(Reel 1) Two Army Kinema Corporation (AKC) representatives and two Royal Engineers (RE) introduce each other and discuss a proposed army training film about sappers' tasks. The engineers want to use real footage to contextualise these tasks. A chart with flow diagrams and drawings illustrates, in detail, the structure and role of RE operations in a captured port: ie Divisions, Corps, Army, Port, Base and Lines of Communication. The four men retire to a projection room and begin to view actuality film of RE operations from the Second World War. The entire film cuts between the four men discussing what should be in the proposed film and film of the RE at work.

(Reel 2) Actuality film of D-Day landings; sappers sweep for mines and clear obstacles, feed the fighting line with troops, weapons, stores and vehicles. Borneo, Spring 1945: Australian RE land first to be welcomed by the people of Borneo, clear battle debris and bomb damage, demolish ruined buildings. Dramatised sequence of Bomb Disposal Squad at work. Construction and repair of airstrips. France: Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers (REME) lay pipelines and erect storage tanks. Brussels Engineering Depot: repairing boats, earth moving equipment. Construction of camp and hospital. Siemens electrical equipment. Mechanist Sergeant-Major at electric power station and water works. Vehicle movement on China Road. Construction of a by-pass.

(Reel 3) Quarrying squadrons; Eisenhower and Reichsfeld forces, Germany; RE tree felling. Burma: Indian engineers in forests, elephants hauling timber, chopping lumber manually and at mill, construction of boats. Holland 1944; Canadian Forest squadron. RE in Tunisia. Cannes; Winston and Churchill Class 40 Bailey pontoon bridges. India; railway troops improvise jeeps for railway engines. Army and Corps area: RE unit survey area from an aerial photograph, overprints of enemy positions, mobile printer. Building of airstrip. Repairing autobahns. Chingma, Burma 1944: construction of a Bailey pontoon bridge, manual labour pulling 1150 ft long bridge into place. Italy: semi-permanent bridge built by South African sappers (Springbok Bridge). German:; canal clearance with tanks and divers placing underwater charges.

(Reel 4) Bridge built from barges in Hamelin, Germany. Le Vieser (?) aqueduct bombed. Demolition of U-boat pens at Hamburg observed by senior officers of all services. Norway: commando raid to destroy installations. Mine laying via the pacing method; use of labradors for mine sweeping. Gibraltar: British RE (ex-miners) tunnelling. Sappers developed many branches of the Services eg. tanks, signals, searchlights, balloons. Divisional Area: Middle East; clearing minefield at night.

(Reel 5) Montgomery and Churchill viewing folding boat bridge on the Rhine. Canadians build pontoon bridge over the river Seine. France, 1944: sappers locate and purify water. Burma: behind Japanese lines sapper crews demolish bridges; hewing roads out of hill with bulldozers. Italy, 1943; road repairs with debris from bombed buildings. The Rhine assault of 1945 further illustrates the work of the RE.

(Reel 6) Continuation of footage of the Rhine assault. At the end of this, the RE discussing the proposed film choose a name for their film and this flashes up at the end of the film we are watching - it is called "Sapper Tasks".

A military training film, partly dramatised, using the device of a film within a film to describe the important rle of the Royal Engineers (sappers) in all theatres of war. Actual army film illustrates the many tasks the sappers are involved in.