The Mission

what happens

Savage and the Piccadilly Lily are given a special mission to bomb an oil line in the Säär Valley. Captain Dirksen is a Lead Bombardier from Wing down for the mission. Captain Walters as the alternate Lead Bombardier. Savage's crew has rotated home, so he is using a new crew but needs two new waist gunners. He chooses Waller & Maglie. Waller is actually a bombardier but has excellent gunnery scores. The navigator First Lieutenant Gunther does not want to fly with ""Wash-out"" Waller. Savage chews Waller out for his negative attitude. Waller has a chip on his shoulder because he washed out of flight school then graduated from bombardier school as a Flight Officer and not a Second Lieutenant. On the mission, a bomb gets hung up on the rack and the crew blames Waller as he supervised the bomb loading. Later Waller saves Gunther's life. Captain Dirksen is killed, and the aircraft carrying the alternate lead bombardier is shot down so Waller takes over and makes a perfect bomb run. The plane

who made it

directed

William A. Graham

guest cast

Billed for this episode only — the turn people remember an episode for.

• Burt Brinckerhoff as Joe Waller
• Bruce Dern as Lt. Michaels
• Robert Hogan as Lieutenant Farrell
• Forrest Compton as Captain Dirksen
• Ted Gehring as Willie
• DDon Eitner as Radioman