Against the Sun

Harold Dixon:
A man plots his course but the Lord decides.

News Reel Announcer:
1942, the South Pacific. The New Year finds USS Enterprise and her crew of 2,000 men preparing to deliver greetings to the Japanese, in the form of torpedo bombers and fighter planes. With last month's attack on Pearl Harbor still fresh in the minds of the American aviators, they've decided that revenge is a dish best served piping hot.

[first lines]

Gene Aldrich:
[over the radio] Chief, this is Aldrich. I'm losing her on the ARA.

Tony Pastula:
[to himself] Come on, where are you goin'?

Gene Aldrich:
[into radio] Chief, I've lost the beacon. Over. Are we close Chief?

Tony Pastula:
I'll give him a tap, maybe his com is down.

Gene Aldrich:
[looking at severed fishing hook] I guess something down there is hungrier than us.

Tony Pastula:
Sweet Mary!

Tony Pastula:
[seeing the sunset] It's beautiful, isn't it?

Harold Dixon:
Better if we could eat it.

Harold Dixon:
A week of nothing. By golly, Aldrich, you are the most patient fisherman I've ever seen.

Gene Aldrich:
Where I come from, don't catch, don't eat.

Gene Aldrich:
[eating albatross] It ain't bad. Could use cheese.

Gene Aldrich:
It's dead reckoning, all right. 'cause I reckon we're dead dead out here.

Tony Pastula:
[after argument in duldrums] It looks like the only wind we're generating is our own, fellas.

[last lines]

Title Card:
Harold Dixon, Tony Pastula, and Gene Aldrich landed on the island of Pukapuka on February 20th, 1942, having spent 34 days on the Pacific. They had sailed their raft more than a thousand miles.

Title Card:
Dixon was awarded the Navy Cross for leading his crew to safety. He never flew another combat mission.

Title Card:
The injuries Tony suffered prevented him from making the Navy his career. Upon his death in 1986, his ashes were scattered at sea.

Title Card:
Gene served out the war as a radioman. In 1946 he married Tony's sister, Frances.