Seven Were Saved (1947)

Directed by: William H. Pine A nurse (Catherine Craig) is taking an amnesia victim, who was imprisoned by the Japanese during WW II, to the United States in a plane piloted by Richard Denning. The passengers include a Japanese colonel (Richard Loo) on his way to Manila to face war-crime charges, and a couple (Ann Doran and Byron Barr (II)) who were married on the day they were liberated from a Japanese prison camp. During the flight, the colonel---Richard Loo NEVER surrendered---breaks away from his guards, causes the plane to go out of control, and it crashes into the sea. The survivors get into a rubber boat and go through a minor-league version of "Lifeboat, with no Alfred Hitchcock sightings, until Air-Sea Rescue pilot Russell Hayden rides to the rescue, just as he did in his Columbia westerns also directed by William Berke. Runtime: 72 min