The series performed disappointingly in terms of viewing figures compared to The Winds of War (1983).
The producers considered replacing seventy-year-old Robert Mitchum with fifty-nine-year-old James Coburn, due to concerns that Mitchum was too old and ill to reprise the role of Victor "Pug" Henry.
Ralph Bellamy was eighty-three when he played President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who died at the age of sixty-three.
Most Captains in the U.S. Navy were in their thirties or forties during World War II. Robert Mitchum turned seventy during the filming of this mini-series.
During a break in filming, Robert Mitchum played a role intended for John Huston, who was dying of pneumonia and emphysema, in Mr. North (1988).