In a changing world where television has become the main source of information, Adam Caulfield, a young sports journalist, witnesses how his uncle, Frank Skeffington, a veteran and honest politician, mayor of a New England town, tries to be reelected while bankers and captains of industry conspire in the shadows to place a weak and manageable candidate in the city hall.
Four strangers board a plane and become fast friends, but a catastrophic crash leaves only one survivor. He then sets off on a journey to discover who these people were, but ultimately discovers the devastating truth about himself.
After marrying an American lieutenant with whom he was assigned to work in post-war Germany, a French captain attempts to find a way to accompany her back to the States under the terms of the War Bride Act.
Set at the beginning of the Civil War, Tap Roots is all about a county in Mississippi which chooses to secede from the state rather than enter the conflict. The county is protected from the Confederacy by an abolitionist and a Native American gentleman. The abolitionist's daughter is courted by a powerful newspaper publisher when her fiance, a confederate officer, elopes with the girl's sister. The daughter at first resists the publisher's attentions, but turns to him for aid when her ex-fiance plans to capture the seceding county on behalf of the South.
Shortly after Pearl Harbor, a squadron of PT-boat crews in the Philippines must battle the Navy brass between skirmishes with the Japanese. The title says it all about the Navy's attitude towards the PT-boats and their crews.