In Manila in World War II, Capt. John Larsen, USMC, loses his right hand in a drunken accident. Following his release from a hospital, he joins a rescue party sent to find a marine general believed to be held for ransom by Filipino guerrillas. The expedition, however, is turned back by the Japanese, and Larsen decides to undertake the mission alone. When he learns the general is in the hands of the Japanese, he recruits guerrillas to assist in the rescue by offering them the ransom money. After fashioning a steel hook to replace his missing hand, Larsen leads his guerrillas in a successful raid on the enemy camp; and the general is rescued. In the fighting, Lolita, a native with whom Larsen has become passionately involved, is seriously wounded. On the trek back Larsen discovers that the general is actually dead, and the man he rescued is a cowardly sergeant, Frank Powers, who assumed the dead officer's identity in the hope of receiving preferential treatment from the enemy. Following a Japanese raid in which Powers is killed, the little group masquerades as a sea-going funeral party and safely reaches a naval rescue vessel. Larsen and Lolita go aboard, and the guerrillas return to continue fighting the enemy.