September 1942, northern Africa. The German Afrika Korps is some ninety miles from the Suez Canal, and the British have been bombing Marshall Erwin Rommel's supply lines and his supply bases in Tobruk in Libya to little effect. But hundreds of miles east in an Algerian port, Vichy French are holding varied soldiers of the warring nations as prisoner aboard a ship - among the soldiers so imprisoned is Canadian Army Major Donald Craig, an expert in the topography of the Egyptian theater who'd been captured by the French after escaping the Germans across the Sahara.The ship is boarded by German-speaking commandos, who shoot several guards, set fire to the ship, and open the holding cell to take Craig. Craig tries to escape but is knocked unconscious and taken by motorboat to a seaplane. When interrogated by Captain Bergman, the commando leader, Craig grabs a gun and tries to hijack the plane, but is shocked when it is being escorted by a Royal Air Force fighter, a lend-lease P-40 Warhawk of Number 112 Squadron. Captain Bergman then identifies his unit as the Special Identification Group - German-born Jews serving under the British.The seaplane lands in Kufra, a desert strip 800 miles southwest of Tobruk, and Craig and Bergman are greeted by Lieutenant Boydon, assistant to Colonel Harker, commander of the Long Range Desert Group, a commando unit. Harker explains to Craig that Staff in Cairo has decided to adopt a plan first submitted by Craig to infiltrate commandos to blow up Rommel's fuel base in Tobruk; Craig's original plan was submitted when German forces were weaker than they are now, but Harker and his men are tasked with driving through the 800-mile section of the Sahara - in a mere eight days - disguised as POWs under guard of Bergman's SIG masquerading as regular German soldiers. Craig's responsibility is to guide the commando unit through territory only Craig is familiar with; once in Tobruk the commandos are to reach Tobruk harbor where they are to destroy gun batteries at a cove guarding the harbor and guide a landing of soldiers from sea to blow up the German fuel base and then evacuate to ships. Craig is immediately skeptical of the plan, but has no alternative but to participate.Craig then gets his first encounter with the antisemitic attitude of Harker when the colonel remarks to be on guard around the Jews as they can't be trusted, citing his six years experience in Palestine as evidence. Bergman and his men for their part aren't any more trusting of the British army; in a private conversation Bergman and three of his most trusted men, Lt. Max Mohnfeld, Sgt. Krug, and Corporal Bruckner (whom Bergman has known for ten years), agree they will be thrown to the wolves as the Italians have been similarly sacrificed by their German "allies."The column of half-tracks and lorries starts on its 800-mile trek; after a full day the unit stops to rest in a valley, but several miles away a column of Italian tanks is spotted and inconveniently sets up camp nearly a mile away. Later that night a German unit appears from the other side. Bergman and two commandos sneak into the Italian camp and silently kill two sentries, then flee to their side as Harker sets up mortars and opens fire on both the German and Italian units, thus tricking them into opening fire on each other.The next day Craig diverts the column away from nearby flats and instead cuts through an area known to be a German minefield, to the surprise and anger of Harker. At the precipice of the minefield Craig spots two mines and painstakingly clears sand away to make them visible; he then orders Bergman to fire on both. The result is detonation of two lines of mines and thus opening of a safe passage.A night later he strikes up conversation with Bergman as the Captain is adjusting the engine of a half-track. The conversation segues into a bitter comment by Bergman about German slave-labor and Craig somewhat defensively notes "We all know what's going on in Europe." Bergman for his part notes that, as a Jew, his war won't be done when the present one eventually is - he and his people will eventually return to Israel.Days later the commando column is attacked by a P40 from Number 112 Squadron, the pilot unaware who the column actually belongs to. The column is forced to fight back and the P40 is shot down, but eight men are killed and a lorry with the column's extra fuel is blasted. The commandos are forced to bury the dead and bury the burning lorry, and the ruckus draws out Libyan tribesmen, Taureg, who think it is a German unit and have offered to return two prisoners in exchange for guns.Harker and company have no choice but to agree, and are surprised to find the prisoners are British traitors, Henry Portman and his daughter Cheryl. To Captain Bergman (whom they think is a German officer transporting British POWs) they reveal they are delivering a document of agreement to Cairo, signed by Field Marshall Kesselring and also the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, the violently antisemitic leader of the Muslim world. The document stipulates that anti-royalist officers in the Egyptian army will launch a "holy war" to overthrow the British and thus draw the rest of the Muslim world to the Axis powers, Cheryl Portman pointedly noting Turkey can deploy a four million man army against Soviet Russia. The Portmans request transport to the outskirts of Cairo where they are to meet resident agents and thus deliver the Kesselring document. Bergman informs them that their radio was destroyed and they can only transport them to Tobruk, their nearest base, and from there they can transport the two traitors to their rendezvous.Bergman offers to execute the Portmans and thus not blow their cover, but Harker vetoes such a plan, intending to use the Portmans as a guarantee of entry into Tobruk. His increasingly condescending commentary to Bergman increasingly irritates Craig; a night before they are to reach Tobruk the column sets up camp in an abandoned town. Harker leads a final planning session for the raid where he notes a large transmitter is in the center of the city; if the raid must be aborted he intends to seize the transmitter to radio British forces. He further insults Bergman by condescendingly noting how he and his men volunteered for the mission. Craig then confronts Bergman for not defending himself in front of Harker; Bergman calmly replies that for all Harker's "old school attitudes" both sides will be there when they need each other.But that night a man sneaks into the room where Henry Portman is sleeping via underground tunnel and puts a gun to his head, telling him the column is a British commando unit, and that Portman and his daughter must leave the camp via the underground tunnel, go to a marker of stones a mile away that denotes presence of underground telephone cables, and fit a field phone to communicate with Tobruk, which will dispatch armored units to the campsite; the unseen traitor can't do it himself as he can't risk leaving the camp.The scared Portmans, with the field phone and a gun, find the cables, but are shot down by an Italian patrol. Bergman and his men, pretending to be German soldiers, get the information they want from the Italian captain, then take the badly injured Cheryl back to the camp. With the girl in bed with a plasma tube, Colonel Harker orders Bergman's men to unload their weapons; the Captain refuses, so Harker has his men disarm the SIG soldiers. Cheryl is then killed via cyanide, and Lieutenant Mohnfeld (who'd been the first to see the Portmans had escaped) reveals that he spotted the traitor in the underground tunnel and when the two confronted each other he succeeded in knifing the man to death - Bergman, Craig, and Harker find it to be Corporal Bruckner, to Bergman's disbelief even with Bruckner's cyanide tablet gone.On the morning the commandos are to drive into Tobruk Craig confronts Harker, clearly fearful the raid will fail and tired of Harker's bigotry, but Harker will have none of it. The column enters Tobruk and passes through, passing the transmitter they may need to seize. It then passes a marshaling area where two German tank divisions have arrived undetected by British intelligence, making an amphibious landing impossible but with the fuel base - assembled via mammoth underground tanks, thus explaining their immunity to air attack - still a viable target.The column reaches the gun batteries overlooking the harbor and Harker sends Lt. Boydon and Mohnfeld to get to the radio transmitter, just as RAF bombing begins. Boydon and Mohnfeld's half-track is hit by bombs and the radio tower smashed. Upon seeing Allied battleships begin firing on the shore for the landing, Harker has Sergeant Major Tyne use an orders lamp to send Morse code to the ships to abort the landing. The commandos infiltrate the main shore guns as they open fire on the landing and succeed in blowing up one battery, while Tyne succeeds in turning the landing around - just as Rommel's tank reserves arrive to counterattack against the landing. A massive firefight erupts and the commandos are trapped on the beach, but Bergman and three others escape via motorcycles, while Krug and the two remaining SIG soldiers stay with Craig. Bergman and his men sneak back to the beach and with flamethrower and satchel charges blast several tanks and a number of German infantrymen, thus allowing Harker to evacuate his men from the beach. Craig, however, leads the three SIG soldiers further inland, where they spot a tank on watch and realize they can use it for a desperate final attack on the underground fuel base.