During the Second World War Field Marshal Erwin Rommel has placed two spies in Cairo, at the headquarters of the British Eighth Army. They are able to monitor every move of the British. It falls to British intelligence to hunt down the spies before they do too much damage to the war effort.
Two US Marines who are so incompetent that they are sent to the European Theatre of Operations end up in the Battle of Anzio where they face the German's giant artillery piece "Anzio Annie".
The film is set in 1941 during the Second World War, when the city of Benghazi in Italian-ruled Libya was occupied by British forces. Italian inhabitants of Benghazi work to resist the British and discover their military plans. One man, Captain Enrico Berti, appears to be collaborating with the British but is in fact working undercover for Italian intelligence. The film ends with the city being recaptured by Italian troops and their Nazi German allies.
Three friends are droving cattle in Australia in 1939: the restless Bluey Donkin, easy-going Milo Trent and English Peter Linton, who is in the country on a working holiday. Squatter's daughter Kate Carmody is in love with Bluey but he refuses to be tied down to any one woman. War breaks out and the three men enlist in the Australian army and are assigned to the 9th Division. They ship out to Africa.
The film begins with a tank battle where blond-haired Captain Holland (Anthony Steel) is sprawled unconscious in the dunes. When he comes to, he walks over the dunes until collapsing near a Bedouin encampment at an oasis. He is found by the sheik's daughter, Mabrouka (Anna Maria Sandri), who takes him to the camp which consists of several black tents.
Tunisia 1943
As the end of the North African Campaign draws to a close, and the German and Italian forces are being pushed back on Tunis. A company of British Infantry are tasked with holding a small Arab farm against an expected last-ditch counter-attack; the farm's water tower will be used as an observation point by a few Royal Artillery spotters. To defend the farm British Lt. Colonel Derry picks a company led by Major Alan Gerrard; these men have been in the thick of the fighting around Tunis and are greatly reduced in number (described by the narrator as down to barely two platoons). So Gerrard's company set out on foot for the farm; on the way they are joined by Captain Dickie Mead and his signaller, Ames. Arriving at the farm, Gerrard's men chase out the occupants and dig slit trenches out in front of the farm. With the water tower and its ladder in clear view, Mead decides to wait until just before dawn to climb the tower while it is still dark. The next day Mead uses the his position to target the artillery onto the German forces, all is going well until the Germans send out a reconnaissance patrol to pin point the observation post, which Gerrard's men dispose of. With the Germans sure of their position, it becomes a test of nerve for Gerrard's men, seasoned troops and new boys alike. All of them stick it out until they are finally ordered to retreat with their job done. Mead decides to stay behind and cover their escape with artillery fire, leading to the death of Sergeant Major Gill and Private Middleditch. And when Mead finally succumbs to German fire, only the wounded Gerrard is left. With the Germans in the farm and his surviving men well on their way to safety, the mortally wounded Gerrard radios for the artillery to totally destroy the farm, killing Gerrard and the Germans' last chance at the same time.
In North Africa in World War II, Captain Douglas (Caine) is a BP employee seconded to the Royal Engineers to oversee handling incoming fuel supplies for the British 8th Army. A Popski's Private Army-style colonel (Green) is told he must have a regular officer to lead one of his units on a dangerous mission to destroy an Afrika Korps fuel depot.
In a British Army "glasshouse" (military detention camp) in the Libyan Desert, prisoners convicted of service offences such as insubordination, being drunk whilst on duty, going AWOL or petty theft etc. are subjected to repetitive drill in the blazing desert heat.
Libya 1943. Captain Alex Foster, an intelligence officer with the British Army, allows himself to be captured by a German Afrika Korps convoy transporting British prisoners, pretending to be injured. Once integrated with the prisoners, remnants of a commando force and a medical unit, Foster outlines his plans to take over the convoy, with the help of the prisoners, and redirect it towards the Libyan port town of Tobruk.
At the beginning of World War II a young Italian psychiatrist is sent to troops in Libya. When he learns that his commander is a madman he tries to protect the subordinates from harm.
En 1942, un convoi de l'armée britannique est en route vers le front dans le désert en Afrique du Nord. Après qu'on a ordonné aux soldats de détruire leurs documents personnels, Harry Fife et Art Wallace examinent une photographie prise à la fin de leur période d'entraînement en Angleterre.
En octobre 1942, alors qu'une offensive est lancée contre les troupes de Rommel, un véhicule transportant un médecin et quatre infirmières s'égare dans le désert. Prisonniers d'une unité allemande et conscients que celle-ci va les utiliser pour tendre un piège à la colonne de secours alliée, ils vont s'employer à déjouer ce plan.
Tunis, 1942. Muslim Nour (Olympe Borval) and Jewish Myriam (Lizzie Brocheré), both sixteen years old, have been friends since childhood. They live in the same building in a humble neighbourhood where their communities live in harmony. Each secretly desires the other’s life. While Nour regrets not going to school like her friend, Myriam dreams of love. In November 1942, the German army enters Tunis. Following the French Vichy government’s policy, the Nazis subject the Jewish population to harsh tax penalties. Tita (Karin Albou), Myriam’s mother, is forbidden work. Overcome by debt, she decides to marry her daughter Myriam to the rich doctor Raoul (Simon Abkarian). Myriam dreams of love vanish in one blow.
Jiří and Jan are two Czech soldiers, fighting alongside the Allied forces against the Italians during World War II in Tobruk, Libya. Jiří Pospichal, 18 years old, signs up as a volunteer in the Czechoslovak 11th Infantry Battalion. His naive ideas about heroism are rawly confronted with the hell of the African desert, complicated relationships in his unit and the ubiquitous threat of death. All this takes its cruel toll in the shape of his gradual loss of self-respect and courage.