Sgt. Chip Saunders

Sgt. Chip Saunders is a squad leader within K Company, 361st Infantry Regiment. He is portrayed by Vic Morrow.

Saunders served in the North Africa campaign (1942) and the Italian campaign (1943) before being transferred to England ahead of Operation Overlord. He was wounded in Italy and received a Purple Heart ("A Day in June"). His role model was his platoon leader, T/Sgt. Walter Avery, though his admiration eroded somewhat after Avery revealed he nearly deserted after the Battle of St. Lô ("A Gift of Hope"). In Britain, Saunders developed a friendship with T/Sgt. Gil Hanley. Saunders would serve under Hanley after the latter's field promotion in 1944 and for the duration of the series.

While fighting in Italy, Saunders grew close to B.A.R. man Grady Long. He was reunited with Long in France, but Long was killed shortly after D-Day ("Far From the Brave"). Long's death caused Saunders to distance himself from Hanley and the men of his squad. Though he adjusts to the loss, for the remainder of the series Saunders is keenly aware of the mortality of his men and he takes every reasonable opportunity to keep them alive - often by protecting them from their own inexperience, bad tactical proposals or lax attention to their surroundings.

Chip Saunders is depicted as a stern, frequently grim and endlessly burdened squad leader. He occasionally entertains the squad's ideas and requests ("One More for the Road," "Birthday Cake," et al), but has low tolerance for frivolity. He does not hesitate to shut down dissent, and frequently shames subordinates, other non-commissioned officers, civilians and even superior officers to get them to abet his solution. His choices are often questioned by others, but Combat! storylines virtually always vindicate Saunders.

His personal life is an enigma to his squad ("Mail Call"). On-camera details shifted as needed for narrative purposes, or because writers failed to check previous scripts for continuity. In the first season, Saunders is from Cleveland, Ohio ("Just for the Record"), but in the second-season episode "Masquerade," he says he is from Illinois. He has a mother and sister stateside. Their voices are heard on a department store recording Saunders listens to in "Just for the Record." He apparently had three brothers: Joey, who likely died in childhood ("Survival"), Chris, who volunteered for military service late in the war ("The Letter"); and an unnamed brother, a Marine who served in the Pacific theater ("Mail Call"). It is likely Chip is the eldest of the five Saunders children.

Despite his no-nonsense professional demeanor, Saunders on rare occasions reveals traces of a lighter personality: he performs a "disappearing coin" illusion for a frightened child in season four's "The Furlough," and Hanley teases him about his carousing in the pilot episode "A Day in June."

Saunders is roughly 25 years old in the episode "The Letter." Morrow was 37 when the episode was shot in 1966.