In January 1943 the German army, afraid of an Allied invasion of the Balkans, launched a great offensive against Yugoslav Partisans in Western Bosnia. The only way out for Partisan forces and thousands of refugees was the bridge on the river Neretva.

Frank Willes, a young professional footballer, is involved in a road accident from which he emerges partially crippled, having crashed into the car of a wealthy shopkeeper who dies in the accident. Willes then learns that the merchant's widow, Clémence Grandval, stands to gain a fortune from her husband's life insurance. He also discovers that his accident may not have been an accident at all.

A somewhat prim and proper Englishman is hired as the tutor to the son of the Japanese ambassador. His life changes when he and the boy are kidnapped by terrorists for political purposes.

Dutch painter Jan-Van Rooyer hurries to keep a rendezvous with Jacqueline Cousteau, an elegant, sophisticated Frenchwoman, slightly his elder, whose relationship with him had turned from art student into one of love trysts. He arrives and is confronted by Detective Police Inspector Morgan who accuses him of having murdered Jacqueline. Morgan listens sceptically to the dazed denials of Van Rooyer as he tells the story of his relationship with the murdered woman. Morgan, after hearing the story, realizes that the mystery has deepened, and it becomes more complicated when the Assistant Commissioner, Sir Brian Lewis, explains that Jacqueline was not married but was being kept by Sir Howard Fenton, a high-ranking diplomat whose names must be kept out of the case.

During World War II, Italian villagers hide their wine from the German army.

A German expedition is in the African jungles on an unidentified misson. During this mission one of the German explorers, Thoren, is attacked and captured by the local natives called the Botos.

The story of Operation Market Garden—a failed attempt by the allies in the latter stages of WWII to end the war quickly by securing three bridges in Holland allowing access over the Rhine into Germany. A combination of poor allied intelligence and the presence of two crack German panzer divisions meant that the final part of this operation (the bridge in Arnhem over the Rhine) was doomed to failure.

A cargo aircraft crashes in a sandstorm in the Sahara with less than a dozen men on board. One of the passengers is an airplane designer who comes up with the idea of ripping off the undamaged wing and using it as the basis for a replacement aircraft they need to build before their food and water run out.

The tragic story of a young orphan girl who is befriended by an innocent but emotionally disabled veteran of the French Indochina War.