the U.S. Army won't overshadow the Navy in the forthcoming D-Day invasion. He orders Charlie to create a combat film to document the death, promising the casualty will be buried in a "Tomb of the Unknown Sailor".

Despite his best efforts to avoid the assignment, Charlie and his gung-ho friend, Commander Cummings, become a makeshift two-man film crew aboard a ship with the combat engineers, who will be the first sailors ashore on D-Day. Charlie tries to run away once ashore, but Cummings shoots him in the leg. A German shell lands near