Shows the Navy's anti-submarine patrol in action during the late 1960s.  Featuring flight operations off the aircraft carrier USS Wasp (CV-18), fixed wing and rotary wing aircraft perform sweeps of the sea in the vicinity of the fleet main body.  They are joined by destroyers and other warships equipped with sonar, depth-charges and ASW torpedoes.  The Grumman S-2 Tracker aircraft is especially featured  “The Hunter Killers” is a relatively short, color, United States Navy film produced in 1967. The film introduces us to the United States Atlantic Fleet (since renamed the United States Fleet Forces Command) and the Anti-Submarine Carrier Task Group. Their mission: to find and destroy enemy submarines and to protect “friendly shipping” in the world’s oceans. At mark 01:20, the film joins a group of pilots and crewmen as they arrive onboard an aircraft carrier to join the air group for a tour of duty. At mark 02:45, in the ship’s ready room, the men are briefed on what they can expect on their mission “as they assume the challenges of anti-submarine warfare.” At mark 03:24, it is explained that missions are often flown under demanding, less-than-ideal conditions, both day and night. Operating from aircraft carriers, the task groups are expected to work at peak performance at all times, the narrator explains. At mark 05:00, a Grumman S-2E Tracker, the primarily long-range detection and localization system aircraft, is shown launching from a carrier, followed by a Grumman E1E Tracer (the task force radar plane), as it heads out to search for enemy submarines. As a crew boards a Sikorsky SH-3 Sea King helicopter, the audience is told that those men must also be trained in all aspects of anti-submarine warfare. “The helicopter … can not only pinpoint a sub’s position but it can attack and destroy a submarine without other assistance.” The film continues at mark 08:20 by showing the audience a typical training exercise in which an enemy submarine is located by a radar plane. As crews onboard the carrier pour over information, they dispatch helicopters and a Tracker to pinpoint the sub’s location beneath the waves. As each unit employs its own specialty, a kill is recorded at mark 11:24. “So long as the unfriendly submarine poses a threat to our country and the free world’s safety and security, the anti-submarine forces will remain on station, patrolling, searching, practicing, improving,” the narrator explains, as the film comes to a close.

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