Film on the Royal Navy's Antarctic patrol ship HMS Endurance (A.171). The ship is shown sailing through ice fields as members of the crew talk about their experiences and impressions of life onboard. The pilot of the Wasp helicopter, the Marine Engineers, Navigating Officer, Medical Officer and supply personnel discuss their specialist areas of work and the particular demands of a polar environment. The ship calls in at British Antarctic Survey stations, the ship's role in charting uninvestigated waters around Antarctica is discussed and the importance of international co-operation is mentioned. The ship then visits South Georgia, examining the island's abandoned whaling stations, before moving on to Port Stanley in the Falkland Islands. The ship's football team plays the islanders for the Stanley Shield, and the film ends with vague references to orders for HMS Endurance to proceed south, 'going to war'; this is possibly a reference to the ship's orders to remove Argentinean scrap metal dealers from South Georgia at the beginning of the Falklands War.