Goofs

When McCluskey crash lands on the carrier deck the plane shown approaching the carrier is Douglas SBD "Dauntless" dive bomber. The plane that crashes is a Douglas "Devastator." When the firefighters arrive at the aircraft it is a "Dauntless" again.

At the beginning, as Scott leaves his ship, he boards the transport boat on its starboard side, in an area which is separated physically from port. Yet an instant later, when the POV switches to the transport looking back toward the ship, he's now on the port side.

The same shot of the F4F on which the number is 43 painted is used twice just minutes apart. The plane is making a diving turn to port.

During the attack sequence on the Japanese carriers at Midway, the film shows the dive bombers striking first. Actually, it was the torpedo bombers that attacked first. This was caused by missed communications between the torpedo planes and the fighter cover. It was supposed to be a coordinated high-low attack. Almost every torpedo plane was shot down. No torpedoes made hits. While a tragic accident, the torpedo planes drew the Japanese fighter cover down to wave top height. When the U.S. fighters and dive bombers arrived there were very few Japanese fighters to intercept them.

What has been described as not being possible, the USS Franklin, which was damaged in the Pacific, was in fact brought back to New York to have major repairs done in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Emergency repairs were done in Hawaii before the transit to New York. She had to steam to the east coast of the United States for repairs in New York because all of the repair shipyards on the U.S. west coast were heavily overloaded with American warships that had been damaged by Japanese kamikazes.

Admiral Richard (Walter Brennan) late in the day of the Battle (June 4) reports a Japanese cruiser dead in the water and another one burning and hits on two battleships. This leaves the impression that this was a result of attacks by the US carrier aircraft. This indeed happened, but not by the American carriers. The two cruisers were spotted on June 5, 1942 and attacked by aircraft from the Island of Midway. The next day, June 6, aircraft from the US carriers finished off one cruiser, but the other escaped, badly damaged. The battleships were attacked by airplanes from Midway, suffered near missing, and were not badly damaged. During the invasion of Okinawa Captain Scott (Gary Cooper) says that "every man was at his battle stations on May 31st" and the invasion would begin on April Fool's Day (April 1). The captain got his dates mixed up.

Japanese torpedo planes did not attack the Island of Midway, only fighters and bombers were in the attacking force. Vought SB2U Vindicator dive bombers are shown as part of the attacking force from the US carriers; the only Vindicators used during the Battle of Midway flew from the Island of Midway.

The Douglas TBD Devastator torpedo planes located the Japanese fleet before Douglas SBD Dauntless dive bombers found it. Although the Douglas SBD Dauntless was nimble for a scout/dive bomber, there was no instance in the Battle of Midway where one pursued and shot down a Japanese airplane, as depicted in the movie. No air-launched torpedoes by the US carrier aircraft on June 4 hit any Japanese ship, much less cause them to explode as depicted in the movie. The ship shown as exploding was actually the British battleship HMS Barham blowing up on 25 November 25, 1941.

At the end of the movie, the battle damaged aircraft carrier is shown steaming into New York Harbor along with a montage of stock footage showing battle damage. However, one clip has the open ocean in the background rather than the New York City skyline.

When the captain goes to await the return of the planes that just attacked the Japanese fleet at Midway, the number "36" is shown painted on the forward end of the deck, which would make it the USS Antietam, which was not one of the US carriers at Midway. The USS Antietam was not launched until late 1944.

At one point, as he's narrating the story, Capt. Scott says it's May 31. In the next sentence, however, he says that they are going to strike Okinawa on April 1, April Fool's Day as he points out. The Battle of Okinawa started on April 1.

In the Christmas scene at the Naval Academy, when the choir of midshipman are seen singing hymns outside Scott's house, leaves can clearly be seen on trees even though it's supposed to be late in December.

In a long shot of the naval hospital, in a scene set in the 1920s, a 1940s car can plainly be seen driving along the road in front of the hospital.

Just before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor the priest says that December 7, 1941 is the third Sunday of Advent. Advent is the four Sundays before Christmas which means that in 1941 December 7 was the second Sunday in Advent.

A Grumman F6F Hellcat was shown burning in early 1942. The Navy accepted its first F6F until September 1942 and it wasn't deployed until 1943.