Plot
The executive officer aboard USS Thunderfish, Lieutenant Commander Duke Gifford (Wayne), assumes command of the boat when the skipper (Ward Bond) is killed. A scene where the crew solves a complex torpedo performance-design problem is based on fact, as are many others. The scene where Commander Perry (Bond) is killed in a surface action is a combination of two incidents involving Commander Howard W. Gilmore, captain of USS Growler. Mortally wounded on the bridge, Gilmore gave the order "Take her down", sacrificing himself to save his ship and crew, for which he was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor. The ramming/sinking of the armed freighter depicted in the scene occurred in the same action, just prior to Gilmore's death.
Read more about this topic: Operation Pacific
Famous quotes containing the word plot:
““The plot thickens,” he said, as I entered.”
—Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930)
“Those blessed structures, plot and rhyme—
why are they no help to me now
I want to make
something imagined, not recalled?”
—Robert Lowell (1917–1977)
“We have defined a story as a narrative of events arranged in their time-sequence. A plot is also a narrative of events, the emphasis falling on causality. “The king died and then the queen died” is a story. “The king died, and then the queen died of grief” is a plot. The time sequence is preserved, but the sense of causality overshadows it.”
—E.M. (Edward Morgan)