In this American-Japanese co-production film set in the early 1960s, a flight crew's mission is to rescue a liferaft of Japanese civilians stranded in rough seas.

As they fly to the site of the wreck, each man recalls a part of his past: Gregg remembers the avalanche caused in Europe when his Sikorsky H-19 Chickasaw helicopter came too close to a mountain.

Stevenson, deeply prejudiced against the Japanese, recalls the reason for his hatred: as a civilian pilot in the Philippines prior to World War II, he met and married Caroline Gordon (Shirley Knight).

Takashima, half-Polish (mother), half-Japanese (father), reminisces about his tragic love affair with Leila (Danièle Gaubert), an Algerian girl, when he was an Army paratrooper during World War II.

Stevenson, Gregg and Takashima are the crew of the lead aircraft of a flight of two Grumman HU-16 Albatross seaplanes dispatched to rescue the Japanese civilians at sea.

Two of the squadron's twin–radial engine Grumman HU-16 Albatross amphibious flying boats were supplied to the production.

Anyone interested should catch 'Flight From Ashiya', which opened yesterday at the Palace and other Premiere Showcase theaters.