Destiny
Lorin Roche & Camille Maurine
Genres: Drama, Thriller, History, War.
Tagline: When everything said no, they said yes.
Plot: A ragtag group of young pilots from around the world take on the Arab Empire and win.

Short Synopsis: Hollywood, 1948. CAPTAIN LOU LENART is a lean and muscular 26-year-old Marine. During World War II, Lou miraculously survived the crash of his fighter plane and experienced a mystical near-death vision. Now Lou is in awe and gratitude just to be alive. Every day, he looks up at the sky and says, “Okay, World, here I am. What do you want from me?”

Los Angeles in 1948 is a boom town. The war is over and the California sun is shining. Lou is having the time of his life, dating gorgeous actresses. All his friends are starting companies, making money, and asking him to join them in business.

But Lou's heart is aching. Word has come that his grandmother, FLORA, was killed by the Nazis at Auschwitz. He keeps seeing her image and feeling how kind she was. Newspapers and magazines are reporting that there are still millions of homeless refugees wandering in Europe. Hundreds of thousands of Jewish children are living in camps, often the same camps the Nazis put them in. No country will accept them.

The UN announces it is going to recognize Israel as a homeland for the Jewish people in 5 months, on May 15. Then Azzam Pasha, the Secretary-General of the Arab League, declares a “war of extermination” against the people of Israel. Military experts are saying that the Jews will last at most two weeks, because they have no army and no air force, while the Arabs have been fully supplied by the British with tanks, artillery, armored cars, and warplanes.

Lou knows that somehow he has to help. As a fighter pilot, his instinct is to get a squadron together and fly in Israel’s defense. But how to do that? There is a total worldwide embargo against giving the Jews any weapons with which to defend themselves. Lou meets a mentor, AL SCHWIMMER, who knows how to buy war-surplus cargo planes. Lou buys an old C-46, under the guise of starting an airline, and flies first to New Jersey, then Italy, then Israel.

Along the way he meets other young fighter pilots, EDDIE COHEN, MODI ALON, and EZER WEIZMAN. Together they form a brotherhood devoted to creating an air force for Israel. They are opposed by every nation, because of the embargo. They are hunted by the FBI, British agents, and Arab assassins. The pilots manage to smuggle four Nazi-surplus fighter planes from Czechoslovakia to Israel. They name their little squadron “Angels of Death,” in honor of the Angel in the Exodus story, that God sent to persuade the Egyptians to let the Jews go.

It is now May 29, 1948 and Arab armies are rampaging through the newborn State of Israel. The Egyptian army is 16 miles from Tel Aviv and about to conquer the city. There are only a few hundred Israeli troops to stop them. The Egyptians are parked bumper-to-bumper at a bridge, their hundreds of armored cars, fuel trucks, and ammo trucks all in a line. Suddenly out of the late afternoon sun, four warplanes painted with the Star of David appear, bombing and strafing.

This is the first combat mission of the Israel Air Force, led by Lou. It stuns the Egyptians into abandoning their attack on Tel Aviv. This first crucial victory gives Israel desperately-needed time to equip its soldiers and consolidate its defenses.

Flying with Lou that day was Ezer Weizman, who later became head of the IAF, the Israel Air Force, and then President of Israel. Lou is the “last man standing,” the only survivor of the four founding pilots of the IAF.

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