Rick has a very difficult situation to deal with: Gunnar Hellstrom (in a strong performance as the baddie) and his paratroopers on a suicide mission have hostages inclduding kids, while they man an observation post that means oodles of Allied casualties until itts taken. Rick's orders are to sacrifice the hostages if he can't free them successfully within the next three hours.
A fine actress Denise Alexander, who would soon become a big star in tv soaps, is excellent as one of the prisoners. She's a librarian and the central philosophical conflict is between the Nazi barbarian Hellstrom, literally burning books he considers "decadent influences" and the idealist Denise. Oddly enough, such issues are again topical in 2023 with the (hopefully temporary) rise of DeSantis and his brand of fascism.
It's one of those situations, best typified in movies by Nazi reprisal methods, where say 10 townspeople would be executed for every German killed by the resistance - creating impossible moral dilemmas for the good guys.
Rick to the rescue is something out of "Steve Canyon", but he's worth rooting for.