Did You Know?
Anachronisms
Several American flags, in long shot, are 50-star flags (48 in 1943).
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In the air raid scene at the start of the film, one of the crewmen manning an anti-aircraft gun is black. Non-white sailors in World War II were assigned almost exclusively to mess duties at sea and menial labor on shore. The services weren't desegregated until after the war.
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Continuity
Commander Ritchie (James Gregory) is in the galley having a cup of coffee when the ship crashes into a dock, and the coffee spills all over his uniform shirt. When he appears on deck moments later to see what happened, his shirt is dry and spotless.
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When Jack Kennedy is down in the boat inspecting his quarters and the land crab shows up by his feet, the big claw is on the crab's right side, when Ens. Leonard Thom appears in the scene approximately 35 seconds later with Jack Kennedy and Ens. Thom asked the size of the crew, Jack Kennedy replies one land crab. When the land crab appears, his large claw is on the left side of the crab.
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When Cmdr. Ritchie spills the coffee on his shirt, he is seen at the mess table in PT 109's forward crew's quarters, but when he emerges on deck to see what has happened, he comes up through a hatch at the stern of the boat under the 20mm gun. This hatch is to the lazarette, a small workroom to the rear of the engine room. Ritchie would have had to (quite needlessly) pass through almost the entire boat below decks from bow to stern (front to rear) - through the galley, the wardroom, the dayroom, the engine room, and the lazarette - to emerge from that hatch, passing four other hatches to the deck on the way.
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When Norman Fell's character (Drewitch) is in the PT engine room during the rescue of U.S. soldiers from the beach (about 50 minutes in), PT 109 is receiving Japanese shore fire on its port (left) side. But Drewitch is wounded by a projectile that pierces the boat from the starboard (right) side.
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When PT109 is coming into Rendova, the bow of the boat is coasting in around 10 mph. The next scene shows Ritchie on the after deck with the wake showing the engines at full power.
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Factual errors
In the film, PT 109 is shown rescuing the remnants of a Marine patrol off Choiseul Island while under enemy fire. This rescue actually occurred on November 2, 1943 - 3 months AFTER PT 109 had been rammed and sunk - but by PT 59, a PT which had been converted into a gunboat and was JFK's second and last command in the South Pacific.
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The cylindrical smoke generators on the sterns of the recreated PT boats in the movie face the wrong way. Real PT boat's generators were installed with the smoke-emitting nozzle to port (left). The movie boat's nozzles are on the starboard (right) sides of the generators.
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Unmodified (except for paint) American AT-6 trainers are used to represent Japanese aircraft.
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The Australian Coast Watcher pretends to be communicating on a BC654/SCR284 crank generator powered radio. The generator is present but the "radio" is a SB71 field-phone switchboard.
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Revealing mistakes
When Ritchie shoots down the Japanese plane, you can clearly see the smoke generator hooked onto the middle part of the wing. There is nothing here that would generate smoke if it had actually been hit by gunfire (the plane may explode or catch fire due to the gasoline in the wing, but it wouldn't just smoke).
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When Cmdr. Richie comes to the PT 109 to inspect it, he arrives in a jeep. When Cmdr. Richie comes to the PT 109 to be taken to the new base he arrives in a jeep. It is the same shot in both scenes (you can tell from the duffel bag in both scenes).
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When Kennedy carries Pappy out of the water after swimming to the first island you can see the plank in the water that he walks on. The plank was put there so the actor could miss stepping on the coral. Later when Kennedy swims out there is no plank in the water and you can see him flinching as he walks on the coral.
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