Destination Gobi

Destination Gobi is a 1953 Technicolor war film starring Richard Widmark and the first color feature film directed by Robert Wise. Set during World War II, US Navy chief Sam McHale (Widmark) takes command of a unit of weather observers stranded behind Japanese lines in Inner Mongolia. McHale must lead his men across the treacherous Gobi Desert to the freedom of the seacoast. Rescued from the Japanese by a Mongolian chief (Murvyn Vye), the men are compelled to repay their rescuer by securing enough saddles for his sixty horses. A flummoxed Pentagon okays the requisition, and the chieftain leads Widmark's band to Okinawa. After the picture's opening credits, a written foreword reads: "In the Navy records in Washington, there is an obscure entry reading 'Saddles for Gobi.' This film is based on the story behind that entry--one of the strangest stories of World War II." The unit involved was part of the Sino-American Cooperative Organization (SACO), referred to as Sino-American Combined Operations in the film.