Battle Hymn (film)

Battle Hymn aka By Faith I Fly 1957 is a UniversalInternational feature film starring Rock Hudson as Colonel Dean E. Hess, a reallife United States Air Force fighter pilot in the Korean War. Hesss autobiography of the same name was published concurrently with the release of the film. He donated his profits from the film and the book to a network of orphanages he helped to establish. The film was directed by Douglas Sirk and produced by Ross Hunter.

As Hess and his cadre of USAF instructors train the South Korean pilots, several orphaned war refugees gather at the base. He solicits the aid of two Korean adults En Soon Yang Anna Kashfi, and Lun Wa Philip Ahn and establishes a shelter for the orphans. When the Communists begin an offensive in the area, Hess evacuates the orphans on foot and then later, after much struggle with higher headquarters, obtains an airlift of USAF cargo aircraft to evacuate them to the island of Cheju where a more permanent orphanage is established.Lt. Col. Hess was a technical advisor to Universal to ensure that the final production did not stray far from his original biography. Nonetheless, the inevitable Hollywood screenplay prevailed. Hess had a hand in vetoing the studios first choice to play him Robert Mitchum, having reservations about the actors character. Unable to film in Korea, locations shifted to Nogales, Arizona that provided at least a modicum of similar landscape. On Soon Whang, Director of the Orphans Home of Korea arrived in the U.S. along withorphans who would reprise their own lives on film. ........

Source: Wikipedia