Filming for the period suggesting postwar 1959 was done at Naval Station San Diego, California. USS Sea Tiger was portrayed by three different American World War II Balao-class submarines: USS Queenfish, in the opening and closing scenes (circa 1959), in which the "393" on the conning tower is visible; USS Archerfish, for all the World War II scenes where the boat was painted the standard gray and black; USS Balao, for all the scenes in which Sea Tiger was painted pink. The attacking destroyer and, during the arrival at Darwin, the destroyer visible in the background was the Fletcher-class destroyer USS Wren . Historical accuracy A plot error says that Sea Tiger is heading to Darwin to meet up with the sub tender USS Bushnell in December 1941; Bushnell was not commissioned until 1943. As noted above, the fictional Sea Tiger is played by three different Balao-class submarines. The action of the film begins on December 10, 1941, with the Sea Tiger obviously already in-service; however, the first Balao-class submarine would not be launched until late October 1942. (Based on her name, the Sea Tiger probably would have been a prewar, Sargo-class submarine.) Some of the plot points of Operation Petticoat were based on real-life incidents, such as: The evacuation of one Navy nurse and several Army nurses from Corregidor to Australia by the submarine USS Spearfish, commanded by future Navy Cross recipient James C. Dempsey; The sinking of the submarine USS Sealion at the pier at Cavite Navy Yard in the Philippines; The torpedoing of a bus by the USS Bowfin; Captain Sherman's letter to the supply department at Cavite on the inexplicable lack of toilet paper (based on an actual letter to the supply department of Mare Island Naval Shipyard by Lieutenant Commander James Wiggins "Red" Coe of the submarine USS Skipjack); The need to paint a submarine pink because of a lack of enough red or white lead undercoat: Heat from the burning USS Sealion also scorched off the black paint on the nearby USS Seadragon; for a time, the submarine fought with only her red lead undercoat visible. This led Tokyo Rose to disparage American "red pirate submarines". Another possible source for the "pink" submarine is the decorated USS Harder, commanded by Samuel David Dealey. Under the belief that a pinkish tint would help with camouflage, especially near dawn and dusk, Dealey added pink to the