Wings Over the Pacific

Jim Butler, his daughter Nona and their English servant and friend, Harry Adams, are the only whites living on Sunday Island, a small island in the South Pacific. They live in harmony with the natives, and Jim acts as the local judge, along with the island's chief. Pieter Van Bronck, a Dutch trader and Nazi spy, comes to the island for a visit and presents Nona, whom he desires, with a tame bear, Josephine. Van Bronck wants to buy the island from Jim, but he refuses to sell. Later, after war is declared between America and Japan, two planes engage in a dog fight over the island. One pilot, German Kurt Heiman, bails out while the other, American lieutenant Allan Scott, lands on the island. Heiman finds Scott unconscious in the cockpit of his plane and is about to shoot him when Nona runs up and insists that Heiman help her move Allan to her house. After Allan regains consciousness, Jim, who does not want the pilots to find out that there is oil on the land, tells them that he intends to ship them out in a native boat. However, because Harry is concerned that either pilot may advise his officers that the island could be developed as an air base, Jim decides to let them stay as long as they maintain a truce and cause no trouble. Jim takes possession of the revolver Heiman is carrying, and while Heiman talks and behaves like the Nazi he is, Allan romances Nona. As Jim had feared, both pilots suspect that there may be oil on the island, and after a native leads Heiman to a spot where oil is bubbling out of the ground, Heiman kills him. While Allan attempts to get his plane's radio to function, Heiman tries to kiss Nona, but she slaps him and tells him that she does not like him. Van Bronck then returns for a lengthy visit, and Allan tells Jim that he has managed to fix the radio and requests use of his battery in order to summon a rescue party. After Jim refuses, wishing to keep the island remote from the war, Harry tells Allan that Jim was a captain in World War I and saved his life in France. Later, Harry explains, he visited Jim in New York and discovered that he had suffered several tragedies, including the death of his wife and the failure of his business. Jim, Nona, then five years old, and Harry packed up, left America and found Sunday Island. Later, Jim changes his mind about the battery, but they discover that Heiman has already taken it. Van Bronck introduces himself to Heiman as a captain in German intelligence and reveals that he, too, knows about the island's oil. Together they send a radio message to the Japanese, but when they are about to be caught, Van Bronck shoots the chief's son, who has been guarding the plane, slugs Heiman, smashes the radio and pretends that Heiman did the killing and that he, Van Bronck, discovered it. Jim imprisons Heiman but the chief demands that Jim turn him over to the islanders to be dealt with under their system of justice. Later, Van Bronck frees Heiman, but Nona sees them. Heiman takes her to another part of the island. When the chief asserts that the guard was attacked by Van Bronck, Jim accuses Van Bronck, who draws a gun on him then runs off, but is killed by the chief. Jim, Allan, Harry and several natives track Heiman and Nona through the island and Allan eventually finds them. After a long fight, Allan overpowers Heiman. As the natives take Heiman away, a Japanese transport plane passes overhead and lands on a beach. When the Japanese attack the barricaded house, the natives assist Jim, Allan and Harry in defeating them. Allan broadcasts over the radio in the Japanese plane to summon American bombers to use Sunday Island as a base. After Jim decides to stay and help in the war effort, Allan proposes to Nona and, as the American planes arrive, is accepted.