While MASH units in the early part of the Korean War bugged out, or mobilized quite often, the MASH 4077 showrunners couldn’t really have the camp move to an entirely new location. They only had one outdoor filming location, the Fox Ranch in the Malibu Mountains, and it would have been impossible to make this location appear to be an entirely new set for more than a few moments in close scenes. Therefore, the MASH 4077 didn’t bug out very often, and when they did, they always moved back to the original location. In total, the 4077 bugged out four times during the 11-season run of the show, and partially bugged out, or retreated to a cave, once. Only three of the bug outs are depicted, and one is merely mentioned as having occurred by Colonel Potter.
Below, I have listed and summarized the episodes that concern the MASH 4077 mobilizing. The synopsis for each episode is primarily concerned with the bug out, rather than being a full summary.
The General Flipped at Dawn (Season 3, Episode 1) — Didn’t actually bug out
In one of the funniest MASH episodes ever, General Bartford Hamilton Steele, played by Harry Morgan, visits the 4077 for an inspection. It turns out the general is loony as a fruitcake. He inspects the “troops” and makes hilarious non-sequiturs. For example, he tells Radar O’Reilly that “The Irish were rotten Indian fighters!” He then softens immediately and says something about noncoms being the backbone of the service and asks Radar where he’s from. When Radar tries to answer, Steele screams, “No talking in rank!!” Steele also declares to Father Mulcahy, “There are no atheists in foxholes!”
When Klinger shows up to the inspection in full drag and enthusiastically greets the general with a salute, the general only glances at him and says, “Not now, Marjorie, I’m inspecting the troops!” before going on with his inspection.
When the general finds out that the front is 20 minutes away by chopper, he determines that the unit should be closer to the front. Wanting to put the “mobile” back in MASH, he orders that the camp be packed up and mobilized closer to the front because “you do your best business on the 50-yard line.”
The camp is never actually moved, however, as General Steele is distracted by putting Hawkeye on trial for insubordination, when he refuses to let the general commandeer his chopper transporting a patient to Seoul. During the trial, Steele interviews the black chopper pilot about the incident and comforts him, telling him he isn’t facing charges as he was merely following (Hawkeye’s) orders.
He then says to the pilot, “But, first, a number.” The pilot, Marty, is mighty confused and doesn’t know what to do. Steele tells him, “You’ve got it in your blood, boy. Just let it out!” The General then gets up and starts singing “Mississippi Mud” (a highly racist song that is usually sanitized somewhat).
Steele dances a jig around the mess tent and then dances right out the door, singing at the top of his lungs, “It’s a treat to beat your feet upon the Mississippi mud” out into the camp. The military legal officer, there to oversee the proceedings, puts his papers away and leaves, understanding what he’s dealing with. So, there was no court-martial, and no bug-out.
Bug Out (Season 5, Episode 1) — They bug out and come right back without setting up camp
In this two-hour premiere of Season 5, rumors of a practice bug out is spreading around the camp (no, this was not a real thing). Col. Potter tries to squash the rumor, but it becomes exaggerated to the point that the camp thinks a full-scale attack is imminent. Hawkeye has a spinal cord patient but is reluctant to operate for fear the unit will mobilize. It would be too dangerous to move the patient after having a surgery close to his spinal cord.
Potter tells Hawkeye that there is no bug out and convinces him it’s fine to move forward with the operation. No sooner does Hawkeye begin than word comes down that, indeed, the unit must mobilize immediately.
The colonel goes up in a chopper to scout a new location. He finds a building that they could use for the hospital (always a plus to find a permanent building on site). The unit is packed up, and a caravan begins the trek to the new location. Klinger takes along the “Klinger Collection” on a rolling rack. Meanwhile, Hawkeye, Margaret, and Radar stay behind with the spinal cord patient, planning to move him when he’s stable enough.
The hut at the new location is occupied by some “working women” who are not willing to give up their building. Frank wants to forcibly evict them, but the women see the Klinger Collection outside the hut and are thrilled. Potter is able to negotiate a deal: The Klinger Collection for the building. He asks Klinger to give up his dresses, which he absolutely does not want to do, but, being Klinger, he agrees for the good of the unit. He plans to bill the Army for the loss, though.
Meanwhile, back at the old camp, the patient is recovering well. Two soldiers arrive in a jeep and are surprised to find anyone still there. Hawkeye asks them where the front is, and they say, “You’re standing on it.”
The next day, the patient is able to be flown out on a chopper (to an evac hospital). Now, Hawkeye, Margaret, and Radar can make their escape before Chinese soldiers converge on the area or they are caught in crossfire. As they are about to leave in a Jeep, Hawkeye pauses to spend some time in memory lane, thinking about everything that happened there. A loud noise can be heard in the distance. It sounds like approaching vehicles.
Assuming it’s the Chinese, the three try to hide, but there isn’t enough left of the camp to hide effectively. Just when they think their goose is cooked, they realize it’s not the Chinese, but their friends returning, heroically led by Colonel Potter on Sophie. The same piece of land was retaken, Potter tells them, and they were ordered back to the same location. Happiness abounds and Potter directs the setup of the camp. Now, we have one official bug out and a return to the original camp.
C*A*V*E (Season 7, Episode 21) — Not really a bug out, but a temporary retreat to a cave
In the episode CAVE, the 4077 is inadvertently caught between enemy and friendly fire. Colonel Potter calls I Corps, where a logistics officer, Major Bartruff, explains to him that they are engaging a Chinese battery that is located two miles south of Uijeongbu. This is quite close to the 4077’s position, but Bartruff tells Potter that the MASH is located twelve miles east. Potter angrily informs him that they WERE there, three weeks ago, but then returned to their previous location, putting them between the units who are now trading mortar fire.
So, here, we have a bug out mentioned, but not depicted, raising the bug out count to two, both with a move back to the original location.
Left with no other choice, Potter determines that they will have to retreat. He finds a cave less than a mile from the camp that the North Koreans used as an aid station. He believes that if they only take what they need, they can make it through the night in the cave. Hawkeye is against the move because he is worried about a soldier with a chest wound who is not ready to be moved. However, everyone else wants to go, so the camp packs up the minimum equipment and transports the patients to the cave.
There, we learn that Hawkeye has claustrophobia (because, of course, Hawkeye must crack up once or twice a season). On top of his terror of being in the cave, it is soon found that Private Lovett, the soldier who had the chest surgery, will have to be opened up again, and this is not possible in the cave. Hawkeye and Margaret take the patient back to the camp to operate, despite the close artillery fire, where we learn that Margaret has her own fear, loud noises.
Hawkeye, Margaret, and the patient make it through the night, and everyone comes back from the cave in the morning, once the battle is over. This is a retreat, not a full bug out, since the camp is not really moved. Therefore, at this point, we still only have two real bug outs, one from the episode Bug Out and one that was only mentioned as having occurred in the current episode, but not depicted in a plot.
The Party (Season 7, Episode 26) — They bug out and then go back to their original location in Uijeongbu
The Party centers around B.J.’s determination to have the families of the MASH crew get together for a “reunion” in the States. While nobody is keen on the idea, thinking it impossible, the unit gets word that the Chinese have broken through a line, and they need to bug out, which they do during the night.
As they are settling into their new location, Hawkeye convinces the others to agree to write their families about the get-together, because B.J. needs it to happen. Everyone, with some cajoling, gets on board.
Their time at the new location lasts about three weeks. By the time the mail finally is routed to the correct location, Col. Potter gets a call from General Imbrie, who tells him the front line has once again shifted, the army has retaken the piece of land that started all this trouble, and the 4077 must go back to square one, so to speak. The party of the staff’s family comes off wonderfully, and the unit is once again back to its original location. Now, we have three official bug-outs and three returns to the original location.
The time spent at the new location is only referenced by Col. Potter, and the scenes are clearly shot on the sound stage, indoors. This is done because otherwise, it would be more obvious that filming was taking place in the same place as always.
The Novocaine Mutiny (Season 4, Episode 20) — Franks moves the unit across the road and then back again
In Season 4, Episode 20, The Novocaine Mutiny, a reference is made to a practice bug out, directed by Frank Burns when in temporary command of the unit. In this episode, a hearing is conducted to determine whether Hawkeye staged a mutiny against Major Burns, who was in command of the 4077 while Col. Potter was away.
One of the many events that led to the so-called mutiny is Frank’s having the unit do a practice bug-out. He made them move the camp across the street and then back again the very next day. Since this was not a true mobilization, we can’t count it as one of the times the unit bugs out. We still have three official bug outs and three returns to the same original location.
Goodbye, Farewell, and Amen (Season 11, Final Episode) — The unit retreats because of a fire
In the 2.5-hour final special episode of MASH, Goodbye, Farewell, and Amen, there are news reports of a potential truce that sparks an escalation in the fighting. The unit is housing a bunch of wounded POW patients and an out-of-control tank, driven by a wounded soldier, rolls into the camp and drives over the latrine, coming to a stop in the middle of the camp.
When Hawkeye returns to camp after undergoing treatment by Sidney Freeman, he finds B.J. has gotten his orders to go home and has left without saying goodbye, just like Trapper (not so fast, B.J. comes back). Meanwhile, enemy forces have been sporadically firing on the camp. When the firing starts up again, Hawkeye takes it upon himself to drive the tank, which Potter has ordered not to be touched, into the garbage dump so that the firing will be further away. He takes out the replacement latrine in the process.
Unfortunately, incendiary bombs have caused a fire in the forest nearby, and the unit is forced to bug out. In reality, the fire was real. The Gypsum Canyon brushfire, caused by a downed power line, occurred on October 9, 1982, during filming. The outdoor filming location of MASH, the Fox Ranch, was caught in the fire and burned to the ground. The producers incorporated this real fire into the storyline. The bug out footage shown in the finale was actually taken from the episode Bug Out, from Season 5. This causes a number of continuity problems, including having them bug out during the daytime when it should have been night, and showing Klinger wearing a dress, although he had long since stopped.
As usual, once the camp is set up in its new location, they are ordered back. B.J., whose orders were rescinded, has returned. He only got as far as Guam before someone caught on and sent him back. The unit goes back to the original location, only this time to see the ruin left by the fire. Almost everything left behind was destroyed. Since the fire was real, we, the viewers, see all the damage. The hospital building, in the show, survived somehow. This did not occur in real life, where the fire took everything in the set. Interior hospital building scenes were shot on Sound Stage 9 at the Fox Studios.
Total Bug Outs: 4
In total, the MASH 4077 bugged out 4 times and partially bugged out, or retreated to a cave, once. Each time the 4077 did bug out, they always went back to the original location. So, in reality, the 4077 never moved permanently to a new location. While I do believe the showrunners would like us to believe that the location of the camp changed during the run of the show, this is never actually shown in the plot. For all intents and purposes, the camp remained in the same spot throughout the run of the show.
Note that some sources only list three official bug outs. This is because they miss the passing reference by Potter in the episode C*A*V*E about a bug out that occurred 12 weeks ago, before the camp moved back to the original place. While this did not occur in an actual episode, it is “in universe” as the kids say. It counts. So, the 4077 bugged out 4 times.
How Realistic Was This Number of Mobilizations?
It is not possible to say whether the number of mobilizations of the MASH 4077 was realistic or not, since the show is entirely fictional and depicts a fictional unit based on a novelized account of a real MASH doctor’s experience.
By the time Dr. Richard Hornberger, aka Richard Hooker, arrived at the 8055 in the Spring of 1952, the Peace Talks had begun. The front lines were stabilized at the 38th parallel. This meant the unit was required to mobilize much less frequently than in the previous months. Before this, the 8055 was moving back and forth, even crossing into North Korea quite frequently, before moving back South again.
Therefore, the number of mobilizations should coincide somewhat with the period of the war during which the show is set. However, the time period depicted is in constant flux. It seems little regard was given to what year the various Seasons or episodes were set during, or, as is likely, the writers simply forgot.
If the time period of the MASH TV show was supposed to be the earlier part of the war, then many more mobilizations would need to be shown to be realistic. Indeed, the show is supposed to take place in 1950 and 1951 during the early seasons, etc. Therefore, the number of bug outs was grossly unrealistic, in general.
During the second half of the war, battle lines were much more stable. The front didn’t shift very much. So, MASH units didn’t have to mobilize as often. If we are to imagine that the show takes place during this latter period of the war, then this small number of mobilizations is possible.
In reality, the show is a mix of a later, more established MASH unit, existing during the latter half of the war, and a unit coping with the earlier part of the war. The constantly shifting battle lines depicted during the later seasons are somewhat anachronistic.
The show is not a documentary! It is a hodgepodge of historically correct details and extremely unlikely or incorrect ones. Official records show that during 1950, the 8055, on which the novel, film, and show were based, moved 14 times in a short, 5-month period. The 8063 moved 23 times during a similar period. Other units, located in less volatile regions, moved much less frequently. In 1951, both the former units moved 9 times. At the end of 1950, the MASH 8076 moved 5 times in 5 months.
The mobilizations drastically reduced during 1952 and 1953, with records showing zero mobilizations for both the units discussed. 1The Evolution of Forward Surgery in the US Army: From the Revolutionary War to the Combat Operations of the 21st Century. United States, Borden Institute, US Army Medical Department Center and School, Health Readiness Center of Excellence, 2018. Regardless, as I pointed out in my article about how close the 4077 was to the front lines, if the show was realistic in showing a very mobile unit like the 8055, it would show the 4077 bugging out every other episode. That may have been an exaggeration, but even having the unit move a couple of times a season was clearly impossible. The “mobile” part of MASH had to be minimized.
