Basically the story of the sea battle for Okinawa between the ships of the U.S. Navy and the Japanese suicide planes---the Kamaikazes---and, as such, is filled with stock footage from official U.S. war-department films and newsreels and from Japanese newsreels..and even a movie-within-a-movie where 1948's "Ladies of the Chorus" is shown to a crew of a ship in 1944. The factual story is interlaced with a fictional one dealing with the crew of an American destroyer which is assigned to an ocean picket line around Okinawa to protect the supply ships and the forces on the island. As such, it has the usual battle-weary skipper, the Latino wise-guy, the "Kid" and the "Old Veteran", and the brash, cigar-chewing "operator" on the ship who has cornered the entire supply of the ship's beer rations.