A team of allied saboteurs are assigned an impossible mission: infiltrate an impregnable Nazi-held island and destroy the two enormous long-range field guns that prevent the rescue of 2,000 trapped British soldiers.

In 1943, the Axis powers plan an assault on the island of Kheros, where 2,000 British soldiers are marooned, to display their military strength and convince neutral Turkey to join them. Rescue by the Royal Navy is prevented by two massive radar-directed large-calibre guns on (fictional) nearby Navarone Island. When aerial bombing efforts fail, Allied Intelligence gathers a commando unit to infiltrate Navarone and destroy the guns. Led by Major Roy Franklin (Anthony Quayle), the team is composed of Captain Keith Mallory (Gregory Peck), a renowned spy and an officer with the Long Range Desert Group (LRDG); Colonel Andrea Stavrou (Anthony Quinn) from the defeated Greek Army; Franklin's best friend Corporal Miller (David Niven), an explosives expert and former chemistry teacher; Greco-American Spyros Pappadimos (James Darren), a native of Navarone; and "Butcher" Brown (Stanley Baker), an engineer and expert knife fighter.

Disguised as Greek fishermen on a decrepit fishing vessel, they sail across the Aegean Sea, where they successfully overwhelm the crew of a German patrol boat intercepting them. Later in the voyage, Mallory confides to Franklin that Stavrou had sworn to kill him after the war because Mallory was inadvertently responsible for the deaths of Stavrou's wife and children. After being shipwrecked on the coast of Navarone during a storm, the experienced mountaineer Mallory leads the team in a climb up the cliff, during which Franklin badly injures his leg. While taking shelter in the mountains, Mallory stops Franklin from committing suicide and lies to him that their mission is only a diversion, and that a major naval attack will be mounted on the coast instead. They rendezvous with two local resistance fighters, Spyros' sister Maria (Irene Papas) and her friend Anna (Gia Scala), who was once captured and tortured by the Germans before escaping.

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