The Red Herring

Lieutenant Rip Crandall is hoodwinked into taking command of the "Wackiest Ship in the Navy" – a real garbage scow with a crew of misfits who don't know a jib from a jigger. What none of them knows, including Crandall, is that this ship has a very important top-secret mission to complete in waters patrolled by the Japanese fleet. Their mission will save hundreds of allied lives – if only they can get there in one piece.

Sergeant Grimshawe wants to retire in the flush of success by winning the Star Squad prize with his very last platoon of newly called-up National Servicemen. But a motley bunch they turn out to be, and it's up to Grimshawe to put the no-hopers through their paces.

When a Soviet submarine gets stuck on a sandbar off the coast of a New England island, its commander orders his second-in-command, Lieutenant Rozanov, to get them moving again before there is an international incident. Rozanov seeks assistance from the island locals, including the police chief and a vacationing television writer, while trying to allay their fears of a Communist invasion by claiming he and his crew are Norwegian sailors.

After the insane General Jack D. Ripper initiates a nuclear strike on the Soviet Union, a war room full of politicians, generals and a Russian diplomat all frantically try to stop it.