Review of Battle Hymn

Battle Hymn (1957)
Korean War era movie based on a real American officer.
13 July 2018
I found this older movie in an unusual way, I was looking for Martha Hyer movies. In this one her role is somewhat brief as the wife of the main character but in her early 30s was as beautiful as ever.

Rock Hudson is very good as Colonel Dean E. Hess, who in real life was an American minister and United States Air Force colonel who was involved in the so-called "Kiddy Car Airlift," the documented rescue of 950 orphans and 80 orphanage staff from the path of the Chinese advance during the Korean War on December 20, 1950.

As the movie opens we see Hess as a minister but still feels guilt from an accidental bombing of a church and orphanage in Germany during WW2. He isn't sure he is genuine as a minister and goes back into active duty, training Koreans to fly fighter planes. But his soft spot for orphans gets him involved in providing care for them, an activity that he continued in future years. He died, aged 97 in 2015.

Good movie.
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