The Wackiest Ship in the Army is a 1960 comedy film starring Jack Lemmon and Ricky Nelson.
Plot summary
Lt. Rip Crandall, an expert yachtsman in civilian life, is surprised to see that he has been assigned to command a sailing ship, USS Echo, in wartime. The only other member of his crew who knows how to work a ship with sails is eager young Ensign Tommy Hanson who cost him a yacht-race with a mistake before the war. Crandall initially tries to refuse this dubious command, but Hanson and Vandewater wear down his resistance. Vandewater points out his poor fitness report means that if he doesn't take this command he'll probably never get another and Hanson will have to try to command the ship, and Hanson takes Crandell out drinking with some of the men so he'll feel guilty about abandoning them.
They barely make out it out of the harbor, sailing straight into a storm. When the Echo arrives in Port Moresby, Crandell is supposed to train a replacement to use the Echo to deliver a coast watcher named Patterson to a location only a shallow-draft vessel can reach. However the replacement commander strikes Crandell as stiff-necked and unqualified to handle this kind of mission and he takes the ship out under his own command to deliver Patterson.
Making the crossing in a not very convincing disguise as a native trading vessel, they are spotted and photographed by an enemy plane; and, while they are delivering their passenger, a Japanese force from a passing war fleet boards the scow and captures the landing party when they return. Crandell manages to rally his men to take the ship back, but is then faced with the decision of whether to radio a warning about the fleet even though that will give away their position to guns on shore. He sends the warning, and abandons ship as the guns open fire on the Echo and destroy her. Crandell and his crew survive to be rescued, and Crandell gets command of a modern destroyer for his role in helping to win the battle.
Cast
TV series
The story was also used for the 1965 TV series The Wackiest Ship in the Army (TV series).
Ship
- The USS Echo was based on the real-life USS Echo, a 40 year old schooner or scow that was transferred from the New Zealand government to the US Navy in 1942, and returned to the New Zealand government in 1944.
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