The story of what actually happened during the opening days of the Cod War, filmed at sea aboard trawlers and warships. On 1 September Iceland laid claim to the seas within 50 miles of her coast. Charlie Pitts from Hull - aged 42, at sea since he was 16, a skipper for 14 years - was one of seventy and more British trawler skippers who defied the Icelanders and kept on fishing despite being buzzed by aircraft and harassed by gunboats. At one stage his crew fought off a gunboat with fire-hoses. British tempers boiled over when the Icelanders cut away their nets. The skippers charged a gunboat and set off to attack the Icelandic trawler. All to the strains of Rule, Britannia! blaring from loud-hailers. Narrator Anthony Hopkins