Although Robert Montgomery was originally considered for the leading role,[3] the film stars Gary Cooper, Jane Wyatt, Walter Brennan, Wayne Morris, Julie London and Jack Holt.

During that period, he antagonizes powerful people in the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Congress, and marries Mary Morgan (Jane Wyatt), the widow of a fellow flier who died in a crash during a carrier takeoff aboard USS Langley (CV-1).

When his carrier flight deck is badly damaged by Japanese torpedo aircraft, the ship is forced to withdraw to the U.S. for repairs and the war ends when they arrive in at the Navy Yard in New York City.

As appearing in Task Force, (main roles and screen credits identified):[6] In 1948, Warner Bros. obtained archival U.S. Navy footage documenting the rise of naval aviation as well as Technicolor footage filmed during the war in the Pacific, including the Battle of Midway, the Japanese attack on USS Yorktown and a kamikaze attack on USS Franklin.

[8] The U.S. Navy provided access to naval facilities with costs amounting to as much as $24,000 a day ($304,400 today) being incurred when an admiral's barge and jet fighters were commandeered.

One of the near disasters involved a delivery truck that caught on fire with its load of cut and stock film along with daily rushes, personal baggage and makeup destroyed.

During gunnery practice, when Cooper was on USS Antietam, an unmanned target aircraft was hit and caught fire, heading for the crowded deck where all of the actors and crew were standing before skimming overhead, and crashing in the ocean.

[10] When released years after the end of World War II, Task Force was inevitably compared to wartime features and documentaries that chronicled the efforts of the U.S. Navy.

[1] Bosley Crowther of The New York Times noted that when the film concentrates on "real carrier activity out at sea and the actual aspects of recent warfare, it springs into vivid, thrilling life.

"[16] Playing on the propaganda-like message of Task Force, Radio Moscow decried it, "a film which glorifies war, and calls for the militarization of the country's whole life.