Where Eagles Dare

Set during World War II, the novel follows a covert Allied mission to infiltrate a seemingly impregnable German fortress in the Bavarian Alps. The true objectives are concealed from nearly every character, including the reader, until the final act.

A Lancaster bomber flies through a blizzard over wartime Bavaria. In the freezing fuselage sit seven men dressed in the uniforms of the German Alpine Corps, the Wehrmacht's elite mountain soldiers. Their leader is Major Smith, a British intelligence officer. His second-in-command is Lieutenant Morris Schaffer, an American from the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). The remaining five are Edward Carraciola, Olaf Christiansen, Lee Thomas, Torrance-Smythe, and Sergeant George Harrod, the team's radio operator.

A flashback to London provides context. Vice-Admiral Rolland, head of MI6, the British intelligence service, and his deputy, Colonel Wyatt-Turner, explain that Lieutenant General George Carnaby, the American coordinator of planning for Operation Overlord (the Allied invasion of Europe), has been captured and taken to the Schloss Adler. This castle, perched atop a volcanic plug in the Bavarian Alps, serves as the combined headquarters of the German Secret Service and the Gestapo, the Nazi secret police. Under interrogation drugs, Carnaby will reveal the invasion plans, potentially extending the war by nine months and costing a million lives.

The team parachutes onto a plateau on the Weissspitze mountain. Harrod exits first with tangled parachute cords and side-slips out of sight. After the last man jumps, Mary Ellison, hidden in the rear fuselage as a secret eighth member of the mission, is rushed to the door and parachuted into the darkness. The team finds Harrod dead in a snowdrift with a broken neck. Smith recovers the radio and code-book from his body.

Smith lowers the team down a cliff to a sheltered plateau. He climbs back up on a pretext and meets Mary. While they wait, someone below tries to yank the climbing rope free, an act of sabotage, but the anchor holds. Smith examines Harrod's body and finds a mark at the base of the neck: Harrod was struck with a hard object and his neck deliberately broken. Someone on the team is a killer. Smith secretly transmits a message to London and stays awake all night guarding the radio.

At dawn the team descends and observes the valley: a village, a military barracks, and the Schloss Adler, accessible only by cable car since the road is buried in snow. Smith privately contacts Rolland, who orders him to pull out. Smith refuses. Through his telescope, he watches a helicopter deliver Reichsmarschall Julius Rosemeyer, the Wehrmacht Chief of Staff, to the castle to interrogate Carnaby.

That evening, the team enters the village disguised as soldiers. In a crowded Gasthaus, Smith makes contact with Heidi, a barmaid who is actually Britain's top secret agent in Bavaria. He collects Mary from the beer cellar behind the Gasthaus and brings her to Heidi's room, providing her with forged papers identifying her as Maria Schenk, Heidi's cousin, to work as a domestic at the Schloss Adler.

Smith then reveals the truth about the mission: The man in the castle is not General Carnaby but Cartwright Jones, an American actor who staged a deliberate crash-landing in a Mosquito plane to fake the General's capture. The real Carnaby is safe. Smith's actual mission is to get inside the castle before the Germans discover the deception.

Outside the Gasthaus, Smith finds Torrance-Smythe stabbed to death. Mary enters as "Maria Schenk" and stages a convincing reunion with "Cousin Heidi." Colonel Weissner, the commanding officer of the local Alpenkorps garrison, arrives with soldiers, and Heidi publicly identifies Smith as suspicious, a calculated move to protect her cover and Mary's. Smith, Schaffer, and the three remaining team members are arrested.

Smith bluffs Weissner by claiming to be the nephew of Heinrich Himmler, head of the Gestapo, then overpowers his guards and escapes with Schaffer. They crash their car into a lake to fake their deaths and cut the barracks telephone lines. Meanwhile, Mary rides the cable car up to the castle, where Colonel Kramer, Deputy Chief of the German Secret Service, reports that Smith and Schaffer are dead. Heidi hides weapons and castle plans in Mary's room.

Smith and Schaffer ride the outside of the cable car up to the castle, clinging to the icy roof as it sways over the valley. Mary helps them enter through a window. Inside, they observe the interrogation of Jones from a gallery, sever the castle's telephone lines, and disable the helicopter.

Smith then executes an audacious deception. He descends into the drawing-room and announces the prisoner is an actor, not Carnaby. Turning his gun on Schaffer, he assumes the identity of "Captain Johann Schmidt," a German agent. He calls Colonel Wilhelm Wilner, an intelligence chief in Italy, who confirms Smith's identity by phone. Rosemeyer and Kramer are convinced. Smith orders Carraciola, Thomas, and Christiansen to write down the names of German agents in England and compromised British agents in Europe.

Once the notebooks are complete, Schaffer seizes his weapon and covers the room. Smith reveals that Carraciola, Christiansen, and Thomas are genuine traitors, real British agents turned by the Germans. Smith had fed Wilner false intelligence for two years as a triple agent. The notebooks contain the names of their entire espionage network. Captain von Brauchitsch, a Gestapo officer, bursts in and shoots Smith's hand. When Anne-Marie, Kramer's secretary, is sent to search Mary in a side room, Mary overpowers her and retrieves a concealed pistol. Smith injects the Germans with a sedative.

Smith contacts London, plants explosives throughout the castle, and sets fire to the Records Office as a diversion. He sends the three traitors down in the cable car, but they overpower Schaffer and attempt to flee. Smith leaps onto the moving car. In the ensuing battle, all three traitors die: Carraciola is struck by a pylon, and after Smith detonates explosives on the car, Christiansen and Thomas fall to their deaths.

The survivors ride the cable car down and race to a garage, where Heidi waits with a post-bus equipped with a snow-plough. Smith drives through the village, using the snow-plough to clear obstacles and the Alpine post-horn, which commands absolute right-of-way on mountain roads, to part traffic. A Tiger tank fires at them, but its armor-piercing shells pass through the thin sheet metal without detonating. Schaffer dumps broken beer bottles on the road, shredding pursuers' tires, and they blow a bridge behind them.

At Oberhausen airfield, Wyatt-Turner and Wing Commander Cecil Carpenter, the RAF pilot who flew the team into Bavaria, arrive in a Mosquito bomber. All five survivors board. Aboard the plane, Wyatt-Turner aims a Sten gun at Smith. Smith calmly reveals that Wyatt-Turner is the true traitor: A German agent who spent three years posing as a British officer, Wyatt-Turner informed Berlin of the mission and selected Smith as leader because German intelligence falsely believed Smith was their top double agent. The entire operation was designed by Admiral Rolland to flush out the traitor within MI6. Wyatt-Turner pulls the trigger, but Smith has already filed off the firing pin. Wyatt-Turner throws one notebook out the door; Smith produces duplicate copies. Wyatt-Turner opens the door and steps into the void.

Smith radios Rolland to confirm success. Police across the country stand ready to arrest the agents named in the notebooks. Smith tells Rolland he wants to marry Mary that morning; Rolland reluctantly agrees and arranges the documents. In the rear of the plane, Schaffer sits with his arm around Heidi as Carpenter flies the Mosquito home to England.