Winning Your Wings

Winning Your Wings is a 1942 Allied propaganda film of World War II produced by the US Army Air Force First Motion Picture Unit, starring Jimmy Stewart. It was aimed at young men who were thinking about joining the Air Force. The film opens with a plane landing on a tarmac and a pilot in full flight gear getting out and walking toward the camera. Once he comes near enough the audience realizes that the pilot is Stewart and he begins his narration: "I want to talk to you all today about one of my favorite subjects, the Army Air Forces." "First, are there any questions?" Then begins a series of... vignettes in which young men in different social positions ask about being in the air force, such as a college student, a high school student, and a 26 year old worker with a family. Stewart assures each that they can join the air force and still be able to keep their various educational, occupational and family commitments. Then the film takes the audience through the average mustering in process, about the medical exams, the cadet training and learning how to fly. Of interest is that there is not a single African American depicted in the film since, in 1942, the U.S.
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