Based on the methods actually employed by Dutch citizens who smuggled stranded Allied airmen back to England, Powell and Pressburger's film follows the story of a group of six such airmen who parachute from their crippled plane into a wood. Discovered by some Dutch schoolchildren, they are taken to a farm where their potential saviours grill them for hours before offering to help. After enduring many narrow escapes from the Nazis, the airmen eventually reach a sea-port, but they still have to make the crossing in the most dangerous of circumstances.