American combat pilot Col. Joseph Ryan (Sinatra) is shot down over Nazi-controlled Italy and joins U.S. and English WWII troops in a prison camp during the summer of 1943. Given the insulting nickname "Von Ryan" because he initially seems more concerned with surviving than escaping, the colonel eventually leads Allied prisoners, as their new top ranking officer, in a daredevil race for freedom by commandeering an entire German freight train bound for Switzerland, with the Nazis in hot pursuit.
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