 Carl Brashear, born in 1931 to sharecroppers, joins the Navy and, after watching the heroics of Billy Sunday, the White son of a sharecropper, determines to become the Navy s first African-American diver. At the Bayonne, N.J., divers  training camp, Sunday is his instructor, and Brasher must endure hazing verging on the murderous. With Sunday and the camp s commander dead set against Brashear s graduating, his physical skills and steely determination, which he got from his father, see him through. Carl and Billy s paths cross again when each needs rehabilitation one from an injury, the other from bitterness. Their wives look on with awe and frustration.