If your area shows the original 1960's "The Twilight Zone" series, then be on the look out for this truly top-caliber episode. While Mike Kellin has the lead role, Conlan Carter is part of the great ensemble cast, which is chock full of COMBAT guest star connections. "30-Fathom Grave" is an excellent example of “The Twilight Zone” and 1960's television at its very best.

COMBAT Connections:

- Mike Kellin ("Losers Cry Deal")
- Bill Bixby ("The Losers")
- John Considine ("Rear Echelon Commandos" and "I Swear By Apollo")
- Simon Oakland ("The Long Way Home", "The Old Men")
- David Sheiner ("The Steeple")

Here's what the episode is all about. (Warning: this plot description does contain the ending, but I put a huge warning right before that point so that you can stop reading if you wish.)

It's the early 1960s and a US destroyer is on routine patrol in the Pacific. The sonar operator detects a huge mass, along with what sounds like someone tapping out a signal against a ship's hull. The destroyer fixes the location of this mysterious mass, and makes its way to the source of the sound. Upon arriving, everyone on board can hear the banging with his own ears, without the aid of equipment.

Especially susceptible to these sounds is the normally efficient and highly capable, Chief Bell (Mike Kellin), who now has had trouble performing his duties. Bell finally collapses up on deck and is taken below to sick bay where he displays increasingly delusional behavior.

Seaman McClure (John Considine), the diving expert, is ordered to the ocean bottom where he exchanges signals with what appears to be the survivor of a damaged submarine, a submarine that went down during WW2! Cpt. Beechum (Simon Oakland) and the Officer of the Day (Bill Bixby) try to unravel the mysterious puzzle before them. Who could possibly be alive after all these years? How could the air have lasted this long. The tension mounts as a submarine recovery vessel races from Base to their location and the survivor’s signals get progressively weaker with each passing hour.

While Chief Bell tells Doc (David Sheiner) that he believes he is being beckoned from the 30-fathom gave below, the OOD shares a cup of coffee with Ensign Marmer (Conlan Carter), telling Marmer what he knows of Bell’s past. It seems that Bell was the only survivor of a torpedoed vessel of some kind. The captain orders McClure to go down for a second time, after groaning sounds indicate that the badly damaged sub has shifted free from the sand.

Bell steps out of the sick bay, beckoned by the hammering’s siren call. In ship’s corridor he sees his dead, former-crewmates, water-soaked and gesturing. He screams and runs back into sick bay. The doctor dashes into the corridor to learn the source of Bell's terror, and finds a soggy clump of seaweed. How did it get there, so far inside the ship? Doc takes Bell to the captain to explain his visions and premonitions. Bell finally reveals his secret shame. . . and the story races to its climax!

[WARNING: DO NOT READ FURTHER IF YOU DON'T WANT THE ENDING SPOILED. I AM ABOUT TO REVEAL THE END OF THE STORY.]

By 349hvywpnscrew (349hvywpnscrew) on Unrecorded Date:

If you are a collector of Conlan Carter's television roles in other TV series then here's good news for you! "The Twilight Zone: Vol. 2" contains the excellent, "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" (1963, Ep. 123) along with two other episodes. It's available at AMAZON.COM.