I almost posted a comment on Combat! in the “nice, little touches” thread but realized that the whole series was filled with nice, little touches. And interesting camera work. And great directing. Sure, the squad took five years to cross France when the real guys did it in about nine months, but I’ve seen the films taken by combat photographers and they are grainy and jumpy while the guys who filmed Combat! took their time. 
I loved the series when I was a kid but assumed that was youthful enthusiasm. I tuned in for the last couple hours of a local stations Combat! marathon, which happened to be a two-parter directed by Vic Morrow, “Hills Are For Heroes.” My jaw fell because some crappy 60s drama that aired on (snicker) ABC couldn’t be this good. Further searching showed that many people not only considered that a breakthrough episode but that, even when making “Saving Private Ryan,” Spielberg, his military advisor, and others found the series, and that episode in particular, to be a common language.
Since then I learned that little touches, like how you knew who was going to get killed by whether he was a guest star, had a basis in fact–newbies had a better chance of getting killed than seasoned troops, often before the guys in their squad leaned their names. And, though I grew up surrounded by WWII vets, they rarely said anything against its realism, though it was also a bit of a melodrama. They usually got shit right.
ETA: For me, it was “Why Uncle Jerry is crazy” while Memphis Belle was “Why Daddy is crazy.”
