Request Permission to Escape

Prisoners

 * Colonel Hogan - Bob Crane
 * Corporal Louis LeBeau - Robert Clary
 * Corporal Peter Newkirk - Richard Dawson
 * Sergeant James Kinchloe - Ivan Dixon
 * Sergeant Andrew Carter - Larry Hovis

Camp Personnel

 * Kommandant Wilhelm Klink - Werner Klemperer
 * Sergeant Hans Schultz - John Banner

Semi-Regulars

 * Fraulein Helga - Cynthia Lynn

Guest Stars

 * Soldier - William Christopher
 * Gestapo Officer - Martin Blaine
 * Mady - Mary Mitchell
 * Captain - Officer #1 - John Crawford
 * Hans - Officer #2 - Brett Parker
 * Soldier - Horst Ebersberg

Synopsis
Carter asks Hogan if he can escape and get back to his girlfriend, when she writes him a Dear John letter.

Story Notes

 * This is both the thirty-second produced episode of the series and the thirty-second episode to be shown on television. It is also the last episode of the First Season.
 * This episode is the last appearance of Helga in the series. Cynthia Lynn would later appear as a guest star in a future episode. In real life, Lynn left the series because, according to her own autobiography, she had been having an affair with actor Bob Crane and was trying to save her marriage. She and her husband eventually divorced.
 * Kinch receives a letter from the draft board stating that he is classified 4F despite having already seen action and is now in a prison camp.
 * It was Hogan himself who picked up Carter when the latter arrived to join our heroes at Stalag 13. In the pilot episode The Informer, where Carter's character was just another downed airman passing through, he was picked up by Olsen.
 * Carter had planned to propose to Mary Jane after the end of the war.
 * Additional POWs mentioned during mail call are Adams, Abrams, Addison, Barker, Beauchamp, Belknap and Bartoli. Addison also is called during roll call in The Big Dish.

Timeline Notes and Speculations

 * This is one the few episodes for which we can get an exact date. Hogan references the famous "Black Thursday" bombing raid on Schweinfurt, which happened on the night of October 14, 1943. This episode takes place in the week leading up to that raid.
 * In this episode we learn our heroes have been conducting their operations at Stalag 13 for about a year. This also happened to be how long the series had been in production up to that point.
 * Most series fans explain Kinch's draft rejection letter by claiming that he enlisted in the Army under one name while being listed at the draft board under another. According to this theory, it would have allowed him to get around the 4F classification he knew he would receive. There is some support for this theory in the series itself. Kinch's first name is given as James in this episode (draft board letter) and as Ivan (actor Ivan Dixon's first name) in others. This leads to the real question: Why would Kinch, a former boxer in presumably good physical shape, get a 4F rating?

Quotes

 * Sergeant Schultz - "Women are like war. There's always another coming around."

Bloopers

 * Klink tells Sergeant Schultz: “You’re always defending the other prisoners.” “Other” is clearly a mistake.