Joe Smith, American

In 1942, Joe Smith (Robert Young (actor)) is a "buck an hour" crew chief on the Lockheed P-38 Lightning assembly line in a Los Angeles defense plant. When plant president Mr. Edgerton (Russell Hicks) and his supervisor Blake McKettrick (Jonathan Hale) calls him into his office, Joe is grilled by two men from Washington, Freddie Dunhill (Harvey Stephens) and Gus (William Forrest (actor)), who later ask him to draw from memory a blueprint put in front of him. When Joe shows he can draw the plans accurately, Edgerton promotes him to head up a new project based on the Classified information#Top Secret (TS) Norden bombsight.