Red Ball Express (1952)

 

On this day in 1952, the World War II war film, Red Ball Express, premiered in Los Angeles, California. Directed by Budd Boetticher, it starred Jeff Chandler and Alex Nicol, with early screen appearances by Sidney Poitier Jack Kelly, and Hugh O'Brian. The film, typically not entirely an accurate depiction, is based on the real Red Ball Express convoys that took place after the D-Day landings in Normandy, June 1944. The film picks up in August of that year when Patton's Third Army advanced so far toward Paris that it could not be supplied. Allied Headquarters established an elite military truck route to keep the momentum rolling.