In August 1942, the American forces are fighting the Japanese in the Pacific. U.S. Navy Lieutenant, junior grade John F. Kennedy uses his family's influence to get himself assigned to the fighting in the Solomon Islands in the Pacific Theater during World War II. He lobbies for command of a PT boat and is given the badly damaged "109". Initially, Commander C. R. Ritchie, the base boat maintenance officer on Tulagi, is unimpressed with the young, untested Kennedy, but the lieutenant is undaunted and restores the "109" to operational status. His crew includes the executive officer, Ensign Leonard J. Thom, and initially skeptical sailors "Bucky" Harris and Edmund Drewitch.