Posted on 03/24/2024 5:51:48 AM PDT by Rummyfan
According to Apple, the premiere episode of Masters of the Air, the "sequel" to Band of Brothers and The Pacific, was the most-watched debut ever on their streaming platform. Which is proof that there's a robust audience for these technically cutting-edge but dramatically old-fashioned World War Two dramas, produced by Steven Spielberg's Amblin and Tom Hanks' Playtone.
It's hard not to see the appeal in a world full of moral equivalence and antiheroes so compromised they'd be called villains in a different era. None of these shows deny that war is hell; they go out of their way (with the assistance of top dollar digital and practical effects) to immerse us in the horror and violence but remain steadfast that this awful war was worth the cost, given the brutality of our enemies.
In the lead-up to Masters of the Air, there were reasonable concerns that the "evolution" of Hollywood in the fourteen years since HBO aired The Pacific would inject a good deal of retrospective handwringing into the story of the Eighth Air Force and its bombing campaign over Europe, but the new show was remarkably free of it – defiant, even, that despite the terrible toll in civilian casualties, it was justified by defeating Nazi Germany.
(Excerpt) Read more at steynonline.com ...
That was just the casualties incurred by the 8th Air Force.
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No not casualties, 80,000 deaths; it was the over all number of all airmen killed out of the total 408,000 other Americans that died in WWII.
Probably, but there were a few B26 Marauders designated as Pathfinders that operated at night. They were equipped with Brit radars. Some of them were also switched from bomb dropping to long range fighter roles to shoot down enemy transports.
I did read the P-61 was the first fighter completely designed for the night time radar fighter role, though.
Maybe back in the States for training, or putting out forest fires.
This isn't an issue of their being too few B17Gs; it's a matter of being none. (Even the producers acknowledged the error; it was noticed two weeks before run time and the decision was made to go ahead anyway.)
Band of Brothers and The Pacific were masterpieces.
Master of the Air is horrifically bad. It’s a sham hoping to steal some glory from the former two.
#27 I like how this was nonchalantly inserted.
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The crew used 12 B-17s for filming, which were pulled from QB-17 drones used at Eglin and other B-17s from depot locations in Alabama and New Mexico. Since some of the aircraft had been used in the 1946 Bikini atomic experiments and absorbed high levels of radioactivity, they could only be used for shooting for limited periods.
Heavy casualties on the Ploesti raid for sure.
I salute his service. And yours.
Wow. How incredible.
Thank you and you father for my freedom.
After watching the air combat scenes from Masters I have 2 questions. Were there any enlisted gunners that had 5 confirmed kills and were Aces? Second, how in the world did the gunners avoid hitting adjacent bombers with their machine guns?
I don’t think there was an ‘official’ recognition of a >5 kill gunner’s record as an ACE status but I think they kept count and were credited for them in their records.
As for the second question, they flew in ‘combat box’ formations that you can search in the web for drawings, but essentially they were staggered and designed to keep direct line of fire accidents from occurring; there was also distance and bullet drop considerations. And finally, training and experience on prediction of flight paths/ bullet paths were also important.
My reference to porcupine quills was from 12OH movie, IIRC. :0)
Here’s another ‘porcupine’ reference... :0)
https://thehistoryfiles.com/attacking-a-b-17-formation-from-the-german-side/
The ones that weren’t shot down or heavily damaged and written off, by massed head-on FW-190 attacks. They were probably grounded for combat & only used in training flights. You could fly them back to the states.
They didn’t. A small amount of friendly fire is accepted in the bomber box formation. Same thing with Navy ships & suicide bombers. Friendly fire will happen.
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