When the Japanese invade the Philippines, Bailey confronts and strangles a Nazi secret agent, who is now spreading anti-American, pro-Japanese propaganda among the native Filipinos.

The spy had posed as a religious pacifist up until a devastating Japanese air bombing attack caused many casualties among the unarmed civilians that Bailey, his wife, and daughter (Maxwell) had been living among.

Later, after much fighting, while wearing his one time "dress blues" uniform jacket, Bailey takes out an enemy machine gun emplacement while Marine forces blow up a vital bridge, halting the Japanese ground advance.

(Review by T.S., New York Times, August 30, 1943) "That old saurian-countenanced leatherneck, Wallace Beery, is back in uniform and fighting trim in Salute to the Marines, which burst into the Globe on Saturday.

We say burst because MGM hasn't spared any ammunition in making Mr. Beery's personal defense of the Philippines a wild, rootin-tootin, bang-up affair, and in Technicolor, too.

An overgrown bad boy with a gilt-edged heart and a coy way of confessing his numerous sins, Mr. Beery is a bellows-lunged marine sergeant who never won a citation though he would dearly love one.