Willie

Willie is a fictional character who appeared in the Hogan's Heroes episode, Top Hat, White Tie and Bomb Sight. He was played by Monroe Arnold.

Willie is first mentioned in the episode as Colonel Hogan is inside the radio room, reading a message from London that has been given to him earlier by Kinch, while Newkirk and Carter looks on. Hogan reads out the message which says that London has lost contact for about a week with Willie, an underground agent who is presently working as a waiter at the Hauserhauf hotel in nearby Hammelburg. Since they feared that normal channels might have been compromised, they wanted the prisoners to contact him for them, and to warn him to not appear at next Thursday's weapons drop, as they think that the Germans might have set up a trap for him, which would in turn compromise the local underground unit. After reading the message, Hogan says that he would perform the mission himself the next night via the emergency tunnel, before asking for civilian clothes to be made for him, as well as the message for Willie to be coded and placed in a package of cigarettes.

Hogan and the other prisoners would then spend most of the episode trying to get Hogan to the hotel, in spite of Kommandant Klink having the wire electrified by using the bugs that Klink had planted in Hogan's office against Klink, by convincing first Klink and then General Burkhalter into thinking that Hogan knew about the American Norden bombsight. During this process, Hogan informs Klink that he wanted to leave the camp and mentioned that he wanted to go to the hotel, an idea which Klink rejects because of regulations, but when Klink tells Burkhalter about the incident while the pair are outside his office, Burkhlater thought that it would help them to convince Hogan to tell them the plans to the bombsight, before suggesting that Klink should arrange a dinner at the hotel, along with some female companionship and to have Hogan dressed in a German officer's uniform for psychological reasons.

During the dinner, a German officer-dressed Hogan tries to find Willie using the pre-arranged code words. As he and the other are being served drinks, he asks the waiter if he knew about Lili Marleen. The waiter, thinking that Hogan is asking about the song, informs him that he would ask the orchestra leader about it. Hogan tells him never mind, and the waiter leaves. Later, as he is dancing with Gretchen, he dance her over to the bar and then asks the bartender, as he cleans up a glass, the code sign. The confused bartender asks Hogan if he meant a drink. Upon hearing that answer, Hogan says 'good day' to the bartender and walks Gretchen away from the counter. Later still, after Hogan has cut in on Klink and dances once more with Gretchen, he looks around and soon notices at a nearby table a waiter who is carrying in his hands a couple of teacups and saucers and having a hard time deciding which cup to give to the seated patrons. Hogan, thinking that he may have finally found Willie, asks Gretchen to go back to the table as he'd thought that he'd found an old friend of his and wanted to speak with him. After Gretchen heads back to the table, Hogan walks over to Willie, who is now carrying a tray with a bird-shaped wicker basket filled with bread.

Willie is stopped by Hogan, and is asked the code word. Excited, he answers yes, while dropping the tray, with the bread and tray falling backwards onto the floor and the basket itself falling on top of the head of a female patron. Willie goes onto the floor to retrieves the dropped bread and tray while Hogan, offering to help him, takes the wicker basket off of the surprised woman's head and then joins Willie. Willie then starts placing bread into the basket while asking Hogan to repeat the code word, which Hogan does. Willie then gives him the counter sign while he places the last of the bread into the basket. He is then given the package of cigarette which contains the coded warning, while he hears Hogan's comment about him liking his spies with 'nerves of steel' while in actuality Hogan could see that he is very nervous. After the two gets back up, Hogan adds the comment that Willie will probably need to use the pack of cigarettes, for the same reason. The two then goes their seperate ways.