Beachhead

Beachhead! is a 1954 American Technicolor war film based on U.S. Marine Corps Captain Richard G. Hubler 1945 novel I've Got Mine about World War II. It was filmed on Kauai island in the Hawaiian Islands chain in the mid - Pacific Ocean by Aubrey Schenck Productions, released through United Artists studio and directed by Stuart Heisler. Plot In late October 1943, a battalion of U.S. Marines have landed on Choiseul Island to create a diversion for the impending Allied attack and invasion of Japanese held Bougainville Island in the Northern Solomon Islands, northeast of the large island colony of New Guinea in the southwest Pacific Ocean. Four of them have been selected to carry out a reconnaissance patrol to find a French planter and his daughter. The planter has sent a solitary radio message to the Allies concerning the area the Japanese have mined; if the information is true it could save a projected 18% of the Marine invasion force. The patrol must confirm that the message is authentic, and that the planter is still alive, as he can give the Marines valuable information needed for a successful amphibious landing by the Allied forces. Once obtaining the information the small party is to make a rendezvous on the coast with a US Navy PT boat. The members of a patrol are the sole survivors of their sergeant's platoon on Guadalcanal with both the patrol members and the sergeant blaming their demise on their sergeant's leadership. Cast Tony Curtis as Burke Frank Lovejoy as Sgt. Fletcher Mary Murphy as Nina Bouchard Eduard Franz as Bouchard, French Planter Skip Homeier as Reynolds John Doucette as Maj. Scott Alan Wells as Biggerman Akira Fukunaga as Terrified Japanese Sailor (as Sunshine Akira Fukunaga) Dan Aoki as Japanese Sniper Sam "Steamboat" Mokuahi Sr. as Malanesian, Island native