TASK FORCE—-low-key military drama from 1949 covers the 28 years that officer Gary Cooper argues for aircraft carriers and a powerful naval air arm.  Dated, simplistic and overlong at 116 minutes, but the acting is okay and buffs of this type of anchoring aweigh will be rewarded with hair-raising color footage of Japan’s kamikazes hurtling through ack-ack at our ships off Okinawa (and hitting too often). Most of the film is in black & white, and then it switches to color for eighteen minutes of that final action wrap up .

It came in a mediocre #61 for its year, was directed & written by Delmer Daves, co-starred Jane Wyatt, Wayne Morris, Walter Brennan, Julie London, Bruce Bennett, Jack Holt, Stanley Ridges, Moroni Olsen, John Ridgely and Kenneth Tobey.  Wayne Morris was a navy ace during the war, winning four DFCs, knocking down seven enemy planes and helping sink five ships.