In September 1942, as Rommel’s Afrika Korps closes in on the Suez Canal with fuel running perilously low, a daring British plan takes shape to cripple the enemy’s advance by destroying the German fuel bunkers at Tobruk. The mission hinges on a tense, high-stakes infiltration that must succeed within eight days before a scheduled amphibious assault and a Royal Air Force bombing raid.
Major Donald Craig, Rock Hudson, a Canadian-born officer of the Long Range Desert Group, finds himself a prisoner aboard a ship off Algiers, held with captured Italian soldiers. His rescue comes at the hands of Captain Kurt Bergman, George Peppard and a cadre of Special Identification Group operatives, a Jewish unit operating behind enemy lines. They join forces with the Long Range Desert Group under Lieutenant-Colonel John Harker, Nigel Green, in a plan conceived at Kufra in southeastern Libya. Their objective is clear but perilous: slip into Tobruk, neutralize the harbor’s artillery and fuel depots, and escape before the Germans fortify their defenses.
From the outset, the infiltration hinges on deception. The team will pass as prisoners of war escorted by the SIG, masquerading as German guards to gain access to the Tobruk defenses. Yet Craig is wary, sensing that time has tightened the calendar and that the German response could be swifter and more brutal than anticipated. Harker cautions him not to let personal disagreements derail the operation, underscoring that the revised plan is Bergman’s, and it must be carried out with discipline and trust.
Their march toward Tobruk is punctuated by danger and misfortune. A patrol of Italian tanks appears while the group is halted at a rest stop, and Jack Watson as Sergeant Major Jack Tyne orchestrates a deception that buys them precious minutes to slip away. Craig leads them through a hostile minefield, only to be ambushed by a British Curtiss P-40 Warhawk and forced to endure the loss of eight comrades, a transport truck, their crucial fuel supply, and both radios. The chaos draws Tuareg tribesmen, who maintain a curious alliance with the Germans, complicating every move. In a tense exchange, Craig negotiates with the Tuareg in their language and trades guns and ammunition for two prisoners: Henry Portman, Liam Redmond, and his daughter Cheryl Portman, Heidy Hunt. They carry documents signed by the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and German Field Marshal Albert Kesselring that imply a broader Axis strategy—an ominous pledge that Egyptian officers might rise to join a holy war and that Egypt’s conquest would serve as a gateway to other Muslim territories.
The Portmans’ capture takes on new urgency when a SIG insider hints at a British masquerade and the Germans move to intercept. The couple’s presence becomes a liability as Henry is killed and Cheryl is wounded during an Italian patrol confrontation while carrying a map and a means to contact Tobruk. Bergman and the ruthless Sgt. Krug, Leo Gordon, retrieve Cheryl, only to learn that one of Bergman’s own SIG members is a traitor. The escape tunnel is investigated by Lieutenant Max Mohnfeld, Guy Stockwell, who uncovers the murdered body of Corporal Bruckner, Robert Wolders. Cheryl’s cyanide death and the missing “suicide tablet” from Bruckner’s kit sow seeds of doubt about who among Bergman’s circle can be trusted, though Bergman’s trust in his inner circle remains tested but unbroken at this stage.
The mission advances into Tobruk, where Rommel has gathered two full panzer divisions, hidden from view and ready to strike at the right moment. Without radios, the team’s ability to report back is crippled, and the RAF’s scheduled bombing intensifies the urgency. The LRDG engineers manage a bold act: blowing up two harbor guns, while Harker orders Tyne to signal the ships to abort the landing and dispatches Lieutenant Boyden to seize the German transmitter. The price of interference proves steep—Boyden is killed in the bombing, and Privates Alfie, Norman Rossington, and Dolan, Percy Herbert, fall when they stumble upon a cache of English pounds and attempt to steal it.
Bergman and three of his men are killed in a diversionary effort to cover Craig and Krug’s escape with two SIG fighters. The last leg of the mission sees them seize a German tank and destroy the Tobruk fuel depot, striking a crippling blow to Rommel’s advance.
The plot reaches its startling human twist when Harker and his men surrender, and Lieutenant-Colonel [Mohnfeld] is revealed to be the German intelligence officer von Kruger, a man Bergman’s team has trusted. He seeks the Kesselring document, but Harker reveals that he burned it before capture. In a final act of defiance, Harker shoots von Kruger; his guards return fire and kill him, closing that treacherous chapter. Craig, Krug, and their remaining SIG companions press on along the coast, trudging more than 70 miles to rejoin a Royal Navy vessel at Sallum, just beyond the Egyptian border, where they hope for a safe withdrawal and the continuation of their mission.
In the end, the operation remains a somber testament to the gritty, costly reality of behind-enemy-lines warfare in the desert. It highlights the fragile alliances, the constant threat of betrayal, and the razor-thin margins between success and disaster as the war in North Africa rages on.
