I loved watching the 73 crew and especially Petty Officer Moss dressed as a native and doing some wacky made-up South Pacific dance in front of the Japanese soldiers/black-marketers.
I suppose the writers had to come up with something to spoil Captain Binghamton's big chance to transfer to COMFLEET, but anyone who has had to reconcile an inventory for simple custody transfer reasons knows that the Barrage Balloon and probably half of that other crap on that inventory could have been "creatively" dealt with in the "final disposition" column of the Navy inventory form just by McHale, Gruber, and the Captain sitting down for a few minutes with a number 2 pencil, and Binghamton would have winging his way up to a happy Admiral Rogers.... Could you imagine trying to transfer a commanding officer during WW2 if he had to locate every unaccounted for paper clip before he could physically depart his present command?
I suppose the writers had to come up with something to spoil Captain Binghamton's big chance to transfer to COMFLEET, but anyone who has had to reconcile an inventory for simple custody transfer reasons knows that the Barrage Balloon and probably half of that other crap on that inventory could have been "creatively" dealt with in the "final disposition" column of the Navy inventory form just by McHale, Gruber, and the Captain sitting down for a few minutes with a number 2 pencil, and Binghamton would have winging his way up to a happy Admiral Rogers.... Could you imagine trying to transfer a commanding officer during WW2 if he had to locate every unaccounted for paper clip before he could physically depart his present command?