The Wackiest Ship in the Army (film)

The Wackiest Ship in the Army
The DVD Movie Cover
Directed by	Richard Murphy
Produced by	Fred Kohlmar
Written by	Richard Murphy Herbert Margolis William Raynor
Based on	Big Fella Wash-Wash 1956 story in Argosy by Herbert Carlson
Starring	Jack Lemmon Ricky Nelson
Music by	George Duning
Cinematography	Charles Lawton Jr.
Edited by	Charles Nelson
Distributed by	Columbia Pictures
Release date	December 20, 1960
Running time	99 min.
Country	United States
Language	English

The Wackiest Ship in the Army is a 1961 Eastmancolor CinemaScope comedy-drama war film starring Jack Lemmon, Ricky Nelson, and Chips Rafferty. It was filmed at Pearl Harbor and Kauai.

During World War II, Lt. Rip Crandall (Jack Lemmon), an expert yachtsman in civilian life, now based at Townsville, Queensland, Australia, is surprised to be assigned command of a sailing ship, the USS Echo. The only crew member who knows how to work a ship with sails is eager young Ensign Tommy Hanson (Ricky Nelson), who cost Crandall a yacht race with a mistake before the war.

Crandall tries to refuse this dubious command, but Hanson and Crandall's former sailing buddy Lt. Commander Vandewater (John Lund) wear down his resistance. Vandewater points out Crandall's poor fitness report and advises that, if he doesn't take this command, he'll never get another. Hanson takes Crandall out drinking with some of the men so he'll feel guilty about abandoning them.

The Echo barely makes it out of the harbor, sailing straight into a storm. When it arrives in Port Moresby, New Guinea, Crandall is supposed to train a replacement to deliver a coastwatcher named Patterson (Chips Rafferty) to a location only a shallow-draft vessel can reach. However, the replacement (Richard Anderson) strikes Crandall as stiff-necked and unqualified to handle this kind of mission, so he takes the ship out under his own command to deliver Patterson.