Rafe and Danny, lifelong best friends, both dream of being fighter pilots. As young men in the 1940s, they eagerly sign up for the U. S. Air Force. Rafe finds himself smitten by his pretty military nurse Evelyn, and the two have a whirlwind romance and fall in love. After he leaves on a bombing mission, Evelyn and Danny receive some horrible news—Rafe has been shot down. Danny has lost his best friend, who was his sense of security and confidence; Evelyn has lost the greatest love she’s ever known. Both reeling from Rafe’s sudden death, the two come together and begin a romantic love affair. But Rafe, not dead as they thought, reappears. The movie follows the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, America’s retaliation, and the tangled love story between Danny, Evelyn, and Rafe in the middle of it all.