The Last Harbor Raid

"The Last Harbor Raid" is a three-parter consisting of the the fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth episodes of the first season of The Rat Patrol. Part I first aired on December 19, 1966. Part II first aired on Boxing Day 1966. Part III first aired on January 2, 1967.

Episode I
Narrator: "The Rat Patrol was now accustomed to being given difficult and important assignments. Infiltration and demolition was their specialty. But what kind of mission would beckon these desert fighters so far from their sandy battlefield? How important that they be summoned to appear before a special staff of the Allied Command?"

The Germans are using prisoners of war to keep a harbor open despite repeated Allied attacks. The Rat Patrol are tasked by Colonel Reynolds (Harry Landers) with helping the prisoners escape. The fisherman Bertaine (Will Kuluva) will command a fishing fleet that will take the prisoners across the Mediterranean. The Rat Patrol are to wear their appropriate uniforms for the mission, and may take the calculated risk of being captured.

Narrator: "Once more Allied bombers approach a strategic target on the North African coast: German shipping docks vital to the supply line so desperately needed by Rommel's Afrika Korps, without which Germany's stronghold in this campaign would be greatly weakened. At that precise moment, in a prisoner-of-war compound a few miles away, a mass escape was being undertaken by a group of desperate men, whose hope it was that the diversion of the bombing would give them the edge they needed. Lacking outside aid, their efforts proved fruitless and costly."

The Rat Patrol make contact with Bertaine. Unfortunately, Bertaine chooses to die in a confrontation with the Germans rather than betray the Allies. But this complicates the Rat Patrol's mission: even if they can break the prisoners out, they have no way to transport them across the sea.

The Rat Patrol meet El Gamil (Stanley Adams), who tells them about Bertaine's daughter Marianne (Claudine Longet). Maybe she can convince her father's colleagues to help the Rat Patrol complete their mission.

Episode II
Narrator: "The Rat Patrol had been given their orders: infiltrate a key German dock area, supply arms to the Allied prisoners there, and set up their escape, for it was their forced labor keeping the dock area open after continued bombing raids. Through Bertaine, a French fisherman, local fishing boats would be waiting to transport the prisoners to freedom, and once and for all, bombers would break Rommel's supply line flowing through the port."

Unfortunately Bertaine dies, and now it seems the mission is over before it started.

Narrator: "New hope was soon provided by El Gamil, friend of Bertaine, who informed the Rat Patrol Bertaine's daughter Marianne might be persuaded to arrange for a meeting with the fishermen. He also provided the materials and the means so that a meeting with Marianne could be accomplished. Although an admitted coward, he proved to be a twentieth-century genie from Aladdin's lamp."

El Gamil provides the Rat Patrol with German officers' uniforms and a German car. Posing as Captain Hoffmann and Lt. Wagner, Sergeant Moffitt and Private Hitchcock go to the officers' club where Marianne sings. They talk to her at the club, then go to her apartment. There, they reveal who they really are. Understandably, Marianne is suspicious: these men could be Gestapo, out to entrap disloyal collaborators.

Episode III
Private Hitchcock wakes up in a sofa in Marianne's apartment. She helps him shave and makes him coffee. Marianne brings the Rat Patrol to the fishermen and translates English to French. The fishermen seem unconvinced. But then Marianne sings a song, they join in, and that means they'll cooperate. The prison break is successful, but Marianne dies.

Main cast

 * Christopher George as Sergeant Sam Troy
 * Gary Raymond as Sergeant Jack Moffitt
 * Hans Gudegast as Hauptmann Hans Dietrich (credit only for all three parts)
 * Lawrence Casey as Private Mark T. Hitchcock
 * Justin Tarr as Private Tully Pettigrew

Supporting cast

 * Stanley Adams as El Gamil (uncredited for Part III)
 * John Anderson as Major Indrus (uncredited for Part I)
 * Will Kuluva as Mr. Bertaine (uncredited for Part II, does not appear in Part III)
 * Harry Landers as Colonel Reynolds (Part I only)
 * Claudine Longet as Marianne Bertaine (Part II and Part III, does not appear in Part I)