His memories concern his boyhood sweetheart in a small Iowa town, Nancy Fraser (June Allyson), now a Navy nurse serving on a ship in the Pacific theater, commanded by his uncle, Capt.

Alec and Moore now convert the flying boat into a sailboat by lashing up parachutes as a sail, and head for High Barbaree, a mythical island that his uncle claimed to have once seen in fact.

After completing the first two years of medical training, he had chosen to become a pilot and rose to the ranks of vice-president of the Case Aviation company, even winning the hand of the boss's daughter (Marilyn Maxwell).

The coming of war precludes Alec continuing his medical career, and as a pilot in the highly specialized PBY flying boats that harass the Japanese fleets, he is particularly successful until his last mission.

After a period of inactivity for Van Johnson where he had brooded about his decision not to enlist in World War II, the studio cast him with one of his favorite co-stars, June Allyson, who had been a close friend ever since the pair had performed on Broadway and had been budding stars in Hollywood.

The film was not universally well received as the packaging seemed contrived and the storyline was laboriously drawn out with numerous flashbacks that detracted from the action of the South Pacific air war, where the aerial sequences stood out.