Director Henry Hathaway and his camera crew spent several weeks shooting approximately 50,000 feet of film aboard an American aircraft carrier. This included atmospheric shots, background footage and actual combat scenes. The "Hollywood Reporter" of 12 January 1944 reported that this footage was "the first ever approved by the Navy Department or War Department of any action on one of the new post-Pearl Harbor fleet plane carriers." Whilst on the flat top, Hathaway and crew also studied US Navy procedures and technical manual elements.

When former American President Ronald Reagan famously once said, "We'll bring this one down together", he was actually quoting from this movie.

During the Battle of Midway, all the flyboys of Torpedo Squadron 8 were killed except for Ensign George Gay. This film's original intention was to depict their lives, especially Gay's. The Twentieth Century-Fox studio bought the rights to a 'Life' magazine story by Sidney L. James on the Battle of Midway as well as obtaining permission from both Ensign Gay and the United States Navy to film the story. The 23 September 1942 edition of the 'Hollywood Reporter' stated that "The Navy has relented in its stand against the use of the names of war heroes in film dramatizing their deeds and will not stand in the way provided the permission of the hero is obtained and the story content is satisfactory." However, the studio decided to produce a fictionalized telling of the Battle of Midway. The 'New York Times' of 6 February 1944 reported that the film script about Ensign Gay and Torpedo Squadron 8 was "entirely discarded" after "the protest of a certain high Government official that the proposed picture would carry a defeatist implication."

According to the DVD sleeve notes, this film about the Battle of Midway utilized actual combat footage. Years later another film also about "The Battle of Midway, Midway, would also utilize real combat footage, but in color.

The film's title is an abbreviation of the famous aviator slogan, "Coming in on a wing and a prayer" but in turn is not intentionally related to the 1943 song of the same title, music and lyrics by Harold Adamson and Jimmy McHugh.