I felt "Target 802" could have been a very good episode but it turned out to be very weak and a bit silly.
The episode begins with Colonel Gallagher flying back from a mission. They still have their bombs aboard and instead of trying to land with them, standard procedure was to drop them into the English Channel...which he attempted to do. However, a German fighter attacked after they opened up the bomb bay doors and instead of dropping the bombs safely in the channel, they fall out prematurely and hit a small French town.
This sort of thing could happen and collateral damage was a serious problem during the war. However, what happens next I found confusing and a bit silly. While you would expect folks from this town to be furious with the US Army Air Corps, there was a woman from the town who was brought back to the base with her injured son. It seems the only person killed in the bomber mishap was her father and her son was badly injured and in need of surgery. So be it. But soon she tries to kill Gallagher!! And, to top it off, her anger is stoked by a fighter pilot who behaves VERY unprofessionally and would have probably been court martialed for his insubordination. It was a tragedy that the father was killed and the kid injured....but the fighter pilot stoking the mother's anger seemed ridiculous....as was her attempt to kill Gallagher.
What follows is also silly if you know a lot about WWII aircraft. The Germans take advantage of the situation by building a plant in the same town...knowing the only way the Americans can bomb it would also kill MORE civilians and make these French folks hate the US even more (this makes sense). But here's the crazy part. They need pinpoint bombing to avoid killing civilians and destroying the town and use a B-17 for it (which is NOT a pinpoint bomber). Using a smaller bomber (like a B-25 or B-26) would have made sense, but even more sense would have been to use the P-51 fighters they used in the show as escort planes as small bombers. P-51s and many other US fighter planes often were used as small bombers for just such missions....so seeing the P-51s escorting a B-17 here....well, that just looks as if the writers did not know a lot about WWII planes. In fact, on this show OFTEN they show B-17s doing lots of jobs it was not used for....and this episode isn't the first.
The episode begins with Colonel Gallagher flying back from a mission. They still have their bombs aboard and instead of trying to land with them, standard procedure was to drop them into the English Channel...which he attempted to do. However, a German fighter attacked after they opened up the bomb bay doors and instead of dropping the bombs safely in the channel, they fall out prematurely and hit a small French town.
This sort of thing could happen and collateral damage was a serious problem during the war. However, what happens next I found confusing and a bit silly. While you would expect folks from this town to be furious with the US Army Air Corps, there was a woman from the town who was brought back to the base with her injured son. It seems the only person killed in the bomber mishap was her father and her son was badly injured and in need of surgery. So be it. But soon she tries to kill Gallagher!! And, to top it off, her anger is stoked by a fighter pilot who behaves VERY unprofessionally and would have probably been court martialed for his insubordination. It was a tragedy that the father was killed and the kid injured....but the fighter pilot stoking the mother's anger seemed ridiculous....as was her attempt to kill Gallagher.
What follows is also silly if you know a lot about WWII aircraft. The Germans take advantage of the situation by building a plant in the same town...knowing the only way the Americans can bomb it would also kill MORE civilians and make these French folks hate the US even more (this makes sense). But here's the crazy part. They need pinpoint bombing to avoid killing civilians and destroying the town and use a B-17 for it (which is NOT a pinpoint bomber). Using a smaller bomber (like a B-25 or B-26) would have made sense, but even more sense would have been to use the P-51 fighters they used in the show as escort planes as small bombers. P-51s and many other US fighter planes often were used as small bombers for just such missions....so seeing the P-51s escorting a B-17 here....well, that just looks as if the writers did not know a lot about WWII planes. In fact, on this show OFTEN they show B-17s doing lots of jobs it was not used for....and this episode isn't the first.
