The Gallant Men

- Season 1

(1962)

American Fifth Army captain Jim Benedict leads his company in a beach assault at Salerno, as Allied forces begin their push up the Italian peninsula. William Windom guest-stars as a disgraced major now serving incognito as a private in Benedict's unit -- a soldier determined to atone for transgressions committed earlier in the war during the North Africa campaign.

Peter Breck guest-stars as Private Draper, the loner of Benedict's outfit who refuses to volunteer with the other men in helping the people of a liberated Italian village put their lives back together. Later however, he reluctantly takes on the job as schoolteacher for the town's orphaned children -- and in doing so, he rediscovers his own humanity.

Sgt. Griff Benedict is assigned to his brother's company. But even though the unit needs a platoon sergeant, Capt. Benedict refuses to give his brother the post.

While on a mission behind enemy lines, Private D'Angelo is badly wounded but saved from capture by Italian partisans. While recovering in their hideout, however, D'Angelo overhears the name of a spy who the partisans have successfully planted within the high command of German Occupation forces. So when afterward they discover D'Angelo speaks and understands Italian, the guerrillas debate on whether it will be necessary to kill the private in order to keep knowledge of the plant safe.

John Dehner guest-stars as Captain Rauch, a German officer in command of a small enemy unit manning an observation post just outside a village that Benedict's company has just captured. A series of skirmishes between Rauch's men and a small American reconnaissance team results in the death of all except Rauch and Private Gibson. The resulting standoff pits Gibson, the Tennessee mountain boy, and Rauch, the rich but war-weary Bavarian gentleman, in a psychological battle of nerve and wit.

Kimbro's psychosomatic blindness appears to be on the mend thanks to an Italian hospital volunteer.

In the most action-packed of all 26 episodes, Private Lopuschok, an Army clothes-fitter who has spent much of the war in the quartermaster corps, is given the chance to finally serve on the front lines. Though he is well-liked by his fellow soldiers, he's a "foul-up" on combat duty and constantly refuses to obey orders. What eventually happens to Lopuschok triggers a serious falling-out between Captain Benedict and Lieutenant Kimbro.

Kathlene Palmer (Gail Kobe), a strikingly pretty but overaggressive war correspondent, makes herself unanimously unwelcome among the men of Benedict's company, as a result of her brash, insensitive comments regarding the carnage she witnesses on the front lines.

After Benedict's company has secured an Italian village from retreating Germans, the captain discovers there are no children there. After several unsuccessful attempts to resolve this mystery with the locals, he is finally informed that the town's children are being held hostage by a small group of Nazis in a well-secured underground cellar.

While working behind enemy lines with Kimbro and Gibson, the gruff, no-nonsense Sergeant McKenna unexpectedly discovers himself falling in love with a pretty Italian partisan, Dina (Mala Powers). Unfortunately, another resistance fighter, Lupo (Rodolfo Acosta) -- himself a jealous admirer of Dina -- would prefer to see McKenna dispensed with altogether.

When Private Lucavich saves the life of an Italian orphan who wanders into a minefield, the boy decides to adopt Lucavich as his surrogate father. However, there's just one problem -- the crusty Lucavich has no intention of agreeing to such an arrangement.

A G.I. paratrooper whose desire to avenge his brothers' deaths -- by killing as many of the enemy as possible -- inadvertently results in his own destruction.

During the liberation of an Italian town D'Angelo is reunited with an old friend, 'Goldbrick' Gilmartin. After the liberation they camp near town and the two friends get passes and go to the nearest saloon. Gilmartin and D'Angelo meet two women and to Gilmartin she's just another doll but D'Angelo falls head over heels in love with his. Captain Benedict is alarmed when D'Angelo wants to sign over his GI insurance to her.

Paul Carr guest-stars as a womanizing private who risks the life of his buddy for the sake of a potential "conquest" during heavy action in an Italian village. When his behavior indeed results in his friend's death, he must cope with a personal guilt that threatens to facilitate his own destruction.

After a battle, one of Benedict's lieutenants, Latham, is missing and presumed dead. While he is on leave Benedict locates the Army nurse Latham had proposed marriage to. But he finds her surprisingly unemotional when he informs her of the man's fate, and he determines to find out why. Soon Benedict finds that he is falling for the woman himself.

A Chicago-born contessa who is also a Nazi sympathizer uses her villa to host a dinner party for Captain Benedict and his officers -- an affair that is actually a plot to lure them to their deaths.

Lt. Kimbro leads a squad of volunteers behind enemy lines in order to demolish a strategic bridge, thus bottling up a large Nazi contingency force, setting them up for an oncoming massive Allied bombing raid. However, Kimbro's mission is problematized by a personal clash between two men in his unit -- a zealous demolition expert (Peter Brown) and the Italian engineer who designed and built the bridge in question.

Conley Wright journeys to the Pacific Theater to search for his brother, a pilot who disappeared during a photo recon flight over an island code named Blackjack.

After the company has taken the town of San Marco, Private D'Angelo encounters his Uncle Nicola for the first time. Any chances of a joyous family occasion, however, are cut short when it is discovered that Nicola had previously collaborated with the Germans during the Nazi Occupation.

War correspondent Conley Wright takes a break from covering action on the front lines in order to investigate an intriguing cloak-and-dagger operation that Allied Supreme Command insists never took place.

As Wright, D'Angelo, and Gibson are headed to Naples for rest and relaxation away from the front lines, their plans are altered as a German artillery barrage knocks out their jeep, stranding the trio in a sector where the Nazis are about to begin a massive counterattack on Allied forces.

Poncie Ponce, George Takai, and Mako appear as soldiers from the 100th Hawaiian Provisional Infantry Batallion whom Sergeant McKenna's squad encounter during a risky mission to locate enemy battery positions behind enemy lines.

Private Hanson (Robert Gothie) becomes separated from his unit during night action, but later manages to find concealment in the cellar of a farmhouse occupied by a squad of Germans. Undetected by his would-be captors, Hanson consoles himself with a bottle of cognac, as he silently witnesses a fateful animosity build between a war-weary German sergeant and his duty-bound lieutenant.

During a skirmish with German forces, Captain Benedict is seriously wounded. After treatment, he is ordered back to Naples for medical and psychological observation. While there, he is offered a transfer from the front lines to an American unit engaged in re-building villages in war-torn southern Italy. Thus, Benedict must make the difficult choice to leave the men he has led from the beginning of the invasion, or refuse a safe desk in order to return to the fighting.

A German soldier, apparently disillusioned with the Nazi cause, is accidentally wounded while attempting to voluntarily surrender to Benedict's outfit. However, after the prisoner is successfully treated in an Army mobile hospital, he is interrogated by Captain Benedict as to the enemy's positions. The prisoner's responses elicit great doubt as to the authenticity of his disenchantment with Nazism; and Benedict must decide for himself whether the German is lying or telling the truth before reporting his story to G-2 Intelligence.

While on leave, Captain Benedict attempts to become reacquainted with an old flame, a popular singer (Dorothy Provine) touring with an entertainment troupe. However, he becomes concerned when she suddenly falls for an embittered British private whom the war has rendered paralyzed from the neck down.