They Fought Alone recounts the true story of the nearly three year period in which a handful of mostly American servicemen, led by U.S. Army Colonel Wendell Fertig, and many Filipinos, banded together on the island of Mindanao to protect the civilian population, harass a brutal occupying enemy, and to provide intelligence useful to the larger war effort. Fertig used his organizational and technical talents to meld a guerrilla force of an estimated 25-40,000 personnel, and by so doing, brought a measure of hope to a beleaguered people.