A unit of inexperienced Australian soldiers arrives at the frontlines in New Guinea as Allied troops drive back the crumbling Japanese forces.

Nervous young Lieutenant MacDonald leads Davidson's section on a patrol and they come across the remains of a Catholic mission, where two Japanese soldiers, the only survivors of their unit, are slowly starving to death in a concealed bunker, but able to surprise the Australians with machine-gun fire.

MacDonald flees in terror, abandoning his men, most of whom are wiped out by booby-traps and machine-gun fire, leaving only Davidson and Mick Murphy alive, sheltering in a ditch.

Davidson is now back in Australia and, no longer fit for overseas service, is assigned to guard duties at the POW camp at Cowra, New South Wales.

One of the senior officers there is Macdonald, who has been awarded a Military Medal on the basis of his report of the encounter at the mission, there being (as he thought) no surviving witnesses, so is discomfited by the reappearance of Davidson.

A written postscript at the start of the end credits pays tribute to the 231 Japanese and 4 Australians who lost their lives in the Cowra breakout.

Filming was largely undertaken at Kennedy Miller's studios at King's Cross, Sydney, and at Singleton Army Barracks, and followed intense workshopping of cast and some of the crew.

[4][5] The series has been edited into a continuous narrative, approximate running time 270 minutes in a two-DVD set, digitally remastered from film, in 16:9 format by Roadshow Entertainment.