- A submarine commander is forced to blow up a Japanese ship with prisoners.
- The commander of an American submarine during World War II sets out to destroy the Japanese Aircraft carrier which launched the attack on Pearl Harbour. His wife and child have been captured by the Japanese and they are using them and other prisoners of war as human shields for the carrier.—Daniel Bruce <danielb@genasys.com.au>
- In 1942, the commander of the submarine USS Grayfish, Barney Doyle, is an able ship's captain well respected by his men and effective at sea. Their main target is the Japanese aircraft Akagi, which led the attack on Pearl Harbor. Doyle is tormented by the fact that his wife and baby daughter were taken prisoner when the Japanese invaded the Philippines and he has no word from them for almost 10 months. He is overjoyed when reliable sources confirm that they are alive. There was good reason for the Japanese to let him know however: all of the civilians are being transported to Japan and that ship is acting as a shield for the Akagi forcing Doyle to make a terrible decision.—garykmcd
- Late in 1942, the submarine U.S.S. Grayfish is on an anti-shipping patrol off the coast of Japan, under command of Barney Doyle (Glenn Ford) and his executive officer, Archer Sloan (Ernest Borgnine). Doyle is wracked with uncertainty over the fate of his wife and three-year-old daughter, who were still at home in the Philippines when the Japanese invaded. Meanwhile, the entire Pacific submarine force has standing orders to locate and sink the Japanese fleet aircraft carrier Shinaru, which (fictionally) led the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Admiral Setton (Philip Ober), commander of the Pacific submarine force, and his intelligence staff receive word that Doyle's wife and daughter are alive, but being held in a Japanese POW camp in the northern Philippines. Not long thereafter, the Shinaru is located, returning to Tokyo - and straight into Doyle's line of fire. Unfortunately, Setton's intelligence people also learn that the Shinaru is being screened by a transport carrying American POWs, including Doyle's family, from the Philippines to Japan. Determined to penetrate the protective screen and sink the Shinaru, Doyle positions the Grayfish to attack.
As it approaches Tokyo Bay, the Shinaru is still taking evasive maneuvers with the transport running interference. Passing the Grayfish's position, the risk of firing torpedoes at the Shinaru without hitting the transport is far too great, but Doyle is bent on taking the shot anyway. Over Sloan's protests, Doyle himself fires two torpedoes; one misses, but the other hits the transport and sinks it. He observes survivors in the water, but it is never clear whether his wife and daughter are among them. The escort destroyers pin the Grayfish down with depth charges, just long enough for the Shinaru to escape into Tokyo Bay.
After eluding the destroyers, Doyle runs the Grayfish through the anti-submarine defenses at the entrance to the bay - including a submarine net and a thick mine field - and comes upon the Shinaru at anchor. He fires a torpedo spread, but the torpedoes are intercepted by a passing destroyer, bringing the Grayfish under counterattack again. Acting on a suggestion from Lieutenant Redley (Robert Hardy), a Royal Navy officer working with the Grayfish crew on its sonar gear, Doyle fires his stern torpedoes into the mine field, tricking the Japanese into thinking the Grayfish has hit a mine and sunk. The Grayfish thus escapes from the bay, and Doyle retires to his cabin to grieve.
As Sloan guides the Grayfish back to Pearl Harbor, Doyle is unconscious for three days; the possibility that Sloan might share this with Admiral Setton gnaws at him. Upon return to Pearl, the Grayfish puts in for repairs as the crew takes their customary two weeks of rest and recreation. Thereafter, Setton informs Sloan that he has been promoted to lieutenant commander and is in line for command of his own submarine; but he also presses Sloan, who is forthright about Doyle's period of incapacity. However, Setton agrees to let Doyle and Sloan team up on one last attempt to sink the Shinaru.
Doyle is livid when the Grayfish, in company with its sister submarine Bluefin, is deployed to the Aleutian Islands, but intelligence reports that the Shinaru is present in a harbor on Kiska. In an impenetrable fog at the harbor entrance, the Bluefin dives early, but the Grayfish, diving several minutes later, is damaged by a log and chain boom in its path. With the Shinaru at anchor - and invisible in the fog - Doyle and Sloan set up a torpedo attack relying on the sonar. Despite his earlier vow to sink the Shinaru himself, Doyle allows Sloan to fire the entire torpedo spread, which eventually hits and fatally holes the enemy carrier. A destroyer delivers a punishing depth charge attack, inflicting such severe damage to the Grayfish that it sinks to the bottom of the harbor with six men unaccounted for. Doyle assembles the survivors and organizes an escape using specialized submarine survival gear.
Having dispatched the destroyer, the Bluefin surfaces to pick up the survivors of the Grayfish and to observe the Shinaru in its death throes.
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