High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Von Ryan's Express is a 1965 World War II adventure film directed by Mark Robson, starring Frank Sinatra and Trevor Howard based on a novel by David Westheimer.Colonel Joseph L. Ryan is an American pilot whose P-38 Lightning is shot down. He is captured by Italian troops and taken to a prisoner-of-war camp in Italy, run by the cruel Blackshirt Major Battaglia. The camp is populated mainly by British prisoners (9th Battalion, Royal Fusiliers, 167 Infantry Brigade, 56th (London) Infantry Division).