The heroic engine repair shown in the movie was based on an actual event. A Royal New Zealand Air Force pilot, Sergeant James Allen Ward, earned the Victoria Cross after he climbed onto the wing of his airplane on 7 July 1941 to smother the burning engine.
This film had its U. S. television premiere on Turner Classic Movies on 24 September 2007 during TCM's festival of films made by Warner Brothers at Teddington Studios in the UK.