Captain Cliff Brandon Victor Mature is a cargo aircraft pilot flying for the Allies, delivering supplies to troops fighting the Japanese in Kunming, Yunnan, in 1943. When he isn’t soaring through the skies or pushing his crew hard in training, he spends evenings unwinding in a local bar. One night, while stumbling home in a haze, he encounters an old Chinese man from Chongqing who offers him a girl, Shu-Jen Li Li-Hua and his daughter. Brandon pays the man, but upon seeing the young woman, he bluntly tells the old man to keep her. The next morning, to his surprise, Shu-Jen is there, waiting.
Father Cairns Ward Bond, a longtime resident missionary in China, reacts with stern concern to the situation, and Brandon tries to wash his hands of the matter. He delegates the difficult task of dealing with Shu-Jen to Ellington Danny Chang, a bright, English-speaking young Chinese boy who serves as the crew’s interpreter. Ellington’s early plan is grim—he attempts to sell Shu-Jen into prostitution—but Father Cairns intervenes, bringing Shu-Jen back to Brandon’s home.
As the priest digs deeper, he learns that Shu-Jen’s father was once a farmer who lost his land to Japanese invaders. Destitute and struggling to feed a large family, he had sold his daughter’s services for three months. Cairns explains to Brandon that sending Shu-Jen away would deprive the old man of the money he needs to survive. Reluctantly, Brandon agrees to keep her, though he insists she is there only as a housekeeper. Ellington remains by his side as a live-in interpreter, and the uneasy arrangement gradually evolves into something warmer.
Over time, affection grows between Brandon and Shu-Jen, and she becomes pregnant. They marry in a traditional Chinese ceremony, and after Brandon is transferred to another base, she gives birth to a daughter. The family is briefly separated, but fate keeps bringing them back together.
During a dangerous mission, the base comes under attack. When orders to divert are issued, Brandon defies them and lands at a different airfield, searching for his family. In the chaos, he discovers Shu-Jen and Ellington dead, while his daughter survives. He places his dog tag around her neck, then takes up a gun at an anti-aircraft position and shoots down enemy planes, sacrificing himself in the process.
Years later, in 1957, Brandon’s former crewmates and their spouses await word from the United States about his daughter. She has been found in an orphanage in British Hong Kong by Father Cairns, still wearing the dog tag that ties her to her father, a silent reminder of the sacrifice that linked two families across war-torn years.
