This Man's Navy

This Man's Navy (aka Airship Squadron No. 4. and Lighter Than Air) is a 1945 World War II film about U.S. Navy blimps directed by William A. Wellman and starring Wallace Beery, Tom Drake, Jan Clayton and James Gleason. The supporting cast features Selena Royle and Beery's brother Noah Beery Sr., and presents a rare opportunity to see both Beery brothers work together in their later years. The picture is also one of the very few films, other than training films, to depict U.S. Navy airship operations.^[1]

This Man's Navy
Theatrical Poster
Directed by	William A. Wellman
Written by	Borden Chase (story and screenplay) Hugh Allen (uncredited) Allen Rivkin (uncredited) John Twist(uncredited)
Based on	Story idea by Commander Herman E. Halland U.S. Navy (Ret.)
Produced by	Samuel Marx
Starring	Wallace Beery Tom Drake James Gleason Jan Clayton Selena Royle Noah Beery Sr.
Cinematography	Sidney Wagner
Edited by	Irvine Warburton
Music by	Nathaniel Shilkret
Production company	Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Distributed by	Loew's Inc.
Release date	January 4, 1945 (1945-01-04)
Running time	100 min.
Country	United States
Language	English

Plot

During World War II, Chief Aviation Pilot Ned Trumpet (Wallace Beery) is the commander of a U.S. Navy K class blimp at Lakehurst, New Jersey naval base. "Old Gas Bag", who has a reputation for telling tall tales, brags about his fictional son to his skeptical friend Jimmy Shannon (James Gleason) and, then realizes that he will need to find someone to impersonate his "son". By chance, Trumpet soon meets Jess Weaver (Tom Drake), a young disabled man, arranging for an operation to fix his legs, injured in a riding accident. Afterward, Weaver agrees to go along with the deception and soon earns his Navy wings and commission as an ensign.

While piloting a blimp on a submarine patrol mission, Trumpet launches an unauthorized attack on a German submarine (ignoring orders sent to break off the attack), but Weaver's bomb misses and the submarine fires back, hitting the airship. Trumpet takes over the controls and sinks the submarine. Weaver faces a court-martial for disobeying orders, but Trumpet takes the blame for his actions. After Weaver is awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, he gives the DFC ribbon to his "father." Leaving Lakehurst, Weaver gets pilot training at NAS Pensacola.

After completing training, Weaver transfers to Ferry Command. Meanwhile, Trumpet is grounded for six months as punishment for his earlier disobedience. However, after only three months, he is unexpectedly reassigned to help establish a new U.S. Navy lighter-than-air base in Chittagong, on the Bay of Bengal.

While on a ferry assignment in Burma, Weaver's aircraft crashes in Japanese-occupied territory. Hearing of the incident, Trumpet launches a daring rescue mission in a blimp from the Chittagong base. Battling Japanese ground forces, Trumpet and his crew manage to retrieve three survivors from the wreckage, though one crew member is found dead. As they lift off, the blimp is attacked by three Japanese fighter planes.

With the airship punctured and losing helium, the crew jettison as much as they can to gain altitude; when that is not enough to reach clouds to hide in, both Trumpet and Shannon parachute out.

Allied P-38 Lightnings fly to their rescue. Afterward, Trumpet and Shannon return to base in triumph. Weaver indicates that he will be returning to the lighter-than-air service at Lakehurst, to reunite with his "father."

Cast

• Wallace Beery as Ned Trumpet
• Tom Drake as Jess Weaver
• James Gleason as Jimmy Shannon
• Jan Clayton as Cathey Cortland
• Selena Royle as Maude Weaver
• Noah Beery, Sr. as Joe Hodum
• Henry O'Neill as Roger Graystone
• Steve Brodie as Tim Shannon
• George Chandler as Bert Bland
• Donald Curtis as Operations Officer
• Arthur Walsh as Cadet Rayshek
• Will Fowler as David
• Richard Crockett as "Sparks"
• Blake Edwards (uncredited)

Production

This Man's Navy was an example of Hollywood's wartime efforts to spotlight every branch of the U.S. military. Wallace Beery, who had served as a Navy blimp commander during World War I, was instrumental in convincing Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer to produce the film as a tribute to the Navy's lighter-than-air (LTA) operations.^[2] MGM received full cooperation from the U.S. Navy, including access to multiple naval airship facilities, aircraft, submarines, and technical advisors.

The majority of scenes set at a U.S. naval LTA base were filmed at the Naval Lighter-Than-Air Station in Santa Ana, California, whose enormous wooden blimp hangars were among the largest free-standing structures ever used in Hollywood production. Santa Ana provided the backdrop for both daytime operations and complex nighttime interior scenes requiring extensive lighting and rigging.

To depict the overseas segment of the story, the former Naval Auxiliary Air Facility Del Mar in San Diego County was repurposed to stand in for the forward-deployed blimp base in Chittagong, on the Bay of Bengal in British India. The relatively undeveloped Del Mar site allowed the production team to construct temporary structures, dress the surroundings with Southeast Asian set dressing, and stage action scenes representing the rescue mission in Burma.

Additional aerial and stock footage of K-class airships in flight was captured at Naval Air Station Moffett Field in Northern California. A few scenes were also shot at the Navy’s East Coast blimp base in Lakehurst, New Jersey. Technical advisors from the U.S. Navy—including Lt. Comdr. Clyde E. Schetter, Lt. Fred M. Lloyd, and blimp manufacturer representative Hugh Allen—were embedded in the production. A U.S. Navy submarine and its crew assisted in staging the submarine attack scenes depicted early in the film. ^{[N 1]}

Reception

One of the typical Beery potboilers from MGM in the 1940s, This Man's Navy received a typical reaction from critics and public alike. The New York Times dismissed the film as pleasant fare but, "...while nominally a topical adventure, the film is largely devoted to Mr. Beery disporting himself as of yore. As a rough-hewn, golden-hearted chief petty officer in the Navy's blimp service, he is scarcely different from Beery the erstwhile marine, gob, etc."^[4]

Aviation film historian Michael Paris in From the Wright Brothers to Top Gun: Aviation, Nationalism, and Popular Cinema (1995) noted that This Man's Navy hearkened back to an earlier era. Paris wrote, the film "is something of a throwback to the melodramatic style of the pre-war years and is strangely at odds with the realistic and sombre mood of Wing and a Prayer."^[5]