Crash Dive

Lieutenant Ward Stewart, commanding a PT boat, sinks a U-boat. However, when he returns to port, he is informed by his uncle, Admiral Stewart, that he is being transferred (much against his preference) to the United States Navy submarine USS Corsair as its new executive officer due to a shortage of trained officers. The Corsair hunts German merchant raiders preying on Allied shipping in the North Atlantic. The admiral grants his request for a 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 accidentally encounters New London school teacher Jean Hewlett and her students. Despite her initial resistance to his efforts, 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 Q ship; Stewart takes command after Connors is wounded and sinks the ship.

Connors is in love with a woman called Jean, but is putting off marrying her until he gains promotion to commander, which would allow him to properly support her financially. Tension between the two men returns when Connors discovers that the woman Stewart is wooing is Jean. The film culminates in a raid by the Corsair on a secret island supply base for the German raiders. The two men make peace after the raid, and Stewart and Jean are married once Corsair returns to New London.

As appearing in screen credits (main roles identified):

Part of the film was shot at Submarine Base New London, Connecticut. A few naval combatants rarely seen in Technicolor 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, with a conning tower modified to resemble her sister USS Mackerel. 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 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 movie was similar to that in the film Destination Tokyo (1943) starring Cary Grant, where the submarines follow an enemy tanker into their naval base through a minefield. Another similar plot theme was in the 1954 movie Hell and High Water about an island base to be used to launch a Boeing B-29 Superfortress in U.S. markings for an 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 movies (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, his character is more developed than most African-American characters of the time by being shown to be a confidant to a higher ranking crewmember. Jones (Ben Carter) also participates in a commando raid late in the film.

The film won the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects (Fred Sersen, Roger Heman Sr.) at the 16th Academy Awards.[3]

• Crash Dive at the American Film Institute Catalog
• Crash Dive at IMDb
• Crash Dive at AllMovie
• Crash Dive at the TCM Movie Database