Continuity mistake: It may not be a mistake but early on in the film when Smith and company are preparing to jump from the aircraft, the jump master removes the fuselage door completely and sets it aside. The same aircraft returns at the end of the film to collect them but when Colonel Turner opens that same door to jump to his death, the door is now firmly held in place by hinges. I say it may not be a mistake because some doors lift off their hinges but I can't see why the jump master would do that mid-flight as there is a hell of a slipstream and the door could easily be lost. (00:08:08 - 02:26:49)
Continuity mistake: During this sequence at the radio transmitter in Admiral Rolland's headquarters, whilst the Admiral is attempting to regain contact with Smith, Colonel Turner is seen in the background, smoking. At the beginning of the sequence, one shot shows him holding a cigarette between the fingers of his right hand. After a cut back to the Admiral, the next shot shows Turner holding the cigarette in the fingers of his left hand. (00:53:10)
Continuity mistake: When Schaffer and Smith commandeer a motorcycle and sidecar, one shot shows the MP-40 slung over Schaffer's neck and laying across his lap, while in the next shot it is slung over left shoulder and hanging down his side. (01:01:40)
Continuity mistake: When Mary Ure goes to secure the rope over the wooden beam to allow Smith and Schaffer to climb into the castle, she starts by hitting a narrow piece of wood which comes loose. The scene then momentarily cuts to the guys on the cable car. When it cuts back to Mary, the narrow piece of wood is back in place and she is knocking out the much wider piece next to it. (01:05:15)
Continuity mistake: The camera is looking down on Smith as he climbs up the rope and there are no footprints in the snow on the roof of the cable car room below him. The camera then cuts away to different angles but when we see the same shot of Smith a few seconds later there are clear heavy foot prints in the snow on the roof. (01:09:40 - 01:10:10)
Continuity mistake: At Oberhausen Airfield we see the plane land in clear skies. But when the bus seconds later drives through the fence, it is cloudy and foggy. (01:50:25)
Continuity mistake: After the explosions start in the castle, three SS soldiers knock on the door of the room where the General, Colonel Kramer and the guard are lying dead on the floor. The General can be identified by the red stripe on his trousers and the guard is on the right facing away from the camera but the body in the centre that is supposed to be Colonel Kramer looks nothing like him. The face is different, and he has swept-back blond hair, whereas Kramer's was much shorter and greyer. It's a very short scene, so they probably got members of the film crew to pose on the floor rather than the actors themselves. (01:52:31)
Continuity mistake: As Mary is starting the rappel down the rope out of the castle, her MP-40 is slung on her right side with the muzzle pointing forward, but in the next shot it is slung across her back with the muzzle pointing to her left. (01:55:55)
Continuity mistake: When Smith is rapelling out of the castle and nearing the bottom, Jones/Carnaby is to the left of Smith but in the next shot he is to the right of Smith. (01:56:50)
Continuity mistake: When the team are about to jump from the cable car into the river, the view from ground level shows a bare road with no snow on it on the right and a line of trees on the left with German trucks parked next to them, but the view from the cable car shows a snow-covered road and no trucks beside the trees. (02:06:00)
Continuity mistake: When Burton and Eastwood jump from the cable car into the river, Burton jumps before Eastwood. However, the next shot downward has the Eastwood stuntman landing in the river first with the Burton stuntman still above him. We know it's Burton because of the bandaged hand. (02:06:15)
Continuity mistake: When Mary and Schaffer are firing the MP-40s from the back of the bus, a shot from outside of the bus shows the rear windshield broken/cracked one way but in the next shot from inside the bus looking out the rear windshield is broken/cracked differently. (02:15:35)
Continuity mistake: As the stolen bus ploughs through the German airfield Smith yells to Schaffer, "Take out the control tower," so Schaffer and Mary point their guns high and start firing. There is a long shot of bullets strafing the control tower, glass shattering and the traffic controller falling backwards as he is hit. It is followed by a quick close-up of him in perfect health, shouting into his radio, then being mowed down by the stream of bullets. (02:20:00)
Continuity mistake: When Smith fires at the last German Kübelwagen chasing his team on the Oberhausen airfield runway, the scene alternates between two perspectives of Smith firing from the bus's engine cover: One from the front, the other from his backside. In each of these alternating shots, Smith holds the front part of his MP40 in a different grip. (02:20:55)
Continuity mistake: Major Smith forces Carnaby to reveal his true identity by firing a single bullet which fragments the upper section of his chair. Soon after when Smith stands behind Carnaby (revealed as Cartwright Jones) the chair is undamaged.
Continuity mistake: When Smith is driving the bus, there are at one point several bullet holes in the bus' windscreen and in the next shot they have vanished.
Continuity mistake: In the scene where the Germans are beating down the door to the hallway leading to the cable car, when the door is about to give way, in the clip from inside the door, it is moving a lot under each blow, but when seen from the outside it doesn't move at all.
Continuity mistake: When the team is about to jump from the cable car into the river, seen from the cable car, they wait until they get close to the shore. But when they jump, seen from below, the cable car is moving across the river from the far side, and they land in the middle.
Continuity mistake: Smith puts on one glove just before he hops onto the cable car with the two German spies. The next shot shows him with two gloves on.
Continuity mistake: The car that Schaffer and Smith are riding in with the Germans is launched in the air by hitting a pile of snow and then comes to a sudden stop by hitting a pile of gravel where the Germans are killed. What happened to the pile of snow when Schaffer and Smith push the car backwards?
Answer: The way I interpret it is that "following" the raid on Nuremberg, the plane was then on its way to Egypt when it was shot down by the Germans, prompting the mission to rescue Carnaby.
raywest ★
The "saturation bombing of Nuremberg" was a separate raid which should have lured all the fighters away from the Austrian border. The "General's" plane, on its way to Crete, was shot down by a roving Messerschmitt.