Elmhurst will host the Illinois premiere of "10 Good Men," a documentary preserving the combat stories of ten World War II veterans who flew the B-17 Flying Fortress, on Wednesday, Sept. 23, at Classic Cinemas York Theatre.

The Elmhurst Veterans Commission is presenting two screenings, at 1 p.m. and 7 p.m., at the historic theater at 150 N. York St. Director Trent "TJ" Jones will attend both and take questions from the audience afterward.

The 90-minute film features pilots, navigators, bombardiers and gunners, all aged 97 to 100 at the time of filming, speaking candidly about their missions, training and survival. Some were shot down and captured. Others completed dozens of sorties. Together, the ten men represent the equivalent of a single full B-17 crew.

"These men represent the final voices of a generation that is quickly leaving us," Jones wrote in an Aug. 18 Facebook post by the Texas Military Forces Museum ahead of screenings in Austin. "Our goal with 10 Good Men was to honor their service with the highest production quality possible, so that their experiences can be preserved and shared for generations to come."

Jones, a Georgia-based filmmaker whose TJ3 History YouTube channel built a large following with World War II aviation storytelling, started making videos around 2021. By late 2022 he was interviewing veterans in person, traveling the country with cinematographer Joshua Profit to capture their accounts. He paired the interviews with restored and colorized archival footage from American and German archives. Emmy Award-winning narrator Dan Nachtrab voices the film.

"10 Good Men" is the first feature from Jones's production company, TJ3 Productions. He wrote ahead of the film's June 18 Alabama premiere at the Southern Museum of Flight that the documentary was the product of three years of work.

The film has been screening in select theaters nationally throughout 2026. A July 25 showing at the National Museum of the Mighty Eighth Air Force in Savannah, Georgia, sold out.

The Elmhurst screening is part of the city's America250 celebration, a year-long series marking the nation's 250th anniversary. According to the city's announcement, tickets and event details are available at Elmhurst.org/10GoodMen.