A Russian submarine called Спрут ("Octopus") draws too close to the New England coast one morning when its captain (Theodore Bikel) wants to take a good look at America and runs aground on a sandbar near the fictional Gloucester Island, which, from other references in the movie, is located off the coast of Cape Ann or Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Rather than radio for help and risk an embarrassing international incident, the captain sends a nine-man landing party, headed by his zampolit (Political Officer) Lieutenant Yuri Rozanov (Alan Arkin), to find a motor launch to help free the submarine from the bar. The men arrive at the house of Walt Whittaker (Carl Reiner), a vacationing playwright from New York City. Whittaker is eager to get his wife Elspeth (Eva Marie Saint) and two children, obnoxious but precocious nine and half-year-old Pete (Sheldon Collins) and three-year-old Annie (Cindy Putnam), off the island now that summer is over.
Dans le golfe de La Spezia, un sous-marin de grande croisière, le A 103, entre en collision avec un navire de ravitaillement et s'immobilise à 80 mètres de profondeur. De délicates tentatives de sauvetage du bateau et de l'équipage vont s'organiser...
Septembre 1942, au large de Cape Town, en Afrique du Sud. Le "RMS Laconia", qui vient de quitter le port, fait route vers l’Angleterre avec 2 000 passagers à son bord ainsi que 1 800 prisonniers italiens. Les fumées du navire sont bientôt repérées par un U-Boot. Sa taille laissant supposer qu’il peut transporter des troupes, la décision est prise de le torpiller. Cela fait, le sous-marin ne quitte pas immédiatement les lieux. Découvrant le sort des prisonniers italiens, mais aussi de civils, le capitaine, se référant à un code d’honneur maritime, ordonne l’organisation du sauvetage, arbore une croix rouge dans l’attente d’un bâtiment français envoyé par Vichy. Mille personnes seront sauvées. Peu après, ce sous-marin sera coulé par les forces alliées tandis que l’amiral allemand Dönitz signera le "Laconia order" interdisant à l’armée allemande de procéder au moindre sauvetage.
The story is set after the end of the Second World War and concerns a British submarine, HMS Trojan, which is out on a routine exercise to test its new snorkel mast when it encounters a derelict floating magnetic mine left over from the war. The submarine dives, but sets off the mine. The mine blows the bows of the submarine off, and floods the after section through the displaced snorkel mast, instantly killing all 53 of the crew in the bows and stern section. The submarine settles to the bottom leaving twelve crew members alive amidships, who have been saved by the watertight doors which had been closed by order of the captain when he realised the imminent danger.
In World War II, the commanding officer of a sub, against his will takes on board two Western diplomats, to take them to the Canaries and arrange an armistice. When they get there, peace has been declared, but the sub's crew don't know as their radio has failed. They send their passengers ashore and go out to face a final battle.
Chanteraide est l'une des « oreilles d'or » de la Marine nationale, les spécialistes de la guerre acoustique. Son rôle à bord des sous-marins est essentiel. Pourtant il commet une erreur d'analyse qui manque de coûter la vie à tout l'équipage. En cherchant à la réparer, il se retrouve pris dans un conflit majeur auquel il pourrait bien être la réponse : de ses qualités professionnelles dépend l'ultime espoir de paix.
The USS Charleston (SSN-704), a 688i variant Los Angeles-class submarine, is equipped with a caterpillar drive and is on station following a nuclear exchange, and is under the command of Captain Dwight Towers.
Captain Hardt (Conrad Veidt), a World War I German U-boat commander, is ordered to lead a mission to attack the British Fleet at Scapa Flow. He sneaks ashore on the Orkney Islands to meet his contact, Frau Tiel (Valerie Hobson). Tiel has taken over the identity of local schoolteacher, Anne Burnett (June Duprez), who had been kidnapped by German agents. Hardt finds himself attracted to her, but Tiel shows no interest. The Germans are aided by a disgraced Royal Navy officer, the former Commander Ashington (Sebastian Shaw) who, according to Tiel, has agreed to aid the Germans after losing his command due to drunkenness, and Tiel implies that she has slept with Ashington to obtain his cooperation.
"Remember the Lusitania! Avenge the Lusitania!" These are the words that inspired many young US citizens to volunteer for service during the First World War. The sinking of this great British oceangoing liner provoked outrage around the world on an unprecedented scale. On May 7, 1915, a German torpedo sent the ship to the bottom of the North Atlantic Ocean in just 18 minutes—its speedy descent into the depths occurring far too fast for most of those aboard to make it to the lifeboats. Of the 1,962 passengers and crew on board, 1,200 were lost, including 94 children and, crucially, 128 US civilians, many of whom were prominent figures. President Woodrow Wilson's neutral stance started to crack. All over the country there were calls for the United States to take up arms against Germany. In many ways, the Lusitania tragedy was the major turning point of the Great War, and perhaps the single greatest factor that eventually brought the USA into the war in April 1917.
The short film (48 minutes) opens aboard a U-boat as it returns from a mission. It then follows the crew onshore the day before they ship off for their next mission—meeting their family and sweethearts, spending a last night at a club, and so forth. Then they ship off, soon sighting and boarding a Dutch merchant ship, which they inspect for contraband. The boarding of the ship is shown being done professionally and in a non-confrontational manner. While they are aboard the Dutch ship, a Royal Navy ship spots them and tries to torpedo them, but the U-boat ends up sinking it.
The United States and the Soviet Union have both developed technology that can miniaturize matter by shrinking individual atoms, but only for a limited amount of time, depending on how small the item is miniaturized.
In the closing days of World War II, Irishman Murphy (Peter O'Toole) is the sole survivor of the crew of a merchant ship, Mount Kyle, which has been sunk by a German U-boat, which then machine-gunned the survivors in the water. Murphy makes it ashore (to a missionary settlement on the Orinoco in Venezuela) where he is treated by a pacifist Quaker doctor, Dr Hayden (Siân Phillips).
In the early years of World War II, the Nazis have overrun the Netherlands and have taken over the shipyard co-owned and run by Jaap van Leyden (Ralph Richardson). The yard was making submarines for the Dutch Navy. The German 'Protector' Von Schiffer (Esmond Knight) demands that they resume making submarines, but for the Nazis. By lowering food rations to starvation point, they induce some of the skilled workers to return to the yard.
As a young boy growing up in a Spanish family with a long and very distinguished maritime tradition, Ulysses Ferragut is regaled with tales of the sea by his retired uncle, the "Triton" (Apollon), and is particularly fascinated by his claim to have once seen the sea goddess Amphitrite. Though his lawyer father, Don Esteban, wants him to follow in his footsteps, Ulysses becomes a sailor.
L’Orsa Maggiore est le nom d'une escadrille spéciale de la Marine italienne qui effectue des missions de sabotage pendant la Seconde Guerre mondiale. Les hommes grenouilles qui la composent utilisent des maiali, des torpilles pilotables. L'action à Gibraltar est leur première mission. Les hommes grenouilles posent des mines sur trois navires anglais qui sont coulés ; pendant l'action, un homme grenouille et une femme agent secret de support à terre sont tués.