During his farewell address to West Point, General Douglas MacArthur (Gregory Peck) looks back on his storied military career. Beginning with his legendary promise, "I shall return," at the outset of the Battle of Bataan and continuing through his troops' subsequent successes in the South Pacific, the film also touches on his anti-Communist activities following the war and his role in the rebuilding of postwar Japan, until his 1952 ouster by President Harry S. Truman (Ed Flanders).