"ENGLAND, 1942." The story is told in a series of short vignettes, each having a beginning and an ending in itself, though all are connected to the others. A U.S. infantry squad is sent to Italy. The squad includes
Sergeant "Craig,"
Corporals "Trower" and "Chase," and GI "Baker." They take possession of a small town in
Sicily. Craig has to stop his men from looting. Baker strikes up a relationship with Maria, a young mother whose soldier husband is missing. They talk to a
Sikh soldier who is lonely and misses his children. A diverse group of Allied soldiers intermingles in a bar. Four white American soldiers burst in ominously. One of them announces that they are "coon huntin'" tonight and wields a
switchblade which he apparently intends to use. Two black American soldiers seated at a table become their focus. Others clear a path as two of the group pounce on the two black soldiers. They are beating the blacks when the MPs (Military Police) enter the bar. The perpetrators flee. Trower goes to help one of the two black soldiers recover, but hides himself instead right before the MPs rush in. The MPs take over, asking the female bar owner if there was any resulting damage. She answers, "Only business." The MPs take the victims out of the bar. The bar owner asks Trower, "Why they fight, you are same peoples, American 'comaradies', why you fight?" He replies, "I really don't know," quickly exiting as the radio plays "
Remember Pearl Harbor". The squad are then sent to France. Craig enters a nice home that might be used by American officers when they enter town. He comes upon the French woman (Jeanne Moreau) who owns the place, and has just survived a night of bombing. He spends the night to comfort the terrified woman. The men help liberate a concentration camp. In
Ostend, Trower meets Regine, a violinist at a bar, and falls in love with her. He walks her to her hotel and says he'd like to see her next time he's in town. They kiss. The next time he sees her at the bar she's working for a pimp, Eldridge, who tells Trower that she rents by the hour. One truckload of GIs is chosen out of a convoy to witness the
execution by firing squad of a GI deserter (it deliberately resembles the execution of
Eddie Slovik, the only US GI to be shot for desertion during WWII).) in a snow-covered field near a chateau at
Sainte-Marie-aux-Mines on
Christmas Eve. The scene is set to
Frank Sinatra's "
Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas", followed by a chorus of "
Hark! The Herald Angels Sing". Chase has a relationship with Magda, a Polish woman who suggests he desert and join her in the
black market. He refuses just as he learns that his unit is marching out of town in the rain. Some of his friends hide his gear under their rain ponchos, and he slips into formation. Back at the front he is wounded in the leg. A newcomer to the squad, a misfit named Weaver, adopts a dog even though another man in the unit tells him that it is against regulations. They can't take dogs with them when they redeploy at the front, so they have to shoot them. Weaver feeds the dog anyway, even after the other men kick him and the dog out of the tent. When the unit moves out, one of the other men in the unit, Grogan, tells Weaver to call his dog. Weaver thinks that the others have changed their minds and are letting him bring his dog with them, but Grogan shoots the dog as it runs after the truck. When Chase gets out of hospital in England, he is stuck at a bus stop in the rain. A man, Dennis, invites him to have tea with his family. He has a pleasant time, but when he visits Craig in the hospital, he discovers that most of Craig's face has been blown off. Craig tells him to get out, but Chase overcomes his initial horror and greets him calmly. The war in Europe ends. In 1946 Trower is still in the Army and stationed in
Berlin. He is in love with Helga, a young German woman who was raped by the Russians during and after the
Battle of Berlin. Trower brings her parents imported goods from the PX (military Post Exchange) when he visits their apartment, noticing a
mezuzah on the doorway. Helga's sister, Trudi, enters the apartment to the chagrin of her parents. Her current lover, a Russian "commander", has given her an expensive fur coat that she flaunts in front of Helga, their parents, and Trower. She explains to Trower that without the Russian her parents would be living outdoors. He spends the night with Helga; it's her night in the shared bedroom. Trower is returning to his base when he meets a drunken Russian soldier (Albert Finney). He provokes a fight with the Russian, asking how many women he's raped tonight. The two men pull knives and stab each other to death. As the camera pulls back to show seemingly endless ruins, we see that the position of the Allied soldiers' bodies suggests the letter 'V' for Victory. ==Cast==