This is the life story of a bright young Soviet Navy man, the Captain Alexander Marinesko, who aspired, from an early age, to become an officer in the armed forces of the Soviet Union. He managed to reach the top position on the command bridge of an old submarine, which took him all the way to the end of the World War II, the Great Patriotic War, as that conflagration was known in Russia, as an ace submarine commander. He lived and worked during the terror of Stalin's peak power years, which did push the nation on its knees, with brutality. That resulted in the obliteration of entire ethnic and social segments of the society.