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Destination Gobi is a 1953 American Technicolor World War II film released by 20th Century-Fox. It was produced by Stanley Rubin, directed by Robert Wise (his first color feature film) and stars Richard Widmark and Don Taylor.

U.S. Navy chief Sam McHale takes command of a unit of weather observers stranded behind Japanese lines deep in Inner Mongolia. McHale must lead his men across the treacherous Gobi Desert to the sea coast. Mongols whom the sailors had befriended, led by chief Tengu, help them elude the Japanese and steal a Chinese junk in order to reach Okinawa.

After the picture's opening credits, a written foreword reads:

The unit involved was part of the Sino-American Cooperative Organization (SACO), referred to as Sino-American Combined Operations in the film.[3]

Actor Ernest Borgnine has stated in interviews that he believed that this film, and Widmark's role of CPO Sam McHale, were the basis of the role of Quentin McHale in the television show McHale's Navy.[4]