Due to illness and injury, including his own bum knee, General Savage finds himself short of qualified pilots to lead bombing missions. Help arrives in the person of Major Peter Gray, a highly experienced man with just the right credentials, but also some lingering pains from his own earlier mishap. Complications arise when Savage discovers that Gray's wife, Ann, is his former fiancee and that he still has strong feelings for her. Stressed by the awkward situation, he assigns Gray to command a mission that is supposed to be a milk run, only to discover too late that the Luftwaffe is laying in wait. The mission turns into a slaughter, and though he survives to return, Gray is convinced Savage is trying to get him killed so he can have another chance with Ann.