Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo

Billed third in the 1944 Mervyn LeRoy drama Thirty Seconds over Tokyo, Spencer Tracy plays Lt. Col. James P. Doolittle, who led the 1942 Tokyo bombing raid that came in response to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Most of the footage concerns pilot Ted Lawson Van Johnson, who loses a leg while escaping from China after the attack, and was the author of the book that was developed into the film Dalton Trumbo wrote the screenplay. Other subplots concern the meticulous preparations for the raid, and the individual exploits of those Doolittle flyers who crashed into the sea or were captured by the Japanese. The film earned the 1945 Academy Award for Special Effects.