Crash Dive

Crash Dive is a World War II film in Technicolor released in 1943. It was directed by Archie Mayo, written by Jo Swerling (from a story by W.R. Burnett), and starred Tyrone Power, Dana Andrews, and Anne Baxter. The film was the last for Power before assignment to recruit training, as he had already enlisted in the United States Marine Corps.

Plot
Lieutenant Ward Stewart, commanding a PT boat, sinks a U-boat, saving a lifeboat full of survivors. Upon his return to port, he is unwillingly transferred by his uncle, Admiral Stewart, to the submarine USS Corsair as its new executive officer due to a shortage of trained submarine officers. Stewart, USNA Class of 1936 and scion of a Navy family, served in submarines before "surfacing" and getting his PT boat.

The Corsair hunts German merchant raiders preying on Allied shipping in the North Atlantic. Stewart is granted weekend leave to settle his affairs before taking up his new assignment. At the submarine base in New London, Connecticut, he meets his new captain, Lieutenant Commander Dewey Connors.

On a train bound for Washington D.C., Stewart encounters New London school teacher Jean Hewlett and her students. Despite her initial resistance, he charms her and they fall in love.

Stewart's infatuation with PT boats irritates Connors, but the two become friends after they engage a Nazi Q-ship. When Connors is wounded, Stewart takes command and sinks the ship.

Connors is in love with Jean, but is putting off marrying her until he is promoted to commander, which would allow him to support her financially. Tension between the two men returns after Connors returns from a briefing in Washington with that promotion, only to discover Stewart and Jean are engaged.

The DC briefing has to do with a secret island supply base for German raiders like the Q-ship Corsair sank. She has been tasked with locating and destroying it. The Corsair follows a coastal tanker through the harbor anti-submarine net and puts a landing party commanded by Stewart ashore to wreak as much havoc as possible in 30 minutes, while the boat sinks every ship they can in the harbor. Among the members of the landing party are Chief of the Boat Mac MacDonnell and Messman Oliver Jones. The Chief has a heart condition he has concealed from the Navy and after figuring this out, Jones has quietly assisted him. Both know that the Chief will be caught out at his next annual physical and medically retired, which is why he turned down a promotion to chief warrant officer. The raid is a success, with the oil tanks supplying fuel to the Q-ships blown up by the landing party, buildings burned, and enemy ships sunk at anchor. MacDonnell is killed covering the escape of Stewart and Jones. The captain submerges the boat and gets out to sea, despite being wounded by enemy fire.

Captain Connors and Exec Stewart make peace after the raid, and Stewart and Jean are married when the Corsair returns to New London.

Cast
As appearing in screen credits (main roles identified):

Background
Part of the film was shot at Submarine Base New London, Connecticut. are visible in the early part of the film. The PT boats seen near the beginning are the 77-foot Elco type. The submarine primarily featured as Corsair was the experimental USS Marlin (SS-205), with a conning tower modified to resemble her sister USS Mackerel (SS-204). A few O-class and R-class submarines, built in World War I and used for training in World War II, are visible in the background of some shots. For wartime security reasons, no submarine classes used in combat in World War II appear in the film. USS Semmes (DD-189) is seen in one shot; there are probably not many good Technicolor views of a four-stack destroyer available today. Semmes was being used as a sonar testbed at the time.

One of the scenes in the film was similar to that in Destination Tokyo (1943) starring Cary Grant, where the submarines follow an enemy tanker into their naval base through a minefield. Another similar plot device was in the 1954 film Hell and High Water about an island base to be used to launch a Tupolev Tu-4, a copy of the Boeing B-29 Superfortress, in U.S. markings for an sneak atomic bomb attack.

One interesting feature of the film is the significant role of African-American actor Ben Carter as messman Oliver Cromwell Jones. While most World War II films (particularly those made during the war) feature few, if any, African-American characters, Crash Dive is a notable exception. Although Carter plays a stereotypical role as a low ranking sailor (at that time, Blacks could only serve as cooks and messmen), his character is more developed than most African-American characters of the time by being shown to be a confidant to a higher ranking crew member. Jones (Ben Carter) also participates in a commando raid late in the film.

It is possible portions of the film were inspired by the actions of the Greenland Patrol, a U.S. Coast Guard unit which patrolled the waters off Greenland, looking for Nazi weather stations and submarines. One such weather station was captured in June, 1941, which among other things impeded accurate German weather forecasting. Its personnel were taken to Boston and interned. The incident was classified at the time because the United States was not at war with Germany, but after Pearl Harbor was released to the American public.

Awards
Fred Sersen and Roger Heman Sr. won the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects at the 16th Academy Awards.