From murder and espionage to terrorism and stolen submarines, a team of special agents investigates any crime that has a shred of evidence connected to Navy and Marine Corps personnel, regardless of rank or position.
In 1991, years prior to the events of NCIS, Leroy Jethro Gibbs starts his career as a newly minted special agent at the fledgling NCIS Camp Pendleton office, where he forges his place on a gritty, ragtag team led by NCIS legend Mike Franks.
The brilliant and eclectic team of U.S. NCIS Agents and the Australian Federal Police (AFP) are grafted into a multi-national taskforce to keep naval crimes in check in the most contested patch of ocean on the planet.
One dark night during the early phases of WWII, the Italian Royal Navy submarine Cappellini sinks an armed merchant ship sailing with lights out. At that moment, its commander Salvatore Todaro makes a decision that was destined to go down in history: to save the 26 shipwrecked Belgians who otherwise would have drowned in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean and disembark them at the nearest safe harbor. To make room for them on board his submarine, he is forced to navigate on the surface of the water for three days, visible to the enemy forces and endangering his life and that of his men.