In Which We Serve is a fine example of British wartime propaganda that still has value today, not only as a historical relic, but as a picture of how Britons of all classes banded together in the war effort. It's sentimental, to be sure, and a tad too stiff-upper-lipped at times, but it is a moving portrait of a navy destroyer, the men who served on it, and the women they left behind. The film is based on the experiences of Lord Mountbatten aboard the HMS Kelly; Mountbatten gave Noel Coward his hat to wear in the film. "This is the story of a ship," writer/director/producer/composer/star Coward intones in an opening voiceover, but it is thankfully more than that.

The movie isn't about dramatic payoffs or surprises. After an opening documentary-style look at a destroyer being built, we see that destroyer, the HMS Torrin, in battle off Crete in 1941. The perfectly calm crew fights a troop transport, a German destroyer, and some aircraft, and then the ship is bombed and begins to sink. The film then follows eight or nine crew members as they cling to a raft near the wreckage; as they duck German warplanes that strafe them, attempting to kill the survivors, we are told the story of the ship and these men in sentimental flashbacks.

The flashbacks recount the experiences of the crew aboard the ship from its first outfitting, though the rescue at Dunkirk and near-sinking in 1940, to its final resting at the bottom of the Mediterranean. They also present snippets from the lives of three crew members: Captain Kinross (Noel Coward), Chief Petty Officer Hardy (Bernard Miles), and Ordinary Seaman Blake (John Mills). Three levels of British society are presented; one of the main points of the film is that these men of radically different backgrounds and upbringing are capable of joining together to fight.

The upper crust is represented by Captain Kinross. He's as British as they come, implacably calm under any circumstances and seemingly without emotional range. He runs a tight ship, but he's a beneficent man. We see him in one scene as he bumps into one of his crewmen on a train; he greets the newly married man by name and congratulates him and his stammering wife politely. Another scene shows that he is understanding: during a battle, one crewman deserts his post, but Kinross refuses to execute him, which is the standard punishment. Instead, he takes the blame himself, for not preparing the young recruit (played by Sir Richard Attenborough in his screen debut) properly. The middle class is represented by Chief Petty Officer Hardy. He's a regular Joe with a loving wife and harrassing mother-in-law. His story isn't told in as much detail as that of the Captain or that of Seaman Blake, but his gets the most emotional moment, which I will not reveal. Lower-class Seaman Blake is shown as a fresh-faced young man, a fast-talking but genuinely nice guy who is singled out for his bravery during one particular battle. Back home, he meets and falls in love with a young woman, Freda (Kay Walsh), on a train; it turns out that she is Hardy's niece, and after she and Hardy are married and she is pregnant, she goes to live with Hardy's wife while her husband is at sea.

In the end, the film is about Captain Kinross, and Noel Coward pulls the role off with a combination of galling Britishness and clever wit. He is portrayed as the patriarch of an extended family aboard the ship, and he takes his job seriously. One scene that is particularly moving occurs as he walks among the survivors of his ship, taking down addresses of loved ones from dying men; the magnificent final scene, where he bids farewell to the survivors as they head to different assignments had me on the verge of tears.

Of course, the film is propaganda. The harrowing scenes showing German fighters strafing the survivors are moving, but far more often, enemy ships would pick up survivors of ships sunk in battle—one of the last vestiges of "honorable warfare" in WW2. It is certainly possible that Mountbatten's crew were shot at by German planes, but it didn't happen all that often. However, since the film's primary role was as particularly moving propaganda, it is understandable to include it. Hundreds of films were made during World War II by American and British film companies that were primarily intended to bolster patriotism; this is one that still holds up because of its fine acting, directing (by Noel Coward, with action sequences handled by David Lean), and screenplay.

The film, which came out in Britain in 1942, was nominated for Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay in 1943. Oddly enough, Coward received a 1942 honorary Oscar "for his outstanding production achievement in In Which We Serve"; I wonder why they waited a year before nominating it for anything else? It lost in 1943 to Casablanca (another film that won Oscars a year after it was released), but it might have fared better in 1942.