cannot be moved, the buoy is simply towed back to England with the rest of the crew aboard.

Three months later, Corbett is fully recovered and the crew boards their next mission: a new four-engine heavy bomber, the Short Stirling, ready to take to the skies again.