The story of one squad of Marines' bloody assaults on the Solomon Islands during the opening stages of the war in the South Pacific. There's the tough sergeant (Lloyd Nolan), a cab driver from Brooklyn (William Bendix), a Mexican (Anthony Quinn) and a chaplain (Preston Foster). A battle-weary narrator reads from a diary, commenting on the typical grunts everyday life, and death. Battles and dates of engagement are named, putting the explosive action into a solid historical context.