Destination Tokyo (1943) on Netflix
Captain Cassidy commands the submarine USS Copperfin, ordered out of Mare Island on a secret mission. In the Aleutians they pick up meteorologist Lieutenant Raymond, and turn for Tokyo Bay.
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Trailer
Plot summary
The Copperfin slips out of Mare Island Naval Shipyard on Christmas Eve, bound first for the Aleutian Islands, where meteorologist Lieutenant Raymond comes aboard. The secret orders send the submarine to Tokyo Bay, to gather weather intelligence for the bombing raid being planned against Japan. Crossing the Pacific, the boat is attacked by Japanese floatplanes, and an unexploded bomb lodges under the deck, where Tommy Adams volunteers to work on it. Raymond, who once lived in Japan, describes how the military faction led the country into the war. Nearing Tokyo Bay the submarine must negotiate defensive minefields and anti-torpedo nets.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Destination Tokyo (1943)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Technical advisors to Destination Tokyo included Dudley Walker Morton, captain of the submarine Wahoo. The Wahoo was reported missing in action after production finished, sunk by Japanese aircraft in October 1943; Morton and all aboard were lost, and the wreckage was identified in 2006.
- Warner Bros. borrowed Cary Grant from Columbia in a swap that sent Humphrey Bogart to Columbia for Sahara. Grant had turned down the part Bogart eventually played, and Gary Cooper had turned down the Copperfin captain role that Grant took.
- The scene in which the pharmacist's mate performs an appendectomy was based on a real submarine operation, and the real-life appendectomy was performed by Wheeler Bryson Lipes.
- A 17-year-old Tony Curtis forged his mother's signature to enlist in the U.S. Navy in 1943 after being inspired by Grant's role, asked for submarine duty, and later co-starred with Grant as submariners in the 1959 comedy Operation Petticoat.
- The Copperfin model was based on real American submarines but, to confuse the Japanese, was fitted with equipment and apparatus used on numerous different types of subs. The film was accurate enough that the Navy used it as a training tool for submariners.
- According to his autobiography, Destination Tokyo influenced Ronald Reagan to accept the lead role of a World War II submarine captain in the 1957 movie Hellcats of the Navy.
