Morning Departure – 1950 | 102 mins | Drama | B&W

Plot Synopsis

Taken from a play by Kenneth Wooland, Morning Departure is an atmospheric, stiff upper-lip drama in the best tradition. The story turned out to be prophetic; in 1950 a Swedish tanker sank the British submarine Truculent on the Thames estuary, with only 15 survivors from an 80-man crew.

During a routine post-war mission, a submarine hits a forgotten electric mine, which explodes, sending the sub to the sea-bed and killing all but 12 of her crew. The captain of the Trojan, Armstrong (John Mills) gets eight out through the conning tower and gun hatch – but no more escape sets are left. Weak-willed Stoker Snipe (Richard Attenborough) becomes hysterical; Armstrong has to knock him out. After seven days of intense examination of the crew’s character under stress, a salvage ship attempts to lift the sub in a heavy storm, but a cable snaps, plunging the sub back to the bottom. Armstrong reads the two remaining men the Naval Prayer.