Bill Rourk, an ex-Coast Guard crew chief, is tricked into volunteering for the Coact Guard Officer's Training School, following the Japanese sneak-attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Rourk's preference would be to keep the higher-paying and more-secure job in a civilian shipyard. Coadt Guard Commander McFarland first meets Rourk at the shipyard and, later, is his superior officer at the officer's-training-school. Rourk fails to get his Ensign's commission, and then finds he has been assigned to McFarland's command at sea. Matters are not helped any by both men being rivals for Louise Ryan, the admiral's daughter.