Onionhead is a 1958 American comedy drama film set on a U.S. Coast Guard ship during World War II, starring Andy Griffith and featuring Felicia Farr, Walter Matthau, Erin O'Brien, James Gregory, Joey Bishop and Claude Akins.

Weldon Hill is the pseudonym of William R. Scott, a native Oklahoman who based the novel on his own World War II service in the Coast Guard.

In the spring of 1941, Al Woods quits an Oklahoma college to join the armed forces after a quarrel with his co-ed sweetheart, Jo.

He encounters immediate hostility from the chief of the galley, Red Wildoe, from new crew mates and cooks' helpers Gutsell and Poznicki, and from his arrogant department head,Lieutenant (junior grade) Higgins.

[4] He befriends Gutsell by fixing him up with a girlfriend of Stella's and learns from Wildoe how to be a ship's cook, making a number of embarrassing mistakes.

Al, frustrated after Stella will not spend a night in a hotel room with him, stops seeing her, after which he and the alcoholic Wildoe get drunk together and bond.

The Periwinkle sinks a submarine in combat, with Al playing a major role, but his accusation of embezzlement impugns the honor of the innocent captain and exposes the ship to scandal at the board of investigation.