The WORST episodes of Combat!
Every episode of Combat! ever, ranked from worst to best by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The worst episodes of Combat!!
This WWII show centered on the lives of the men from King Company. For 5 1/2 years the men of King Co. faced the enemy starting with the landing on Omaha Beach-D Day June 6, 1944. You see how they evolved from a squad of men to a family.
#1 - Main Event
Season 4 - Episode 1 - Aired 9/14/1965
Saunders' latest green replacements are a boxer and his cocky fight manager, Murphy (Jack Carter), who wants to run both the war and Saunders.
#2 - Hear No Evil
Season 4 - Episode 7 - Aired 10/26/1965
During a heavy firefight and facing overwhelming numbers the Allies are being beaten back and scattered. Sgt. Saunders, alone and deafened by a grenade, tries to make his way back to American lines.
#3 - A Rare Vintage
Season 3 - Episode 12 - Aired 12/8/1964
Saunders, Caje, Doc and a disgruntled straggler, Pvt. Garrett, are flushing a winery when a squad of Germans enter carrying a badly wounded Lt. Hanley. They need the help of the old winemaker to try and get away with Hanley. The winemaker might be able to teach Garrett something about courage.
#4 - Brother, Brother
Season 3 - Episode 20 - Aired 2/2/1965
Cocky replacement Eddie Cane (Frankie Avalon) joins the squad. He is the kid brother of Kirby's old friend, who apparently died saving Kirby's life. He starts making demands on Kirby. Saunders wisely counsels Kirby, "That's quite a debt. Don't let the interest get too high."
#5 - The Long Walk
Season 3 - Episode 13 - Aired 12/15/1964
After a major German advance, Saunders, Little John and Doc find Sgt. Larkin, who they know, then encounter an unruly Pvt. Henry Murfree, who they don't. Murfree constantly accuses them of being German infiltrators, and there are other indications that German SS are infiltrating, under the command of SS Hauptmann Klepner.
#6 - The Glory Among Men
Season 2 - Episode 32 - Aired 4/21/1964
When the one person that is detested by most of the squad is wounded, the Germans use him as bait to try and get the men to come after him. Several rescue attempts fail, and each member of the squad must face his conscience in taking a position. Directed by Vic Morrow, this episode differs notably in tone from most episodes of Combat!
#7 - The First Day
Season 4 - Episode 2 - Aired 9/21/1965
The squad, worn-out and exhausted, receives four green replacements. The story follows these four teenagers as they attempt to survive their first day on the front line.
#8 - S.I.W.
Season 4 - Episode 3 - Aired 9/28/1965
Kirby rejoins the squad in the field, bringing with him a new replacement, Kalb (John Cassavetes). Fleming believes Kalb is a coward who ran at Omaha Beach and has been running ever since. The controversy deepens when Kalb turns up with an apparent self-inflicted wound (SIW).
#9 - Billy the Kid
Season 3 - Episode 29 - Aired 4/6/1965
Lieutenant William Benton, the son of celebrated General Bull Benton, leads a mission to locate a big artillery piece that is cutting up the American lines. It is his first field experience, and he has a lot to prove.
#10 - The Steeple
Season 3 - Episode 21 - Aired 2/9/1965
Saunders, Caje, and Kirby try to rescue a paratrooper captain before he is spotted by the Germans.
#11 - Infant of Prague
Season 2 - Episode 31 - Aired 4/14/1964
Lt. Hanley and his men encounter Sister Therese and three young Postulants looking for the Americans to get help for their Mother Superior, who Doc finds has passed. The men quickly get the nuns out before the Germans get to the town. Sister Therese steals back for the statue of the infant Jesus of Prague, sending Lt. Hanley and Caje back into the town full of Germans and right to a German HQ.
#12 - The Walking Wounded
Season 1 - Episode 30 - Aired 4/30/1963
Saunders becomes one of the walking wounded and falls under the mercies of three broken souls more deeply wounded than he: a beautiful nurse, a doctor who has lost his nerve, and a driver who never had any nerve.
#13 - What Are the Bugles Blowin' For? (2)
Season 2 - Episode 26 - Aired 3/10/1964
In the conclusion to a two-episode story, Capt. Johns, a Sandhurst graduate and son of a general, insists on holding the depot against a much larger and better equipped enemy force. Whether his motivation is his reputation or strategy is unclear, but Saunders fears it is suicide. A series of withering attacks and bloody battles test Johns' will.
#14 - The Short Day of Private Putnam
Season 2 - Episode 28 - Aired 3/24/1964
A new squad member is aggressive and naive. When Putnam puts his unsubtle moves on a knowing French bartender, Fauvette, she befriends him and learns he is really only 15. In a perilous situation, he panics, endangering himself and Sgt. Saunders.
#15 - The Silver Service
Season 3 - Episode 5 - Aired 10/13/1964
Sent to the rear to recover from injuries, Kirby and Caje encounter Harry White (Mickey Rooney), a cheater and schemer who has been fighting the war from a bar stool. White escapes from the gamblers he fleeced just before an artillery attack. Kirby stumbles out of the village, stunned and injured. He finds White and they are taken in by Claudette (Claudine Longet) and her grandfather, but the challenges keep mounting.
#16 - The Convict
Season 3 - Episode 22 - Aired 2/16/1965
A German shell strikes a prison, releasing convicted criminals into the countryside. One unscrupulous convict assumes the identity of a French resistance fighter, from whom Saunders needs help.
#17 - A Walk With an Eagle
Season 3 - Episode 24 - Aired 3/2/1965
Hanley takes three men to rescue a U.S. flying ace who has been shot down behind enemy lines. When they find him, he turns out to be all attitude and no gratitude, making it difficult to safely return to American territory.
#18 - The Long Wait
Season 3 - Episode 25 - Aired 3/9/1965
A German machine gun pins down Saunders and company along with four badly wounded GIs, a load of munitions, and a truck driver. Saunders must weigh getting the wounded men to medical aid against getting the munitions to the more than 100 men who need them at the front, while being unable to go anywhere until the machine gun emplacement is destroyed.
#19 - More Than a Soldier
Season 3 - Episode 19 - Aired 1/26/1965
The Americans are in full retreat, and many are killed on both sides. Saunders and a young soldier, Private Carey (Tommy Sands), are in a fight for their lives. Carey has never killed anyone or anything, and will not defend himself. Still, in the end, Saunders can teach Carey a lesson in humanity.
#20 - The Linesman
Season 4 - Episode 4 - Aired 10/5/1965
A hostile signal corps sergeant, Barney McKlosky, balks at having Saunders as escort on a mission to lay wire. McKlosky was a lineman in Wyoming who nearly died depending on his co-worker. Since then, McKlosky trusts no one and holds everyone in contempt.
#21 - Crossfire
Season 4 - Episode 8 - Aired 11/2/1965
Saunders returns from patrol with one of his squad, a decorated veteran of Omaha Beach, under arrest for disobeying an order and thereby getting two other GIs killed.
#22 - Weep No More
Season 2 - Episode 27 - Aired 3/17/1964
Lt. Hanley aids a French girl, in shock and mentally scarred. She returns to where she feels safe. When Hanley goes alone to look for her, he discovers the Germans are setting up a command post there.
#23 - The Wounded Don't Cry
Season 2 - Episode 6 - Aired 10/22/1963
The squad captures a village with a German field hospital. Sgt. Saunders and German Sgt. Bauer (Karlheinz Böhm) must travel together to get a truckload of plasma, but they have an uneasy alliance with each other.
#24 - The Gun
Season 5 - Episode 1 - Aired 9/13/1966
Saunders and his squad accompany a tank to destroy a German bunker. After their tank is destroyed, Saunders decides to use a German cannon for the mission. Moving the gun to the target is a physical and mental challenge.
#25 - Odyssey
Season 3 - Episode 31 - Aired 4/20/1965
After a devastating German advance, Saunders wakes up at a German aid station wearing a German uniform. So begins what is as much an odyssey of the heart as it is a literal odyssey.