Combat Sergeant – Nostalgia Central

1 9 5 6 (USA)
13 x 30 minute episodes

This ABC drama series was set in North Africa during World War II, where the Allied forces were battling Rommel’s Afrika Korps.

Sergeant Robert Nelson (played with tight-lipped, deadpan earnestness by Michael Thomas) received his orders directly from General Harrison (Cliff Clark) and then led his squad on (mostly wildly implausible) espionage missions against the Germans.

The series was actually filmed in 1952 by a division of Universal International, but it was considered bad form at the time for a movie company to compete with itself on TV, and the series was packed away in mothballs.

It wasn’t until ABC needed 13 shows to fill in for vacationing Ozzie and Harriet Nelson that the films were resurrected.

A realistic background was provided by clips from films made by the British or captured from the Nazis, which added verisimilitude to a series in which the Germans and Italians were dying like flies with very light casualties on the Allied side, giving the impression that Sergeant Nelson was winning the war almost single-handed.

Sergeant Robert Nelson
Michael Thomas
General Harrison
Cliff Clark
Corporal Johnson
Billy Wayne
Corporal Tim Murphy
Frank Marlowe
Lt. Rand
Elaine Riley
Abdullah
Domenick Delgarde

Episodes

Flight to Eternity | Pass Into Danger | Mission to Mademoiselle | Destined for Death | East of Algiers | Destruction at Dawn | Desert Vengeance | Fatal Hours | Dark Alleys of Algiers | All Faces East | Desert Falcon | Terrors of Arabia | Trap of the Killers