When the crew of a downed British bomber escape from their Nazi captors with Top Secret intelligence, they make a desperate journey to get out of Germany alive.
When Flight Lt Forbes and his crew are shot down after bombing their target they discover valuable information about a hidden German aircraft factory that must get back to England. In their way across Germany, they try to cause as much damage as possible. Then, with the pursuing Germans about to pounce, they come up with an ingenious plan to escape.—[email protected]
A unit of the British Royal Air Force is assigned to bomb a German railway. Although they are ordered to fly at a high altitude, their bomber is spotted by the Germans, who attack them from both air and land. After the squadron leader is shot, Flight Lt. Terrence 'Terry' Forbes (Errol Flynn) takes charge and rashly flies the plane beneath the cloud cover, causing the plane to be shot down. The plane crashes in the woods and the survivors--Forbes, an Australian; Flying Officer Johnny Hammond (Ronald Regan), an American; Flight Sergeant Kirk Edwards (Alan Hale Sr.), a Scot; Flying Officer Jed Forrest (Arthur Kennedy), a Canadian; and Flight Sergeant Lloyd Hollis (Ronald Sinclair), the wounded son of a famous World War I flyer--hide hurriedly. The plane explodes in flames, and the Germans assume that everyone perished in the crash until a German soldier spots blood from one of the wounded fliers.
After they are captured, the fliers are sent to a prison camp, where camp commander Major Otto Baumeister (Raymond Massey) interviews them. Johnny pretends to cooperate, but at the first opportunity, knocks the major unconscious. Terry, who speaks German, then tricks the other soldiers inside. Once they have subdued the Germans, the men search the office and find papers relating to a hidden Messerschmidt factory. They then begin their dangerous trip across enemy territory.
Believing that his wounds imperil the group, Lloyd decides to give himself up to the Germans, but the other men stop him before he gets very far. They then overpower enough German soldiers to provide them all with Nazi uniforms and board a train bound for Berlin. When Baumeister learns of the attack, he flies to meet the train in Berlin, but as the men had earlier been discovered and ejected from the train (after the German commander mistakenly thinks that the in-disguised airmen are German soldiers enlightening themselves to free whiskey and food in the German officer's cabin), Baumeister fails to capture them.
While searching for provisions in Berlin, Terry learns that they are near an important chemical plant and suggests that the men sabotage it. Jed tries to stop them, but the men override his objections and successfully destroy the plant. Lloyd is wounded again and Terry searches for a doctor. With the help of Kaethe Brahms (Nancy Coleman), a member of the underground, he finds one who is anti-Nazi, but Lloyd's agonized moans are overheard by one of the doctor's patients, and she summons the Gestapo. The men overpower the police, but despite the doctor's best efforts, Lloyd dies.
Kaethe sends them to her parents' house near the Dutch border. When they arrive, they are warmly welcomed by the Brahmses, but Kaethe later reveals that they are impostors and that her real parents are in a concentration camp. Kirk is killed during their escape over the roof when he gets shot and falls to his death, and the others steal Baumeister's car and drive to the border, where Kaethe leaves the men to carry on in Germany.
Across the border in the Netherlands, the men run out of gas and follow a passing gasoline carrier, which leads them to a camouflaged airplane. It turns out to be a captured English bomber destined for a surprise attack on the Battersea waterworks in England. As the three remaining fliers board the plane, Jed is shot, leaving Terry and Johnny to fly the plane to England. They crash-land at a local airfield near the English coast where a British army unit arrives, and soon learns that they are friendlies. As the wounded Jed is taken away by British medics off the plane, Terry and Johnny learn that Jed will recover from his wounds.
