The Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) battleship "Yamato" featured in this movie was a real Second World War Japanese ship. It was named after the ancient Japanese Yamato Province. It was both the equal largest and equal heaviest battleships ever constructed. The "Yamato" was sunk on 7 April 1945, as is indicated in this film's closing credits. The wreck of the "Yamato" was discovered on 1 August 1985. The ship was the subject of and lent its name to the title of its own Japanese movie in 2005, called "Yamato" (aka Otoko-tachi no Yamato (2005)).
This film's closing epilogue states: "On April 7, 1945 the battleship Yamato was sunk with the loss of almost 3000 men."
This World War II movie set on a Pacific Island features an American officer, a Swedish nun and a Japanese soldier. As such, this movie utilizes character set ups used previously in both Dieu seul le sait (1957) (a lone American soldier and lone Irish nun) and Duel dans le Pacifique (1968) (a lone Japanese soldier and a lone American soldier), two World War II war movies with minimal characters in isolationist Pacific Island settings.
In a scene Katherine turns to Gibb and says "Du mördade honom" which is swedish for "You murdered him".