"Dad" Knowlton, the shipwright who repairs the PT boats, has a poignant little scene in which he refuses to leave the place he's lived and worked for forty years, although the Japanese are advancing. Rusty Ryan, John Wayne's character, finally leaves Dad sitting alone on his porch with a rifle in his hands and a jug of moonshine between his knees, as "Red River Valley" plays in the background. How eerily reminiscent of The Grapes of Wrath, which is particularly appropriate because Dad is played by Russell Simpson, whom John Ford directed as Pa Joad in 1940.
Robert Montgomery was a real-life PT skipper in World War 2. He helped direct some of the PT sequences for the film when John Ford was unavailable due to health reasons.
During the shooting of this movie, John Ford had put John Wayne down every chance he got, because Wayne had not enlisted to fight in World War II. Ford commanded a naval photographic unit during the war rising to the rank of captain and thought Wayne a coward for staying behind. After months of heaping insults on Wayne's head, costar Robert Montgomery finally approached the director and told him that if he was putting Wayne down for Montgomery's benefit (Montgomery had served in the war), then he needed to stop immediately. This brought the tough-as-nails director to tears and he stopped abusing Wayne.
Filmed in Miami, the closing shot with the lighthouse is the Cape Florida Lighthouse, in what is today the Cape Florida State Park. The lighthouse withstood and was the scene of an Seminole Indian attack in 1835.
First war movie feature of John Ford.
In a scene on the docks, a ship named the Lucien P. Libby is in the background. In the biography "John Ford: A Bio-bibliography" by Bill Levy, there is a reference to John Ford being influenced by two teachers during his four years at Portland High School. One was an English teacher, Lucien Libby, who "helped the boy with his writing, encouraged Ford's reading, and stimulated thinking with witty comic teaching."
The film covers the World War II Battle of Bataan and the place Bataan which is a Central Luzon region province on Luzon island in the Philippines and occupies the whole of the Bataan Peninsula on the island.
The movie was based on the real live exploits of John Bulkeley, a World War II Medal of Honor Recipient.
The real-life Motor Torpedo Boat Squadron 3 in the Philippines at the beginning of World War II was equipped with six 77-foot Elco PT boats, all either lost in combat or destroyed to prevent capture. In the film, the Squadron 3 boats are represented by two 80-foot Elco and four 78-foot Huckins PT boats.
This is one of a handful of feature film movies that have featured the story of the World War II Battle of Bataan. They include Bataan, So Proudly We Hail!; They Were Expendable and Back to Bataan.
This movie was based on William L. White's book "They Were Expendable", which covered the exploits of Lieutenants John Bulkeley and Robert Kelly. Lt. Robert Kelly and U.S. Army Nurse "Peggy Smith" sued MGM, John Wayne and Donna Reed for their portrayal of them in the film. Although the film follows the book fairly closely, it does portray Lt. Kelly as impetuous and "hell bound for glory." Nurse Smith is shown romantically involved with Lt. Kelly. Wayne, Reed and MGM settled out of court for a nominal sum (less than $5,000.00).
When the officers are gathered around the dining table, they stand for a toast, Rusty misses and the drink goes down the front of his shirt, then quickly cuts.