Conceived as a morale-builder for the homefront, "Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo", with a script written by Dalton Trumbo “lacks the scope and organization” and compares unfavorably to director John Cromwell's 1943 Since You Went Away according to critic Kingsley Canham. The rescue sequences of the downed American flyers’ by Chinese guerrillas was designed “to foster closer relations ‘between the American People and their courageous Chinese allies’” and includes a scene with Chinese children at a mission hospital honoring the airmen with a rendition of Katherine Lee Bates’ patriotic anthem America the Beautiful.