George R. Tweed and a few comrades are serving in the Navy on Guam when the island is attacked and quickly occupied by the Japanese at the same time as the attack on Pearl Harbor. A very small group flees to the countryside, where the residents—formerly known as “Fishheads”—take them in at great personal risk. Only Tweed manages to go into hiding. He flees deep into the interior to a Catholic estate that has been spared. Tweed launches a small campaign of subversion. Soon he is driven out of there as well and seeks shelter in a cave on a remote mountain peak. He forms a close bond with the local family who take care of him, especially with their daughter.
The film portrays Tweed’s story fairly accurately, although Jeffrey Hunter was older at the time (34–35), whereas Tweed was in his forties and looked more like Marshall Thompson than Hunter. The film suggests that Tweed was a carefree bachelor, but in reality, Tweed had a family living on Guam who were evacuated shortly before the invasion. This was apparently changed to give the film a love interest—a local beauty named “Joe” Cruz, played by the “Filipina Audrey Hepburn,” Barbara Perez, who really does resemble Hepburn.