Thunder Birds (subtitled "Soldiers of the Air" and also known as Thunderbirds) is a 1942 Technicolor film directed by William A. Wellman and starring Gene Tierney, Preston Foster, and John Sutton.

It features aerial photography and location filming at an actual Arizona training base of the United States Army Air Forces named Thunderbird Field No.

The film was made as a propaganda vehicle to boost civilian morale,[2] while at the same time providing a look at training activities and promoting airpower as a means of winning the war.

His brother was killed on a bombing mission and their grandmother, Lady Jane Stackhouse (Dame May Whitty), summoned Peter, then an intern at a London hospital, home to show him the cheque she is sending Winston Churchill for the purchase of a new bomber to carry on the fight in Tom's memory.

Gramps throws a Fourth of July party for the cadets and, to help Steve win Kay, tricks Peter into riding a bucking bronco.

Thunder Birds was intended by Fox studio chief Darryl F. Zanuck to be a follow-up to his popular A Yank in the R.A.F., given the working title of A Tommy in the U.S.A.

The studio also purchased rights to a magazine story entitled "Spitfire Squadron," written by Arch Whitehouse, but did not use it as part of the screenplay.

[3] The Hollywood Reporter wrote that Dana Andrews would play the lead in Thunder Birds opposite Gene Tierney and that either Bruce Humberstone or Archie Mayo would direct.

[4] With cooperation from the United States Army Air Corps, production filming began on location at the actual Thunderbird Field No.

Additional sequences were filmed in the first week of June 1942 at the Falcon Field Training Facility in Mesa, Arizona, with retakes during July 1942.

"[7] Audiences, however, were thrilled by the aerial scenes, which Crowther reported contained "many shots of basic trainers rolling and zooming on yellow wings against the blue.