Troy infiltrates a German H.Q. posing as a blinded Afrika Korps officer to steal vital information.

Valuable German ammo has been dropped by parachute to an Arab farmhouse, and the Rat Patrol is sent to destroy it. On destroying the building, Troy discovers that there is no ammo--but there is a confused teenage boy. The boy proves out to be the son of a German commander. Troy is going to kill the commander, but when the boy pleads with him not to, Troy remembers what it felt like to lose his own father, who died when Troy was this boy's age. Troy arranges to capture the German instead of killing him.

On the Eve of a dangerous mission, Moffitt receives word that his younger brother has been killed by a German bomb in London.

The Patrol ambushes a German courier and finds that his papers contain charts showing desert waterholes and some oases which are unknown to the Allies or the Germans. Suddenly a German patrol attacks, wounding Tully and destroying the Patrol's jeeps, water and weapons. Troy and crew strike out for a waterhole mentioned on the chart. Hours later, near their end, Troy and his men stagger toward an inviting waterhole to find it has been poisoned. On a distant dune they see Dietrich. Tully is near the end, because of his wound. It is up to Troy to negotiate with Dietrich.

The British 8th Army sends their desert expert -- Jack Moffitt -- to the Rat Patrol for one very special mission. But Sergeant Troy (the American head of the unit) is very uneasy about this new addition. Moffitt tells Troy that the Germans have buried ammunition and petrol at an abandoned oasis which only the Afrika Korps knows about. It's up to the Rat Patrol to find this oasis and destroy the cache before the Germans can reach it. Dietrich -- familiar with the Rat Patrol's tricks -- devises a trap wherein he will follow the Patrol to the oasis. The Rat Patrol gets delayed, though, by a broken axle and, in the end, it is a race between them and Dietrich to see who will reach the supplies first.

The Patrol manages to ambush a German unit that is carrying US POWs. Three of these POWs are apparently out to kill each other. Sgt. Gribs -- whose cowardliness caused his men to become captured -- is fighting against Tex and Eddie -- who want revenge. Gribs bargains with Troy for protection, telling Troy that he has information vital to US Command. They start back to HQ, but one of the unit's jeeps breaks down. They continue to travel slowly across the desert until they can capture a German vehicle. Gribs parcels out small hints of his ""vital"" information to keep himself safe. It all ends in heroism -- or something close.

A very prized Germany radar station must be destroyed before a flight of bombers comes over. To do it, the Rat Patrol is given a new, special kind of explosives. Troy is apprehensive about carrying this dangerous cargo, which can explode with the slightest of bumps. Dietrich learns of the mission and tries to beat the Patrol to the area by utilizing an old Arabic legend of an unknown ""trigh"" (road) through the jebels (mountains). The Patrol is also in search of this trigh. But Moffitt gets them lost and Dietrich beats them there. Troy then manages to plant some explosives -- and bluffs Dietrich out of the radar station by telling him that he's willing to die himself rather than let the station do its work.

Tully and Moffitt transport a liberated French underground general to a rendezvous in a deserted lighthouse. Hitchcock stands lookout, disguised as a German guard. Troy, though, is held captive inside the lighthouse -- betrayed by Mathias. Moffitt tries to reach him but ends up unconscious. In the ensuing fight, Mathias is killed and Troy manages to signal the trawler into the area to take the general to safety.

German artillery traps 2000 Allied soldiers and their only chance of rescue is an Allied armored attack. The necessary equipment, though, can only reach them in time via an ancient road which is now hidden by sand, a road only Moffitt's father can find. On the way to the landing site, Moffitt's father's plane crashes. Moffitt wants to go find him but Troy insists their first priority is to find the road themselves. Moffitt breaks away and goes to find his father but finds only the burned-out plane. Troy thinks the elder Moffitt must be dead. Moffitt says he was captured. Again Moffitt escapes the team and goes after his father -- finally rescuing him.

After each Allied bombing of their harbor, the Germans use Allied POWs to rebuild it. HQ sends the Rat Patrol to liberate the POWs and halt the harbor's usefulness. Troy must coordinate his plans with Major Indrus (John Anderson), an American who is inside the camp. They use an explosive-laden boat to get into the harbor but the Germans stop it halfway in. The captain, Bertaine (Will Kuluva), doesn't allow the Germans to board his boat. Troy and his men are able to fight off the boarding party and escape into town, but at the cost of Bertaine's life. They are followed by El Gamil (Stanley Adams), a sympathetic Arab merchant and black marketeer, who provides a car and uniforms for Moffitt and Hitchcock to go to the German Officer's Club in search of Bertaine's daughter Marianne (Claudine Longet). She is regarded as a traitor by locals because she performs at the club, but Troy has no choice but to seek out her help. The episode ends with Moffitt and Hitchcock entering the club.

Gustav Luden (Jack Colvin), a radio operator, wants to defect, so he sends secret information to the Americans on a frequency that the Rat Patrol listens to. The Patrol goes in after him. They get inside the German base and, once there, find that Luden is being questioned by the Gestapo.

Troy's brother is captured by a German colonel who was injured in an earlier raid by the Rat Patrol.

During a desert battle, Hitchcock is badly wounded. Troy decides to risk taking him to a nearby German field hospital as their own hospital is too far away. Upon arriving at the hospital he and Moffitt nearly pull off the masquerade, except for a paranoid patient -- Captain Friedrich -- who tells everyone they are American spies. No one believes him but during the delay the doctor notices a tattoo on Hitch's arm from Ft. Benning, Ga. Troy forces him, at gunpoint, to finish the operation. They escape in a hail of gunfire after the surgery.

The plan is for the fishing fleet to bring out the prisoners, Dunkirk-fashion. However, a Nazi patrol boat has intercepted the boats. The fishermen believe that Marinanne is a collaborator. Sgt. Troy, though, disagrees and he's right. Marianne talks the fishermen into cooperating, and the prisoners make good their escape.

When the patrol ambush an Afrika Korps supply column, Troy accidentally wounds a German nurse. Feeling guilty, Troy decides to take her to a German field hospital. The only problem is that on the way she overhears a piece of vital information.

The Patrol is ordered to rescue pop star Mickey Roberts (singer Jack Jones), who is a P.O.W. in a small Afrika Korps compound, with the S.S. also turning up to make Roberts into a propaganda coup.

Dietrich traps the Rat Patrol in a cellar. In the cellar are a pregnant woman who has a valuable map, and a resistance fighter who has a personal vendetta with the woman.

Troy hides aerial photographs of secret German installations before being captured by the Gestapo. Then a street urchin finds and tries to sell the photos.

A British general is rescued in the desert. He insists upon leading the Rat Patrol on a mission to disrupt a German oil pipeline, despite his deteriorated condition.

Troy goes undercover to get microfilm from a French Resistance fighter, but they are captured by Dietrich. After Troy refuses to give up the location of the microfilm, Dietrich sentences both to death. Troy must find a way to contact the Rat Patrol for rescue.

Moffitt is seriously wounded in a raid on a German convoy. The Patrol is far from help and so Troy decides to obtain blood from a nearby German field camp. Dietrich is in charge of the base; Troy encounters him and orders him to help him find a donor. Dietrich sends for Corporal Pennell (guest appearance by teen idol Fabian Forte), a captured Yank deserter. Pennell refuses to cooperate but Troy takes him at gunpoint. On the way back to Moffitt, Dietrich catches up to them and it is up to Pennell to do the "impossible" to prevent them from all being recaptured. He rises to the occasion and they make it back to Moffitt and Tully in time to save Moffitt's life.

Troy raids German HQ and kidnaps Dr. Schneidermann. At the same time Moffitt, Tully and Hitch are captured by Captain Dietrich. Dietrich reveals that Troy is carrying a vial of deadly radium. He urges Moffitt to divulge Troy's destination, bargaining the Patrols' unconditional freedom for the return of Schneidermann. Moffitt, disbelieving the radium story, keeps quiet. However Troy is carrying the fatal vessel. The three Patrollers escape and trail Troy back to the rendezvous, with Dietrich trailing them.

Moffitt is about to be executed for "espionage against the Third Reich" when suddenly the Patrol comes to his rescue. A commandeered German truck unsuccessfully attempts to scoop up Moffitt, but manages to take a Nazi captain in his place--for exchange. Negotiations for a prisoner exchange are fruitful, but Troy doubts that the Germans will obey their own rules. Indeed, the Nazi's Colonel Voss wants to see the Patrol wiped out and uses the exchange as a trap. The captured captain tries to escape the Patrol and gets himself killed. Now Troy has no one to exchange for a seriously wounded Moffitt and must attempt to pass himself off as a German.

A young French Resistance fighter--Michele--survives the Patrol's quick assault on a small German convoy. She explains that she was captured during her groups' attempt to stop the convoy which carries radar equipment. However Michele is a double agent and is going to deliver the Patrol to her lover--a German officer. She talks the Patrol into going to the radar base (supposedly to destroy it). She turns them over to him and, in the end, when the Patrol manages to escape--and blow up the radar base--he is killed.

En route to a meeting with an Arab agent, the patrol is ambushed by Dietrich. With the exception of Troy, they're all captured and taken to Dietrich's desert base. Troy eventually meets up with the agent, who turns out to be a teenage boy, and a female Irish teacher, but will she allow the boy to help Troy?