The exploits of four Allied soldiers — three Americans and one Englishman — who are part of a long-range desert patrol group in the North African campaign during World War II. Their mission: "to attack, harass and wreak havoc on Field Marshal Rommel's vaunted Afrika Korps".
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
Troy infiltrates a German H.Q. posing as a blinded Afrika Korps officer to steal vital information.
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?
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.
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.
The young mute son of British General Simms is kidnapped in a commando raid by Dietrich and taken to Rhodes. The patrol must rescue the boy from the island's garrison with only the help of one Greek resistance fighter.
Lieutenant West is on his way to stop a medical supply convoy, when he's ambushed by an Afrika Korps patrol. Wounded and rescued by Moffatt and Pettigrew, before he dies he informs them that he's got to stop the medical supplies, as some are poisonous. When Moffatt destroys the deadly supplies he is put under arrest by a British Army Major.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
A village's typhus serum is confiscated by the S.S. in order to exchange it for capturing the Rat Patrol. Dietrich questions their methods.
Dietrich and his men capture the Rat Patrol and assume their identities, and thus are able to enter an Allied munitions dump.
Troy's brother is captured by a German colonel who was injured in an earlier raid by the Rat Patrol.
The arrival of a team of teenage guerrilla fighters spells ""Double-trouble"" for the Patrol.The embittered young partisans, lead by a 17-year-old Jean-Claude, and his fiery girlfriend, Monique, are determined to do things their way in an unplanned raid in an impenetrable S.S. camp, even though this means putting the Patrol temporarily out of action.
On the Eve of a dangerous mission, Moffitt receives word that his younger brother has been killed by a German bomb in London.
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.
Troy and Hitchcock are captured by a German colonel who has a scheme to use them to radio false information back to their headquarters. Meanwhile, Moffitt and Pettigrew's rescue attempts are complicated by an Italian officer who wants to surrender to them.
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.
