Masters of the Air

[Doc Dan]

Have any of you watched Masters of the Air? This is a great show. My father flew on B17's during WWII. He would never talk about it and was angry at a lot of things they made them do. The only thing I know is that he said he survived a crash in the desert and that most of the men in his squadron didn't survive.

Anyway, this show is really good, but sometimes gruesome and heart wrenching. Well worth watching.

[Manixguy@1994]

When I was a senior in high school I was over visiting a friend . I got to know his Dad who I really bonded with and respected but never knew anything about his past . We were talking in the garage and he came out with a jacket and asked me to try it on to see if fit me and it did . He told me he wanted me to have it and remember the journey the jacket symbolized . It was his high altitude wool leather jacket he wore as a gunner on a B17 . I wore it until it literally fell apart and was the warmest coat I have ever owned . I still to this day don’t know why he chose me to pass this memory of his life to me , but something that I proudly cherished to this day . Dan

[ChrisinHove]

I will try to watch that.

My elderly father had ground crew billetted with his family in WW2 because they lived close to the airfields. He recalls the men coming home in distressed states after having to hose out the beaten up bombers that made it home, and seeing the plumes of smoke and flames of those that had to crash land.

Bomber crews were so brave. The number of casualties in British bomber command exceeded 100% by the end of the war (ie total losses exceeded the standing headcount).

[DSH007]

AppleTV went about a year without putting out any content that I was even remotely interested in, so I cancelled the service.. sure enough, now this show comes out and actually looks really good! Hah, I may have to wait until all the episodes are out and fire up the AppleTV again for a month to watch, before cancelling again..

I swear, all these shows on different streaming services.. it's getting out of hand! If only there was a singular service you could use to watch all of the shows you wanted to.. hmm wait, that sounds vaguely familiar.. what was it called, cable?

[dsvirsky]

Have any of you watched Masters of the Air? This is a great show. My father flew on B17's during WWII. He would never talk about it and was angry at a lot of things they made them do. The only thing I know is that he said he survived a crash in the desert and that most of the men in his squadron didn't survive.

Anyway, this show is really good, but sometimes gruesome and heart wrenching. Well worth watching.

Haven't watched the show, but my dad also flew on B17s during WWII. Served in North Africa and Italy.

[kennethsime]

My father flew on B17's during WWII. He would never talk about it and was angry at a lot of things they made them do. The only thing I know is that he said he survived a crash in the desert and that most of the men in his squadron didn't survive.

My Grandfather, my namesake, served in Korea. He joined the USMC's V12 program at the tail end of WW2, served in China, and was then called back for Korea.

He never talked much about Korea, other than to say "it was cold." I think he was similarly displeased with the things they had to do - I don't think he agreed with the war itself, frankly.

As much as I enjoyed Inglorious Bastards, the war movies that show the ugly parts are really my favorite. I'm looking forward to this one based on your review.

[kennethsime]

When I was a senior in high school I was over visiting a friend . I got to know his Dad who I really bonded with and respected but never knew anything about his past . We were talking in the garage and he came out with a jacket and asked me to try it on to see if fit me and it did . He told me he wanted me to have it and remember the journey the jacket symbolized . It was his high altitude wool leather jacket he wore as a gunner on a B17 . I wore it until it literally fell apart and was the warmest coat I have ever owned . I still to this day don’t know why he chose me to pass this memory of his life to me , but something that I proudly cherished to this day . Dan

My best friend inherited his Grandfather's wool + leather bomber jacket for his 16th Birthday. I'm not sure where he served or what he flew, but I distinctly remember the custom liner full of naked pinup models. Guess he had to stay motivated one way or another.

[akapennypincher]

Good friend was Tail-gunner in B-24 Liberators, shot down twice over Germany. First time the Russians rescued him, and got him back to England. Second time he got shot down, the Luftwaffe Troops took him to POW Camp, he had some interesting stories about his time as POW. Noting like Hogans Heros. War ended, he came back to USA, start small business in basement, grew into big business, made millions. Died in his Personal Aircraft flying near home in upstate NY. Loved to fly, died doing what he loved.

[RamZar]

Masters of the Air (2024) on Apple TV+ is a great all around show. It’s produced by the Steven Spielberg & Tom Hanks team which also gave us HBO’s Band of Brothers (2001) and The Pacific (2010).

The action in the air is intense and the emotions on the ground very good. 1943 is when the war started to turn against the Nazis and one factor was the Combined Bomber Offensive (CBO) of U.S. and U.K. bombings of German targets starting in June 1943. The U.S. daytime bombing was extremely dangerous. There’s a March Field Air Museum in SoCal which I’ve visited and it has a B-17 Flying Fortress. It’s extremely cramped inside the aircraft and not much bigger than the F-14. Seeing the B-17 in person gives you a great appreciation for what the guys of the 8th Air Force did and how much courage it took. The average life expectancy of a B-17 aircraft and crew was just 11 missions.

[Ankerson]

AppleTV went about a year without putting out any content that I was even remotely interested in, so I cancelled the service.. sure enough, now this show comes out and actually looks really good! Hah, I may have to wait until all the episodes are out and fire up the AppleTV again for a month to watch, before cancelling again..

I swear, all these shows on different streaming services.. it's getting out of hand! If only there was a singular service you could use to watch all of the shows you wanted to.. hmm wait, that sounds vaguely familiar.. what was it called, cable?

Yeah, until all the cable cutters messed it all up and now we have a nightmare to deal with.

[akapennypincher]

Wonder how many episodes in series, saw 8 now anther preview.

Thought series was only EIGHT.

[RamZar]

Wonder how many episodes in series, saw 8 now anther preview.

Thought series was only EIGHT.

Nine episodes in all with the series finale airing next Friday, March 15th along with a one hour documentary about the 100th Bomb Group called “The Bloody Hundredth”.

https://youtu.be/ZkYOtyp3hKU?si=X381LpjYlIcU78UJ

[akapennypincher]

Thanks.

[Doc Dan]

What I found stupid was that the Army threw away many of those lives. They did not give them proper air cover until late in the war. True, the fighters were unable to attain the range needed, but that was a problem a bit of ingenuity could have fixed. They finally did solve it, but not early enough. I also wonder if a different strategy of attack would have worked.

[RamZar]

It wasn’t until mid-December 1943 when P-51D Mustang fighters with the Merlin engine provided the US Army Air Forces with the high-performance, high-altitude, long range fighters which could escort B-17 bomber formations all the way to Berlin and back. Massive losses between June 1943 and December 1943. By Spring 1944 the allies had air superiority setting up the D-Day landings.

[Coastal]

My dad flew 15 missions in roughly 2 months during autumn, 1944. He was shot down over Ludwigshafen in November, and spent the rest of the war in Stalag Luft 4 on the Baltic coast.

By late '44, the Allies had achieved air supremacy in a general sense, but what counted to a bomber crew was who had air supremacy at a particular place and time and, in my dad's case, there were enough brave and skilled German pilots available on November 11 that they were able to swarm his formation and knock down a bunch of B-17s. It was as depicted in Masters of the Air: as a squadron was chewed up from behind, its remaining ships attempted to move forward to a squadron containing more aircraft. My dad's Fort did this twice but, on the third time, drew the black bean.

Especially interesting to me was his description of the relative dangers posed by what the Germans sent against him. The Me-163 rocket-powered interceptors and Me-262 jet fighters were mostly ignored, other than to report them to Intelligence. As flight engineer and top-turret gunner, my dad saw them but couldn't engage; they were simply too tough a target. The good news is that they were less effective against bomber formations than the slower, more numerous and more heavily armored piston-driven fighters. Bf-109s (or Me-109s as they were ubiquitously called by allied fliers) were formidable, but this late in war they often didn't engage the bombers. Instead, because of their good high-altitude performance, they were directed against the escorting Allied fighters.

Flak was deadly, and of course there was nothing that could be done about it. Somewhere, there's a picture of my dad standing on a ladder placed under his B-17's wing, his head and body from the waist up poking out through a hole created by a flak round that took out a fuel tank, but didn't explode. The projectiles were fused to explode at a certain altitude, and this one was either a dud or hadn't yet reached its assigned altitude. By November '44, flak was so concentrated because of the contraction of the Reich that it was unavoidable, an omnipresent hazard once over German soil.

What dad feared most were swarms of FW-190s. At this stage of the war those he encountered were almost certainly FW-190A-8 Sturmboecke, with heavily armored engines and cockpits, and sporting two 30mm autocannon in addition to two each 20mm cannon and 13mm machine guns. Relatively easy prey for Allied fighters, but deadly to bomber formations. Sure enough, FW-190s got Dad's B-17.

I've heard hours of stories about his experiences -- the training, the airplanes, his base in England, POW camp, his Russian liberators -- but very little about the intensity, bloodiness and brutality of air combat, neither in the air nor on the ground, neither the dying nor the killing. I'm sure my dad was just protecting his son from such knowledge. So this show sort of fills in those gaps for me, as best a TV show can. I recommend it to this forum audience as highly as any show I've seen.

This is my dad's crew, with Dad on the far left. Four made it back.

[RamZar]

Good narrative Coastal. You should be very proud of your Dad.

When I said air superiority in Spring 1944 I meant over France not Germany.

The German 88mm Flak guns were formidable with a muzzle velocity of 2,690 feet/second. Fortunately, the Germans did not have our proximity fuses which was one of the greatest inventions of WWII.

There's the Masters of the Air: America's Bomber Boys Who Fought the Air War Against Nazi Germany book which is the inspiration for the Apple TV+ series.

[Coastal]

There's the Masters of the Air: America's Bomber Boys Who Fought the Air War Against Nazi Germany book which is the inspiration for the Apple TV+ series.

That one's next on my list of war books. "Big Week" is worth reading, if you haven't already.

[RamZar]

Read the great Oppenheimer biography last year. Great Christopher Nolan movie as well. Very smart, conflicted and complex character.

[RamZar]

I’ll check out the Big Week: The Biggest Air Battle of World War II book as well. It feels like it would make a great movie.