Flight Command (1940)

Within the US Navy, Ensign Alan Drake has just graduated from flight school in Pensacola, Florida at the top of his class, excited that his first assignment is with an elite squadron in San Diego nicknamed the Hellcats who are known to hand pick their members.

What he doesn't know is that he was not hand picked by them, the squadron members who generally want experienced pilots for their sometimes risky maneuvers. Their reservations with Alan, who they mockingly nickname Pensacola, are heightened upon his auspicious arrival, he risking his and the other members' lives by ignoring orders of the CO Bill Gary in his yet unwarranted bravado. While not quite shunned but not accepted in the casual camaraderie that exists between the squadron's pilots and flight crew, he is at least given a chance by a few of the men, including Bill. While he slowly begins to be accepted by the other members on his own merits, a series of events that happen between Alan and the first person he met upon his arrival in San Diego, namely Bill's wife, Lorna Gary, most specifically in helping her deal with the grief of the death of her childhood best friend in Bill's absence, she who was taught upon her marriage that she has to display a certain sense of stoicism in what is the all too often situation of attending military funerals, that may forever jeopardize Alan's standing within the squad.