Fanatical Arabs -- wanting to end the war on their land -- attack both the Rat Patrol and the German convoy that Dietrich leads, trapping both in a small desert fortress. This forces the two teams into a truce. One of the Germans -- a liasion to the Arabs -- tries to talk Dietrich into betraying the Rat Patrol to the Arabs but he refuses. In the end the liasion tries to go over to the Arabs himself. He ends up killed, and Dietrich and Troy are able to construct a trap of their own -- killing most of the Arabs and escaping.

The Patrol stumbles on a German staff car but before they can attack it, the driver and a guard are killed by a third man\u2014who is apparently an American major. The major orders the Patrol to take him to where a high-level meeting is being held in secret. They do so, unaware that he is a German officer and that Dietrich is trailing them. However on the way they stumble on a unit of Italians who were badly injured and their officer\u2014returning with the Patrol to get his men help\u2014recognizes that the Major must be a German. Whereupon the German attempts to kill the Italian\u2014arousing Troy's suspicion.

Captain Dietrich monitors a broadcast sent to the Patrol from HQ and then intercepts them on their way to meet and escort a supply convoy. With the odds decidedly against the Rats, Troy takes refuge in an oasis. A child, playing nearby, runs away terrified of the noise and falls down an old well. The Allies and the Nazis agree to put the war on hold and work together to get the child (who is still alive) out. A second German unit appears and shoots Tully. In the end, they are able to rescue the child and, in the confusion, the Patrol escapes.

During a skirmish with the Germans, Troy suffers a concussion from an explosion. He ends up alone and lost in the desert. By the time he is found he has a terrible case of sunblindness. Unknown to Troy, though, his ""rescue"" has been by a German unit that is pretending to be Americans so they can coax Troy to tell him where the rest of the Rat Patrol is. Dietrich is the engineer behind this ploy.In the end, recovering from the sunblindness in the nick of time, Troy escapes.

The Patrol attempts to destroy a small village that currently has a train in it that the Germans are loading with ammunition. However, there is a small group of Arabs (including women and children) being used to load the ammunition. One of the women stumbles upon Troy and offers to help by warning her people. But as Troy attempts to plant the explosives, Dietrich catches on to the plan and gives alarm. Troy ends up shot and captured. It is now up to the rest of the Patrol to cause enough diversion to get him free. The woman continues to plead with Dietrich to give Troy medical attention. As Dietrich is questioning Troy, though, Troy breaks free, shoots the German and is able—with the Arab woman's father's help—to get the explosives planted. The train goes up; the man is killed.

The Patrol captures a German truck at the end of a partially destroyed convoy. In the process, though, Troy and Dietrich end up alone in the desert -- a stand-off until Arab slave traders arrive and capture both, hauling them deeper into the southern desert on the first leg of the slave trail. Troy and Dietrich escape but are chained together and must make their way back to ""civilization"" through the heat, the sand, and the enemy -- both enemies. They agree, after both are nearly dead with exposure, to cooperate. The truce ends when they arrive at Dietrich's column, but before they get down to the convoy, Troy trips and Dietrich ends up unconscious. Troy frees himself and Dietrich is picked up by his people. Troy rejoins Hitch, who has been driving along at the end of the column. They reach an oasis and Troy is able to place the explosives which were the purpose of this farce in the first place. The oasis blows up and the Rat Patrol, again, escapes.

Using a telephoto lens, Moffitt and Troy photograph a map inside Captain Dietrich's office from the roof of the adjoining Nazi HQ. It shows the location of a top secret German ammo dump. The Patrol must reach the site, enter it and destroy it before half of the German army arrives. The Patrol arrive to find the storage area--an old mine--surprisingly deserted. They go about planting the explosives but just before they blow it, Dietrich (who has laid this all out as a trap) turns up. Shots are exchanged and Dietrich and Troy are trapped inside. Meantime, outside the mine, assuming that in the cave-in Troy was killed, Moffitt and the Patrol prepare to finish blowing it up. Working together, Troy and Dietrich escape through a back entrance moments before the dump is blown up.

After capturing Dr. Anderson, a skilled Allied physician, Dietrich ends up turning over his staff car in a ravine (during a blinding sand storm). Troy wants to attempt to rescue the doctor but can't because of the storm. He hears Dietrich's distress call but suspects it is a trick. In the end they do make the attempt as they hear that the Germans are going to do the same. They get Dr. Anderson--who is fine--but Dietrich is trapped under the car and badly injured. The doctor tells them that Dietrich is dead but the German groans just before the Patrol leaves. When Troy ends up saving Dietrich's life, the doctor was about to kill him with a murderous dose of morphine, Dietrich tells Troy that Anderson is a double agent. Anderson ends up getting killed just as the Germans arrive to help their captain.

Troy determines that the Rat Patrol's only chance to destroy a supply depot inside an enemy-held fortress is by capturing a German tank and using it to get past the guards.

Moffitt gets into a German-held lighthouse by posing as an electrician, to try to gain information about a German naval convoy headed for North Africa which is carrying Tiger tanks.

Moffitt and Tully allow themselves to be captured so that they can get information from Craig -- an American POW -- about Rommel's new battle plans. However, Marston, another POW, tells them that Craig died. Dr. Phillips -- the camp medic -- supposedly has some information about the plan, though. When the medic treats Moffitt's arm he puts the code name of the mission on the underside of the bandage : Operation Nachtigall. However, it soon becomes obvious that either Phillips or Marston is a traitor and it is up to the Patrol to figure out which, as they are both now giving the Patrol conflicting information.

An Arab convoy, disguised as Americans, traps and captures the Rat Patrol. The convoy's leader is Ned Cunningham, an ex-Yank hero turned gunrunner. He sells now to the highest bidder, no matter which side. He feels that the Rat Patrol is costing him too much business and so is going to eliminate them. But he then decides he likes the Patrol and will take them into the deal if they will cooperate. In the end, though, his duplicitious behavior causes his own death.

A British colonel is captured by the Germans after attending a staff meeting which centered on an upcoming Allied offensive. The Rat Patrol is ordered to either rescue or kill him before he can be interrogated. His Sikh aide insists on participating in the mission.

The Rat Patrol is ordered to go with a South African sniper on a mission to kill a German general, but Troy decides to try to capture the general alive.

As a prequel to capturing General Ernest von Helmreich, the Rat Patrol gets itself captured. They plan to use the general to stop an upcoming attack. However the general manages to attract the attention of a distant Nazi search party and the Rat Patrol ends up trapped in a ravine, cut off. To escape they construct a ""fake panzer unit"" of their own -- tricking the Germans into a retreat. They then make it to the largest of the Germans' ammo dumps which they proceed to blow up.

Dietrich is presented with an old scrap of parchment which shows an ancient water source deep in the desert. Allied intelligence sends Moffitt to find the map before it can be translated; he must get it by masquerading as a German and Troy has orders to shoot him should he find the information (and destroy it) but then not be able to escape. Which is, of course, exactly what then happens. Troy must face the decision of killing his comrade -- and friend -- or finding someway to disobey the orders and rescue the mission.

A large Panzer unit has a map showing a strategic oasis occupied by the Eighth Armored. U.S. Intelligence wants the map exchanged for a phony one which would show the oasis as empty. Accompanied by a veteran map expert, Sgt. Griffin, Troy and his men start into the German HQ. At midnight, using bows and arrows for weapons, they go into the area but Griffin has a heart attack and the team is trapped in the commander's office. In the end, Troy bullies the ""expert"" into keeping up the effort until they are finally able to finish the mission, whereupon Troy ends up endangering his own life to get Griffin out of the town.

The Patrol's radio is wrecked and Troy is unable to warn HQ of a large Nazi anti-tank outfit waiting in ambush. Troy knows that El Jebel has a huge radio broadcast unit and heads there. Troy, Moffitt and the others make their way into the radio room and prepare to broadcast their warning to the British. However, Captain Deitrich walks in on them and takes them prisoner. Troy and Moffitt manage to escape. They free Hitch and Pettigrew and get their message back to London. This prevents the Allies from losing a lot of tanks.

The Brits and the Americans are planning a high-level meeting in a desert town. On the day prior to the event, the Patrol sights a German motorcyclist and chases him--but he gets away. Assuming that the Nazis must now know of the conference, Troy tries to talk the commanders out of the meeting. But, instead, they assign him to be in charge of the security. Troy gets jumped, while in town, by a knife-wielding Arab. Sgt Roberts, one of the other "security" men, rescues Troy. Unknown to them, though, Roberts is a double agent and is planning to blow up the meeting--a fact that Troy learns.

Lieut. Klinger, a wounded Luftwaffe ace, is the only German who can ID the location of the Allied troops standing ready to invade Sicily. The Rat Patrol captures him and then Moffitt takes his place so that he can convince the Germans to watch in the wrong place for the upcoming attack. Troy, meanwhile, infiltrates the military hospital. Gestapo Major Bruder however suspects Moffitt and exposes him, but by the time he does, Moffitt manages to get Bruder killed in his place and escape.

Hitchcock is supervising a transport convoy of new anti-aircraft shell fuses when the convoy is attacked by a German unit. Hitchcock is wounded by a deserter.

A lieutenant is infiltrated by submarine to set up naval gunfire coordinates, but Troy gets suspicious when the officer appears more interested in mapping the Allied positions than the German ones.

The Rat Patrol uses Moffitt's old flame as a guide to rescue her husband, a French rocket scientist, from the Germans.

Moffitt and Hitch (dressed as Germans) find Bertaine's daughter and tell her of her father's death. Then they take her home - after they tell her who they really are. They also tell her that they need to use the fishing fleet to accomplish their mission. Meanwhile, Troy secretly meets with American POW liaison officer Indrus. Troy then joins Moffitt at the house of El Gamil. Informed of the plan, El Gamil dispatches his men to the various harbor areas to alert the fishermen. Troy sets the action to begin at dawn.

Troy and Hitchcock capture Col Beckmann, an infamous Nazi POW camp commander. Beckmann denies that he is the man. In a fight Troy is knocked out and Hitch is wounded. Using Troy's gun, Beckmann kills the other German taken at the same time he was and then he exchanges dog tags with him--the places the gun in Troy's hand. Troy is thus accused of the murder. Moffitt and Tully do not arrive until after the deed is done. To prove to a court-martial board that Beckmann is Beckmann, the other Patrolers must break into a German HQ--at considerable risk to their own lives.