Combat!

- Season 4

(1965)

No one is happy about the addition of boxer Willy Kleve to Saunders's unit--especially Kleve's over-protective manager.

Saunders and the squad break in four teenage replacements.

An already-controversial replacement adds to his reputation for cowardice by turning up with an apparent Self-Inflicted Wound.

Sgt. Barney McKlosky and his two Signal Corps men have to lay a telephone line cross-country from the company HQ to an outpost. Saunders' squad is assigned to provide protection and assist in laying the wire. Prior to the war, McKlosky was a linesman in Wyoming who broke his leg in a fall and nearly died because his co-worker did not come back with help. Since that incident, McKlosky trusts no one and holds everyone in contempt. While laying line across a bridge on the way to the outpost, McKlosky and Littlejohn drop a roll of wire in the river. Although both men ...

Iowa-bred Private Noah is troubled when the squad forcibly evacuates a French farm family.

Dressed in an Albanian uniform, Hanley escapes from a German prison camp.

During a heavy firefight and facing overwhelming numbers the Allies are being beaten back. One of the German's shot during the firefight detonates a grenade behind the Sarge who is deafened by the blast. Alone and lost Sgt. Saunders tries to make his way back to American lines. Unable to hear anything, he is almost shot by a German patrol, but manages to get away. He finds a small dog that becomes attached to him and acts as his ears until it is killed by a German that surprises them. Saunders manages to take the German prisoner and tries to use him to guide back to ...

Sauders accuses twice-decorated Private Stevens of disobeying an order and thereby getting two other GIs killed.

In a German-held village, Hanley's search for a wounded OSS officer is hampered by a precocious French boy.

The squad has to cope with three 40-something replacements on a patrol to snatch a German captive.

Pinned under a beam, Pvt. Andy Marsh claims he has valuable intelligence--that will go back with him or not at all.

An embittered French woman resists Saunders' efforts to commandeer her truck, needed to transport the wounded Kirby.

Hanley and Kirby join a swaggering British commando on a treacherous hunt for German V-2 launching sites.

The squad angers a Frenchman when they destroy machinery at his quarry.

A French countess walks a dangerous tightrope as she entertains a château full of German soldiers--while sheltering a wounded Hanley.

Hanley is captured by a brutal SS officer, Captain Reichhardt.

Lt. Hanley, Caje, Kirby, and Pvt. Banning are sent behind German lines to find an American intelligence officer, Capt. Thorpe, who has important intelligence to get back to American G2. A German spy masquerades as a downed American flyer, Lt. Asher, with the intention of infiltrating and destroying the local French underground. He bails out of his American Mustang, but instead of getting picked up by the French underground, he is met by Hanley and his men. Asher initially feigns a sprained ankle and wants to wait for the French instead of going with Hanley. Then he ...

The survivor of a squad that Sauders refused to help volunteers to lead the sergeant on a patrol to the same deadly area.

Kirby embarks on a personal vendetta against an SS colonel who killed his sister's fiancé.

Saunders' squad is sent behind enemy lines to find and destroy a German radar installation. Sgt. Rawlings, a radar specialist, is sent along to learn all he can about the German radar before it is destroyed, and a French resistance fighter, Marchand, is also sent along to guide them. From the time they leave their lines, they are under constant surveillance by the Germans, and Rawlings is killed on the way there. Little do they know that Marchand is really a German officer who has killed the real Marchand and has taken his place with the intent of taking Saunders to a...

Privates Vinnick (Sal Mineo) and Burke (Tom Skerritt) have been together since basic training and are assigned to Hanley's platoon. Vinnick is a street wise city kid who is fearless in battle. Burke, on the other hand, is paralyzed by fear when a firefight begins. Vinnick's contempt for Burke is obvious as is Burke's hatred for Vinnick. The episode opens with a firefight where Burke is frozen in fear. Vinnick charges a German MG-42 emplacement, and Hanley tells them he will recommend Vinnick for a Bronze Star. Later, Hanley receives a message that Vinnick is wanted ...

Saunders is imprisoned in a German compound where an enemy soldier is posing as a GI.

A cowardly deserter slaps some dirt on his suspiciously-clean uniform and joins Saunders' squad, whose wrath and distrust he proceeds to earn by repeatedly disregarding orders.

Lt. Hanley acquires intelligence which could save hundreds of lives, but his plane is shot down speeding back to HQ. The bridge Hanley re-conned is much more heavily defended than U.S. Army Intelligence suspected. The old single engine monoplane will be tough to repair, especially with Brannigan the pilot, a daredevil stunt flyer, having a busted leg. But the odds of Hanley slicing through 20 miles of Boche occupied countryside alone on foot are bad too.

This two part Combat! episode is the quintessential story of the futility of war as viewed through the eyes of surviving infantrymen. An American division of troops is making an assault all along their lines. At the platoon level, Lt. Hanley is ordered to take a strategic hill that overlooks a needed road, and the hill is protected by two concrete bunkers with German machine guns and infantry in each bunker. Saunders gets hit in his thigh in the first assault on the bunkers while several other GIs are killed. Hanley asks for artillery support, but his company ...

Lt. Hanley has the support of a tank to help his platoon to take the hill. However, the tank is destroyed by a German bazooka. Now Hanley plans to use the shield of the tank to attack the German bunker also with a bazooka.

Establishing an observation post in a deserted church, Saunders meets the daughter of a German soldier.

After losing his entire squad to Saunders' men, a wounded German sergeant vows to kill the Americans, saving Saunders for last.

A failed night mission leaves Hanley wounded in the shoulder, and the rest of his squad dead...except for Private Wilder, a nervous young replacement, who is now trapped in a bog and ready to signal their German pursuers for help. It's up to the lieutenant to free him before Wilder drowns, or panics.

Guilt-stricken when he causes the death of a fellow GI, Private Corey panics when he captures a German.

Kirby, who is given command of the squad in Saunders's absence, learns a lesson in leadership.