- Pvt. Tully Pettigrew: Hold it. We're being followed.
- Sgt. Sam Troy: By what, another cat?
- Pvt. Tully Pettigrew: Not unless this one has shoes.
- [first lines]
- Narrator: [voiceover] Once more Allied bombers approach a strategic target on the North African coast: German shipping docks vital to the supply line so desperately needed by Rommel's Afrika Korps, without which Germany's stronghold in this campaign would be greatly weakened. At that precise moment, in a prisoner-of-war compound a few miles away, a mass escape was being undertaken by a group of desperate men, whose hope it was that the diversion of the bombing would give them the edge they needed. Lacking outside aid, their efforts proved fruitless and costly.
- Narrator: [voiceover] The Rat Patrol was now accustomed to being given difficult and important assignments. Infiltration and demolition was their specialty. But what kind of mission would beckon these desert fighters so far from their sandy battlefield? How important that they be summoned to appear before a special staff of the Allied Command?