Thunder Afloat

Thunder Afloat is a 1939 World War I naval film starring Wallace Beery and Chester Morris. The movie was directed by George B. Seitz.

In a New England port town, Pop Thorson Wallace Beery and Rocky Blake Chester Morris are rival tugboat owners. Thorsons boat has sunk in the shallow water while docked, and he is certain Blake sabotaged it to keep Thorson from winning a lucrative contract to move barges of military supplies. Thorson is a widower who built his own tugboat and lives on it with his adult daughter Susan Virginia Grey. She loves her father, but also likes Blake who denies the sabotage and does not want the two men to fight.As the United States has now entered World War I, the Navy is recruiting men for antisubmarine warfare. Susan and Pop Thorson trick Blake into enlisting by pretending Thorson is going to enlist himself. Thorson then gets the contract, but when his boat is afloat again and towing a barge, it encounters a German submarine. The Germans order the crew into the lifeboats and sink the tug and the barge. ........

Source: Wikipedia