In scene where the last time one sees the priest praying, near the last 10-15 minutes of the film, the man behind the priest, in the far back of the left of the cabin, appears to be wearing a dark colored German officer or NCO military cap and a field gray tunic with Wehrmacht lapel patches on it. He's kind of ducking down while the priest is in frame. In the next following scenes, he is wearing a normal 1950s business suit. This may have been some sort of prank played by the director or filmmaker just to see who would notice.
Based on the Pan Am Flight 6 incident of October 1956, in which. 24 passengers and seven crew survived the ditching of a Boeing Stratocruiser with help from a US Coast Guard cutter.
The ship that rescues the passengers at the end of the film is the USS Jesse Rutherford (DE-347). It was a John C. Butler-class destroyer escort acquired by the U.S. Navy during World War II and named in honor of Pvt. Jesse Rutherford, Jr., USMC.