Squalo tonante

I was stationed on the submarine tender, "U.S.S. Howard W. Gilmore" during the Viet Nam War. It was there that I learned about Cdr. Howard W. Gilmore and the "U.S.S. Growler." The "Growler," under the command of Cdr. Gilmore, was on patrol in early 1942 when she came under attack by a Japanese gunboat. Gilmore was mortally wounded and as he lay on the bridge of the sub gave the command to "Take 'er down!" just as "Pop" did in "Operation Pacific" and thus saved the crew further casualties. He was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor posthumously for his action. Also the "Growler" rammed the gunboat and bent the bow of the sub just as depicted in "Operation Pacific." I would be interested in knowing if the film used the Gilmore/"Growler" incident as its basis for the scene depicted with Ward Bond, and if there were other facts in the film based on real incidents.

Thank you,

A world war II film set on a submarine with John Wayne, who takes over command after the commander, played by Ward Bond, is killed. It's your basic submarine film, nothing special about this one, but it is well made. John Wayne plays John Wayne, Patricia Neal does a good job and in one scene on the sub, you can see the men watch Destination Tokyo with Cary Grant.

I like submarine films, but in watching them one has to realize that there are only so many plot situations and each film seems to cover just about all of them. In fact the officers and men of the U.S.S. Thunderfish during what little spare time they had were watching another Warner Brother submarine adventure, Destination Tokyo. If you remember they exchanged the film with another submarine crew for George Washington Slept Here.

Operation Pacific unfortunately suffered with an additional handicap, not foreseen by the Brothers Warner. Another film from Paramount entitled Submarine Command came out right about the same time as Operation Pacific. It starred John Wayne's very good friend and box office rival William Holden. A lot of the same situations are covered in that film, hard to distinguish between the two.

That being said Operation Pacific is one of John Wayne's better war films and a good tribute to the men of the Silent Service. I remember back in the day, I had a history professor in college who was a marine in World War II. He said without reservation that for all of what he was doing in places like Tarawa, Saipan, and Iwo Jima, the tipping balance in the Pacific War was the American superiority in submarines. Due in no small part to the Commander-in-Chief of the Pacific Fleet Chester W. Nimitz who trained on submarines and appreciated their worth. Cutting supplies to the home islands helped in no small measure to American combat success ultimately.

John Wayne is the Executive Officer of the Thunderfish which is commanded by Ward Bond. His former wife Patricia Neal is a navy nurse at Pearl Harbor. He'd like to win her back, but she's now dating Philip Carey, a navy flier and Bond's younger brother.

Besides the romantic problems the Thunderfish goes on all kinds of missions. We first see them rescuing some orphan children off a Japanese held island, later they have some real problems with defective torpedoes in which Chief Jack Pennick has a big hand in solving. And of course the usual tangles with the Japanese Navy exploding depth charges around them.

In the supporting cast I have to say that my two favorite performances are from Paul Picerni who plays crewman Jonesy. Picerni's best known for being Robert Stack's number 2 guy in The Untouchables, but he's absolutely great as the comic relief in Operation Pacific. Happy-go-lucky sort of guy, if he were Latino, Gilbert Roland would have had the part.

The second is Jack Pennick. You can't think of too many John Ford films his horseface presence wasn't in. He plays the Chief Petty Officer on the Thunderfish and he's simply known as the Chief. Ford usually gave him minimal dialog in his films, he speaks a bit more here. One of my favorite John Wayne moments in cinema is when Wayne speaks a heartfelt tribute to young ensign Martin Milner after Pennick has been killed. Talking about the accomplishments that people of his rank make to the U.S. Navy. If your eyes don't moisten you are made of stone. It is in fact one of my favorite John Wayne scenes of all time.

Though the Duke and Patricia Neal got a lot more attention fourteen years later in In Harm's Way, I think they do just fine in Operation Pacific and I think you'll feel the same way when you see it.

This movie, which i revisited on German and English DVD yesterday is definitely more in the B Movie of the Sub Marine Genre. They could have learned from watching Destination Tokyo more closely, as this was with all its limitations still a fine movie and much less a strange flag waver whilst closer to the actual war time. Ward Bond and John Wayne still look like somebody stole their horses and don't know where to go, the submarine is spacious as an Ikea show room and the stress level when depth charged more like a tenant being annoyed with next door noise when watching Super Bowl. What did work quite good was the Wayne - Neal relationship, which you will see much more developed and mature in Harm's Way about 20 years later. Not urgent to watch.

Good warfare movie well starred by John Wayne as Duke E Gifford , a sub-officer during the Pacific campaign and in the Pearl Harbor zone who surveys the area and diving under water . The film starts with a foreword : ¨When the Pacific Fleet was destroyed by the Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor , it remained for the submarines to carry the war to the enemy. In the four years that followed our undersea craft sank six million tons of Japanese shipping including some of the proudest ships pf the ImperiaL Navy. Fifty-two of our submarines and thirty-five hundred officers and men were lost. It is to these men and the entire silent service that this picture is humbly dedicated ¨. At the beginning Wayne and crew rescue nuns and children from a Pacific island . Later on , in Pearl Harbor is developed a loving triangle between Wayne, Patricia Neal and Philip Carey . After that, the submarine commanded by Ward Bond and John Wayne attacks freighters and cruisers, executing on varied activities as interception and rescue . But in attack on freighters, torpedoes fired at ideal angle hit target failed to explode as the torpedoes lead a hit right under the stack and nothing happens.

The movie contains warlike action with battles well assembled , thrills, emotion and a love story. Passable special effects by F . Koenekamp though with various scale models and some stock-footage. Acceptable production design and enough budget by Warner Bros , and very superior compared with those at John Wayne 's habitual studio such as Republic or Poverty Row , as Wayne played several more for them . As technical adviser appears Vice-Admiral Charles Lockwood who was commandant of American subs in Pacific. With John Ford's usual players as Ward Bond, Jack Pennick and of course the great Wayne and brief secondary roles for William Campbell and Martin Milner. It's a cool realization with roaring battle scenes and full of emotion , suspense and romance. This large-scale picture is professionally directed by George Waggner and it packs a splendid score by the classic Max Steiner and appropriate cinematography by Bert Glennon . The film is dedicated to the men who lost their lives in submarines and to the United States Navy for its aid and cooperation in making this picture possible, our grateful thanks.