Island Paradise: March 2009

It was 1959. Cary Grant and Tony Curtis were in Key West filming Operation Petticoat. I got to watch. I was 10 years old.

From Wikipedia:

Operation Petticoat is a 1959 comedic film directed by Blake Edwards, and starring Cary Grant, Tony Curtis, and Dina Merrill.
The film tells in flashback form the story of a fictional World War II American submarine USS Sea Tiger, sunk in the Philippine Islands during the opening days of World War II. Operation Petticoat follows the adventures and tribulations of the sub's skipper (Grant) and his crew (including Curtis as a deviously mercenary supply officer), as they first try to repair the sub and then reach Australia for the necessary refit. The voyage includes various detours along the way, including the acquisition of a group of stranded female Army nurses, an attempt to sink a Japanese ship, and a hurried stopover to overhaul and repaint the sub which quickly goes awry.
Other members of the cast includes several actors who became television stars in the 1960s and 1970s: Gavin MacLeod of Love Boat and McHale's Navy as Yeoman Hunkle, Marion Ross of Happy Days as Army 2LT Colfax, Dick Sargent, (later to star in the series Bewitched), as LT Stovall, Arthur O'Connell (The Second Hundred Years), and Gene Evans (Spencer's Pilots}
The movie was written by Paul King & Joseph Stone (story) and Stanley Shapiro & Maurice Richlin (screenplay). It received an Academy Award Nomination for Best Screenplay.
The film was produced with extensive support of the Department of Defense and the United States Navy. Most of the filming was done in and around the since deactivated Naval Station Key West, Florida...which substituted for the Philippines...and Naval Station San Diego, California.

The Sea Tiger in the movie was portrayed by three different American WWII era submarines:
Queenfish (SS-393), in the opening and closing scenes (circa 1959), in which the "393" on the conning tower is visible,
Archerfish (SS-311), for all the WWII scenes where the boat was painted the standard gray and black,
Balao (SS-285), for all the scenes in which Sea Tiger was painted pink.

Plot:
The film is told in flashback form as a recollection of RADM Matt Sherman (Grant), the fictional Commander of Submarine Forces Pacific in 1959. His is the story of the fictitious World War II American submarine USS Sea Tiger, which he has boarded early that morning in 1959, prior to its departure for the scrapyard. Having served as the first commanding officer of Sea Tiger, he takes a seat in his former captain's stateroom and begins reading his personal log, beginning with Sea Tiger coming under Japanese attack while pierside at the U.S. Naval Base in Cavite during the opening days of the Pacific War. Sunk at the pier following an air attack, the story then follows his crazy adventures as then-LCDR Matt Sherman, and his crew. The story also includes the role of a new replacement, LTJG Nick Holden (Curtis), a line officer and former admiral's aide with minimal sea duty experience who offers himself as an opportunistic and self-styled "supply officer," as they try first to raise the sub and then sail it to Australia for the repairs necessary to re-enter the war. Holden, also a self-styled "idea man," signs on because he wants to get out of the Philippines before the Japanese arrive, and because he thinks he can work a better deal for himself in Australia.
Along the way they pick up a contingent of female Army nurses stranded on another Philippine island. LTJG Holden sets his sights on one of the nurses, 2LT Duran, even though he is engaged to a wealthy woman back home. Meanwhile, LCDR Sherman has a series of embarassing encounters with the very well-endowed but clumsy 2LT Crandall.
Sherman, Holden and the crew are eventually forced to continue on their journey with the sub painted pink after plans for a quick re-paint of the sub go awry (Not enough red lead or white lead undercoat primer paint is available to paint the entire sub either color, and so all the available paint of both colors is mixed together; and then the Japanese find the sub before the regular gray overcoat can be applied).
The pink sub becomes a target for an American destroyer force whose commanding officer is convinced that it must be Japanese. Grant saves the sub by firing the nurses' bras, panties and nylons out a torpedo tube. The garments rise to the surface, 2LT Crandall's bra is snagged by a grappling hook and taken aboard a destroyer, and it is soon evident to the destroyer crew that the submarine is American.
The story ends with RADM Sherman aboard Sea Tiger on the morning he has had to sign the final order directing her decommissioning and eventual scrapping. He is met by the current commanding officer of Sea Tiger, now-CDR Nick Holden, as he and his wife (the former 2LT Duran) and their sons arrive at the pier. Holden asks the admiral if there is any reprieve for Sea Tiger's fate. Reluctantly, he says there is none...but he adds that a new nuclear-powered submarine is about to come off the ways...also named Sea Tiger...and that the new Sea Tiger is Holden's next command. Sherman's wife (the former 2LT Crandall) arrives shortly thereafter with their daughters. Running late, the ever clumsy former Lieutenant Crandall/Mrs. Sherman manages to bump the family station wagon into RADM Sherman's staff car, which then locks bumpers with a Navy bus immediately in front of it. The bus then drives off with the staff car behind, with Sherman's chief petty officer/driver yelling and chasing after it. Holden, standing on Sea Tiger's sail, chuckles at the humor of it all as he maneuvers the sub away from the pier on her final voyage. Sherman looks longingly and humorously as the sub sails away, backfiring and belching smoke from its one troublesome diesel engine that was always a source of consternation to Sherman when he was in command years prior.

Historical Basis:
Some of the plot points of the movie were based on real-life incidents. Most notable were scenes set at the opening of WW-II, based on the actual sinking of the submarine USS Sealion (SS-195), sunk at the pier at Cavite Navy Yard in the Philippines. Commander Sherman's letter to the supply department on the inexplicable lack of toilet paper, based on an actual letter to the supply department of Mare Island Naval Shipyard by Lieutenant Commander James Wiggin Coe of the submarine Skipjack (SS-184), and the need to paint a submarine pink, due to the lack of enough red lead or white lead undercoat paint.

Operation Petticoat was: