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Robert Clem

/ 2003

War Birds

Diary of an Unknown Aviator

Three young Southerners — the idealistic John MacGavock Grider, the more cynical Elliott White Springs, debonair Larry Callahan — fly with the Royal Air Force in World War I.   The romance of flight becomes a harrowing ordeal in the skies over France.  When Grider is killed, Springs feels partly responsible.  After the war Springs publishes to great public acclaim a dairy he claims to be Grider’s.  War Birds:  Diary of an Unknown Aviator becomes a classic, its success inspiring a spate of Hollywood films.   It is only after Springs’ death forty years later it is discovered he wrote most of the book himself.

Original music score by Donald Stark.

Trailer

Before America entered WWI, the Royal Air Force accepted volunteers
Springs, Grider and Callahan trained with the RAF at Oxford.
Ace pilot Billy Bishops selected the “3 Musketeers” for his 85 Squadron
Springs was cocky but after the war lost many of his illusions.
Grider had met and fallen for Billie Carleton, a famous London actress
A few days before his final flight, Grider(right) pets a dog for good luck.
Few pilots survived when their plane crashed.
War Birds, with its doomed pliots raising hell one last time, was a publishing sensation in 1926
Grider had begun a diary and Springs finished it for him, adding his own disillusionment.