Colonel Joseph Ryan is a United States Army Air Forces pilot who is shot down over Italy. He is taken to a POW camp, run by the cruel Major Basilio Battaglia. Ryan insists that Battaglia salute him as a superior officer, which is reluctantly translated by the sympathetic second-in-command, Captain Vittorio Oriani. The camp is mainly populated by British prisoners of the 9th Fusiliers. The previous Allied commanding officer, who was British, has recently died, due to being placed in the "sweat box" as punishment for hitting Battaglia with a stick. When Ryan arrives in camp, Major Eric Fincham is the senior British officer. Ryan, being senior, assumes command.