Early 1944, and with the tide of the war flowing steadily against the Germans, the SAS – born in North Africa as a strategic raiding force behind enemy lines – is performing a similar role in the Italian mountains and French forests. Here, after making common cause with local partisans, they are cutting rail and road links serving the frontline German armies. Hitler knows as much, and is determined that the SAS will pay a terrible price for their efforts. His infamous Commando Order decrees that any raiders captured behind enemy lines, whether in or out of uniform, will be summarily executed. Denied the safety net usually provided by the rules of war, the SAS embark on each new mission knowing that it will end either in success, or death.