Trivia: The script called for several Japanese-speaking officers and a company of Japanese troops to be on the island. There were no Japanese men on the islands of Trinidad and Tobago, where the film was shot. A half-dozen who spoke the language were finally found in a Japanese emigrant community in Brazil and flown to the location to play the officers. For the non-speaking roles of Japanese troops, the company hired 50 Chinese who worked in the island's restaurants and laundries. This caused friction with the local islanders, who found it difficult if not impossible to get their clothes cleaned or to get a meal in a restaurant because most of the employees were working on the film.
Trivia: Sir Alec Guinness won his only Oscar for his role as Colonel Nicholson in this movie.
Trivia: The scenes on the Haynes were filmed on an actual Buckley Class destroyer escort, the USS Whitehurst (DE 634). A great number of the Whitehurst crew act in the movie as the crew of the Haynes, with the commanding officer Lieutenant Commander Walter R. Smith playing the chief engineer (though on IMDB this role is credited to Robert Boon).
Trivia: A young Vic Morrow plays a green soldier in this film. A few years later he will be leading his own squad as a veteran sergeant in the TV series "Combat."