Steve McQueen is Buzz Rickson, a B17 pilot during WWII. Rickson's brashness serves him well during wartime, but he finds that he feels out of place during everyday civilian life. His more mild-mannered co-pilot, Bo Bolland (Robert Wagner), however, lives only to get through the war to resume his life with his girl, Daphne (Shirley Anne Field). This wartime character study is based on a novel by John Hersey, who also wrote the screenplay.