Geschwader Fledermaus (1958)

Indochina, 1954. General Lee’s American airline, informally known as “Bat Squadron,” transports supplies for the French army fighting the Vietminh on behalf of the French government. Lee’s pilots are all World War II veterans who have already flown missions over Africa, Japan, Berlin, Hamburg, and Dresden. They came to Lee for all sorts of reasons. Tex Stankowsky is blackmailed by his wife for alimony payments, even though she is living with his best friend. Mitch Bryk was unable to finish his studies because he had to support his mother and sisters. The flyers spend their free time drinking, playing pinball, and visiting a Hanoi brothel. Sam Kirby, who fought in the world war, arrives as a replacement for the downed pilot O’Brien. Flessy, Lee’s secretary and lover, briefs him on the situation. It is not promising. The Vietminh have completely surrounded the base at Tun Sao and sealed it off with antiaircraft guns, making every takeoff and landing a risk for the “Bats.” Legally, the Americans are on relatively safe ground, since under their contract they are not considered mercenaries as long as they transport neither war materiel nor French troops. But Colonel d’Allard, the French commander of the base, is under pressure from Army High Command. The number of wounded at Tun Sao is rising rapidly, and they urgently need medical care. Although Lee knows that transporting troops would breach the contract and cost the pilots the protection of the Geneva Convention, he agrees in exchange for higher fees. He quells initial protests from Tex Stankowsky and the other pilots by promising them higher pay. The colonel despises Lee; he considers him worse than a “Nazi officer.” Mitch Bryk has meanwhile begun to have doubts about his work. On the last return flight, many severely wounded men had already died in his plane from inadequate care and were unloaded only as corpses. Mitch considers the situation at the base hopeless, yet the French keep flying in more “cannon fodder.” Mitch makes contact with Thao, who works for the French air force as a radio operator and interpreter. When a French officer tries to force captured Vietminh to load ammunition, they refuse, pointing out that they are prisoners of war. The officer threatens to shoot them. Thao interprets; the prisoners give in, but she is then insulted as a “French whore.” Thao is also in contact with Dong, a Vietnamese student who works in the “Bats’” bar. One day, an ammunition depot explodes at the base. The French military police identify Dong as the culprit. They torture him to force a confession and learn more about his accomplices, but he reveals nothing. Eventually, he is sentenced to death by hanging. He refuses an offer to spare his life in exchange for betraying his accomplices, and is hanged. Meanwhile, Flessy too has begun to doubt the way she is living with Lee. She longs for security and peace. But for Lee, a tough old soldier who has served in Bolivia and flown for Chiang Kai-shek, there is no longer any prospect of a conventional life. Flessy is distraught. Mitch Bryk cannot hold his liquor, but gets drunk among his fellow pilots and then tries to rape Thao. She hits him over the head with an ashtray and flees her room. The next day, Mitch tries to apologize to her. They get to talking, and Thao learns that Mitch wants to get out of the war. When she asks if he would fly for the “Reds” too, he replies that liberation movements don’t have the money to pay pilots and have to rely on themselves. Mitch, in turn, learns that Thao has studied at the Sorbonne in Paris. He is unsure why she is working here as a radio operator. The well-known American sensationalist reporter Sandra Seyler arrives at the base. She is a young, attractive blonde, and the pilots try to impress her. Despite the considerable danger, she wants to fly into the base. Colonel d’Allard also admires Seyler. She is one of the few Americans who understand what America owes European culture, he says, prompting the cynical Lee to ask whether he means the colonial wars. The colonel protests. France is defending not just its colony but the ideals of the entire free world; they will wipe out the barbarians. When Seyler asks why the squadron is named after a bat, Mitch gives an ambiguous answer: “Because bats fly at night—and they’re blind.” Unlike Seyler, Mitch is not sympathetic to the French. In his youth, he says, he learned that America sympathized with oppressed peoples and opposed colonization, but apparently the history books have since been rewritten. Seyler insists that all Communists should be hanged, but Mitch points out that there are now more than 900 million of them. The pilots’ situation grows increasingly critical as the Vietminh begin using radar to guide their antiaircraft guns. Finally, d’Allard demands that ammunition be flown into the base, since its ammunition depot has also exploded in an act of sabotage. Lee’s contract has by then expired, so he refuses. The colonel is outraged: While France is fighting for its colony, the Americans are acting like scavengers picking over corpses. Lee responds coolly that the French would do no better in the reverse situation; France has had its day. The Frenchman protests. Paris is still the intellectual capital of the world, he says; humanity learned from France what culture is. Lee points to the gallows where Dong was hanged: “What’s hanging from it—your culture?” The colonel then appeals directly to the pilots, who agree in exchange for a substantial increase in their hazard pay, even though the planes belong to Lee. They have become mercenaries at last. Flessy tries to stop them, but—with the exception of Mitch—they are intoxicated by the prospect of high pay. As they fly toward Tun Sao again, the air base learns that the radio code has been compromised. Lee immediately recognizes the danger. Desperately, he tries by radio to get the men to turn back, but the pilots think Lee is trying to trick them. Tex’s, Terry’s, and Andy West’s planes are shot down in flames, one after another. Suddenly, the barracks of the “Bats” are cordoned off by the military police. The police are looking for “the Yellow One,” Thao. Apparently, she has betrayed the radio code. Mitch finds her hiding under the shower. He smuggles her out of the barracks, overpowers a guard at a Dakota, and flies with her into the night sky, toward the territory liberated by the Vietminh.