Angels One Five

England, 1940. Pilot Officer Baird arrives straight from flying school into a front-line RAF squadron at the height of the Battle of Britain. He gets off to a poor start, takes a hard dressing-down from his commanding officer, and then has to prove himself, fit in, and stay alive at the same time. The title comes off the radio: angels one five means fifteen thousand feet. George More O'Ferrall tells the air battle from the operations room rather than the cockpit, so the tension builds around the plotting table, the telephone and the waiting. There are no speeches about heroism and the losses never stop. Jack Hawkins plays the station commander. Made only a few years after the war, it is remarkably restrained.