| Combat! episode reviews by Jo Davidsmeyer Episodes are rated from 0 to 4 bayonets
Rear Echelon Commandos
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SYNOPSISOn the frontline, the squad receives three new replacements straight from rear echelon duty in England. They are Gainsborough (a scared, overweight cook), Temple (an equally scared ex-ballet dancer), and Crown (a radio announcer whose cocky attitude masks his fear). Saunders reluctantly takes these newcomers on a dangerous recon mission and discovers that his survival depends on the ingenuity of these misfits. REVIEW
"Rear Echelon Commandos" is a story about the lessons a soldier must learn to survive on the front. In the episode, it is the teacher, Sgt. Saunders, who learns the greatest lesson. Richard Tregaskis, author of the 1943 book Guadalcanal Diary, developed this story of a Saunders at the end of his patience with war and with the stupidity of rear echelon orders. In the sixties, Tresgaskis also wrote two historical war books for adolescents: From Pearl Harbor to Okinawa and From Casablanca to Berlin. In "Rear Echlon Commandos," at first Saunders and the squad are amused by the many inadequacies of the replacements. But the laughter turns to anger when Hanley orders Saunders to lead these men into danger. When Saunders’ complains that those men don’t know the difference between a patrol and a picnic, Hanley tells him what he should have already known. "Then teach them the difference, Sergeant." The lessons go badly, and Saunders’ anger subsides into apprehension as he realises his life depends on these unhappy and unprepared recruits. Vic Morrow deftly plays the many layers of Saunders and gives a simple believability to the various revelations that come to him in dealing with three people he probably never would have known in civilian life. Here is an aspect of Saunders rarely seen in the series: the defeated Saunders, the soldier who has completely given up. When Saunders is wounded while his only trained soldier, Kirby, is also wounded and unable to help him, he surrenders himself to the idea that his situation is hopeless. But his students teach Saunders the lesson that nothing is ever lost while there’s still breath, and that to survive, you must use the resources you have at hand, even the unlikely abilities of a ballet-dancer. John Considine is superb in this episode as the delicate soldier who becomes a hero because of his past, not in spite of it. NOTES, ODDITIES, AND BLOOPERS
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