Destination Gobi

The Navy forms a meteorology command to support Pacific operations and assigns Lt. Cmdr Wyatt and CPO Sam McHale to the most remote station in the Gobi Desert, Inner Mongolia. McHale, eager to return to sea, resents the desert assignment even as Wyatt prepares the forecast duties that will keep their unit supplied with weather data.

Mongolian nomads led by Kengtu set up camp at the oasis near the station, creating an uneasy but workable coexistence with the Americans. Seaman Jenkins suggests they would make an excellent cavalry, and McHale requisitions 60 Army saddles to facilitate contact.

Japanese planes bomb and strafe the oasis camp, killing Wyatt and several Mongols and shattering the fragile liaison. The survivors begin an arduous evacuation, heading 800 miles east across the Gobi toward the sea.

At another oasis, Kengtu explains he abandoned the station to protect his people from the Japanese. He offers to escort the Americans to the sea if they disguise themselves in Mongol dress and allow his followers to keep the saddles.

Under disguise, McHale's unit presses toward Sangchien, a Japanese-occupied city in China. Their cover finally fails, and they are trapped by Japanese soldiers and transported to a prisoner-of-war camp on China's coast.

Inside the POW camp, the officer treats them as spies because they are not in uniform. Wali-Akhun, one of Kengtu's men, is arrested in a stolen American uniform and later reveals Kengtu's plan, providing wire-cutters to McHale.

That night, McHale and his men use the wire-cutters to break out and head for the docks, where Kengtu awaits with a Chinese junk.

They reveal that their capture was a ploy to lure the Japanese into transporting them to the ocean, then set sail for Okinawa. They are soon spotted by U.S. Navy patrol planes and rescued.

Following the rescue, McHale is awarded the Navy Cross for his leadership and courage during the ordeal.

Kengtu and his ally Wali are flown in an admiral's transport plane to rejoin their people, completing their part of the mission.

McHale and his men present the Mongols with 60 brand-new navy blue saddle blankets emblazoned with the logo The First U.S. Navy Mongolian Cavalry to honor and cement their alliance.