YESSS, FINALLY!!! - Masters of the Air - The 8th Air Force, Spielberg, Hanks, Goetzman (Crew behind Band of Brothers, Pacific)

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6 minutes ago, Chad Fuck said:

My uncle had a similar deal with my aunt while he was in Vietnam. I asked her about it later, after he’d passed. After getting over the shock of me asking, she said she didn’t begrudge him much when every day held the specter of death. People have needs. I didn’t ask her what it was like being alone stateside with three kids wondering if your husband would make it back. She’s gone now too. Perspective. She had it.

Maybe she was banging Jody?

[mchookem 16784]

15 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

Maybe she was banging Jody?

people have needs

 

[Ted Lange 16443]

5th episode is available now, wasn’t supposed to come out until Friday. 

[Js1 87295]

12 minutes ago, Ted Lange said:

5th episode is available now, wasn’t supposed to come out until Friday. 

Always out at 8pm Thursday 

[Ted Lange 16443]

Didn’t realize that, good to know. 

[Js1 87295]

God damn dust in here 

[kevwun 16449]

This series is real fucking good.

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10 hours ago, BearSchlong said:

And he was sent to Oxford as the Air Force’s emissary to study the abrupt and powerful societal changes in British society brought about by the presence of so many Americans, especially in light of the vacuum left when English men of fighting age were sent to Africa and other theaters. There, he hooked up with a worldly intellectual lady of noble descent and spent all his available time with her.

Spoiler

Looks like that’s covered in the next episode.

 

This week’s episode…

[Firemans4Horn 18535]

Brutal 

[henrygandorf 29229]

On 2/12/2024 at 3:44 PM, BillyGoatHill said:

Part of the uniform....plus they were actually also part of some ground troops attire (Patton scolded his officers more than once about wearing their ties)

US, RAF, and other allies plus the European Axis pilots ALL usually wore a dress or other uniform that required a tie while waiting for sorties. As to wearing while flying, that usually came down to discipline and uniform standards from the units or squadron/bomb group CO.

Plenty of pics of pilots out there from all countries with ties on with their flight gear. Gotta remember that is only 20 years past WW1 where it was a but a gentlemen's game and prestige to be a pilot. Scarves (usually silk) were worn to not only protect the neck, but  keep the neck warm. This tradition carried on to WW2. German prisoner of war camps for allied pilots were initially run or overseen by the Luftwaffe on Goerring's insistance.  He had been a combat pilot in WW1 and though he was drug addict and had a sexual preference that should have had put him in a German concentration camp, he tried to see that Allied pilots were treated with that gentlemanly conduct while under the Luftwaffe officers oversight.

edit: I also remember reading somewhere years ago that ties made for good tourniquets for wounded flight crew.

careful with all this uniform talk, helo may skip the whole series. 

[Chad Fuck 18166]

Maybe she was banging Jody?

You got it.

[RPM 26679]

8 hours ago, atomheartbevo said:

  Reveal hidden contents

Looks like that’s covered in the next episode.

 

This week’s episode…

Reminded me of the shit we used to pull playing Air Warrior dogfighting in B-17's. Didn't think it was actually possible without ripping the wings off.

Edited February 16 by RPM

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When they announced they only had 17 aircraft and then one had to drop, I knew exactly what was going to happen, having read up on stuff before. .

This show keeps getting better and better.

[BillyGoatHill 4421]

JFC.... Dusty in here.

BEST episode yet. 🇺🇸 

Edited February 16 by BillyGoatHill

[Js1 87295]

7 minutes ago, BillyGoatHill said:

JFC.... Dusty in here.

BEST episode yet. 🇺🇸 

Agreed.

The dread as they keep ticking off how many planes are left.  The realization they're the last one left.  The outburst at interrogation - you could feel the frustration, sadness, everything through the screen.  The letter at the end.

Anthony Boyle crushed that episode. 

Edited February 16 by Js1

[4th&Five 42026]

Awesome ep and next week looks even more intense.

[Celery Man 21108]

Starting episode 5. All I can see every time Bucky is on the screen is this guy

[BearSchlong 8252]

Funny what we do now on Friday nights, eh Celeryman?

About to rewatch it.

My wife took her dad to see the Eagles and Steely Dan so I’m living it up.

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1 hour ago, Celery Man said:

Starting episode 5. All I can see every time Bucky is on the screen is this guy

I see one of the wizards from the Harry Potter Fantastic Beasts movies

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37 minutes ago, BearSchlong said:

Funny what we do now on Friday nights, eh Celeryman?

About to rewatch it.

After a rewatch, the whole raid feels like it was almost shot as a horror movie.  There was just a sense of dread surrounding everything.

Spoiler

The part where they realize they are alone, the music has that horror movie vibe, and pieces of planes are just floating down around them

 

Edited February 17 by atomheartbevo

[Buzzrock 15153]

I can’t believe that one plane made it back. Performing evasive maneuvers in a wounded B-17 has to be incredibly difficult.

What does feathering mean wrt to an engine?

[kevwun 16449]

Feathering is changing the angles of the prop blades so that the edge faces in to oncoming air to reduce drag so they don't turn any more.  It keeps them from acting like a windmill and slowing the plane down.

Edited February 17 by kevwun

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2 hours ago, Buzzrock said:

I can’t believe that one plane made it back. Performing evasive maneuvers in a wounded B-17 has to be incredibly difficult.

Yeah, these last two episodes have focused on Black Week when they lost so, so many.  When they started out talking about only 17 available and then the numbers started dropping, putting side the target which gave away which mission this was, this was clearly the mission where the 100th only had one bomber come back.  It wasn’t just the 100th - Black Week affected all of the 8th, but it was brutal for the 100th as they lost their entire flying leadership  Rosenthal and Co had just shown up  not long ago  C

And historically I believe it was at least 200 German fighters in just that one attack, with hundreds more contributing throughout.  It was something like over three hours of fighter attacks.  

As for maneuvering they had dropped their homes so they were much lighter and they didn’t have to worry about hitting other B-17s. 
 

Spoiler

Rosenthal’s book and a few other books cover this mission in great detail. He would go on to fly 52 combat missions (he did his 25 and then signed up again). Then he joined the Nuremberg Trials as an assistant prosecutor who questioned Herman Goering.  Amazing man (and he met his lawyer wife on the way to the trials).

 

[kingkoopa6 8749]

Woah. That episode was incredible. 

[The Ace of Aces 5377]

5 hours ago, Buzzrock said:

I can’t believe that one plane made it back. Performing evasive maneuvers in a wounded B-17 has to be incredibly difficult.

What does feathering mean wrt to an engine?

Read up about Robert Rosenthal. Have a US flag nearby to wave as you do so. 

They had to have a different director for EP 5. The music and air scenes combined was a real ramp up. It also felt 10 minutes long, just a great, spellbinding episode. 

Hot take: this show is better without the Buck and Bucky bromance. It’s better when we focus on the other soldiers. Next week it looks like we get some resistance action!

[Aqua Buddha 14809]

On 2/15/2024 at 7:02 PM, Chad Fuck said:

My uncle had a similar deal with my aunt while he was in Vietnam. I asked her about it later, after he’d passed. After getting over the shock of me asking, she said she didn’t begrudge him much when every day held the specter of death. People have needs. I didn’t ask her what it was like being alone stateside with three kids wondering if your husband would make it back. She’s gone now too. Perspective. She had it.

[kingkoopa6 8749]

This man had some balls of vibranium. 

Edited February 17 by kingkoopa6

[Chad Fuck 18166]

Kudos. You got it too.

[Chad Fuck 18166]

Episode 5 was great.  Just watched it again.  But...

Spoiler

There is no freakin' way on God's green earth - or blue sky as it were - that they could crank a B-17 around like a fighter as was depicted.   I had to restrain my guffaws.  

And just for fun:

 

Edited February 17 by Chad Fuck

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5 hours ago, The Ace of Aces said:

Hot take: this show is better without the Buck and Bucky bromance. It’s better when we focus on the other soldiers.

Yes.  I love Buck being an astrophysicist and all…

My hot take: Crosby and Rosenthal are better characters.

[kingkoopa6 8749]

Mechanic. Red Cross chick. Any of the gunners

[Js1 87295]

41 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

Yes.  I love Buck being an astrophysicist and all…

My hot take: Crosby and Rosenthal are better characters.

Crosby is my favorite 

[ChickenSandwich 9986]

Only one table needed for the interrogation. That scene was horrible and fantastic. 

[bschoolprof 6352]

7 hours ago, The Ace of Aces said:

 

Hot take: this show is better without the Buck and Bucky bromance. It’s better when we focus on the other soldiers. Next week it looks like we get some resistance action!

I agree - the two leads are really the only thing I don't like about this show.  It's probably not the characters either . . . just the actors, or the way they are playing them.  

[Doc Sam Beckett 5908]

Where are my god dammed Red Tails?! 

[NeverMarryAStripper 22321]

I don’t think they performed escort duty in Europe until mid 1944

[BillyGoatHill 4421]

30 minutes ago, NeverMarryAStripper said:

I don’t think they performed escort duty in Europe until mid 1944

Yep.

First flew in '43 covering the Sicily invasion (from N Africa clearing sea lanes) and then providing bomber escort in mid '44 for the 12th and 15th Air Force (not the 8th which was based out of England).

[Celery Man 21108]

Ok I’m caught up.

I’ll join the chorus of not liking the leads. Buck specifically, he just looks too much like either a Tigerbeat centerfold or Pennywise the Clown (2017). Partially his face but honestly it’s his acting too.

[bschoolprof 6352]

9 hours ago, The Ace of Aces said:

 

They had to have a different director for EP 5. The music and air scenes combined was a real ramp up. It also felt 10 minutes long, just a great, spellbinding episode. 

 

Also, this is correct.  Different director - actually directors - for this episode.  I agree it was pretty evident.  

[Lat22 4097]

Goddamn. The greatest generation indeed. 

[F250 29205]

4 hours ago, atomheartbevo said:

Yes.  I love Buck being an astrophysicist and all…

My hot take: Crosby and Rosenthal are better characters.

Those two English kids running around the base are better characters than Buck and Bucky. Hell, the big dancing lady from the Jardiance commercial is better than the Buck(y)s.

[kingkoopa6 8749]

Elvis with a mask and flying was stone cold bad ass. 
never flinched never wavered. I enjoy that part of him. 
 

 

Egan too. When they flying and not really having to act act. They good 

[BearSchlong 8252]

Goddamn. The greatest generation indeed. 

Rosenthal, from Miller’s book -

“I had read Mein Kampf in college and had seen the newsreels of the big Nazi rallies in Nuremberg, with Hitler riding in an open car and the crowds cheering wildly. It was the faces in the crowd that struck me, the looks of adoration. It wasn’t just Hitler. The entire nation had gone mad; it had to be stopped. “I’m a Jew, but it wasn’t just that. Hitler was a menace to decent people everywhere. I was also tremendously proud of the English. They stood alone against the Nazis during the Battle of Britain and the Blitz. I read the papers avidly for war news and listened to Edward R. Murrow’s live radio broadcasts of the bombing of London. I couldn’t wait to get over there. “When I finally arrived, I thought I was at the center of the world, the place where the democracies were gathering to defeat the Nazis. I was right where I wanted to be.” Rosie Rosenthal didn’t share these thoughts with his crewmates, simple guys who distrusted what they called deep thinking. They never learned what was inside him, what made him fly and fight with blazing resolve. Later in the war, when he became one of the most decorated and famous fliers in the Eighth, word spread around Thorpe Abbotts that his family was in a German concentration camp. But when someone asked him directly, he said “that was a lot of hooey.” His family—mother, sister, brother-in-law, and niece (his father had recently died)—were all back in Brooklyn. “I have no personal reasons. Everything I’ve done or hope to do is strictly because I hate persecution. . . . A human being has to look out for other human beings or else there’s no civilization.”

[Biff Tannen 46205]

Got damn. I’m not sorry to be spoiled that he’s apparently going to be a huge character going forward. Can’t wait. 

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4 hours ago, Doc Sam Beckett said:

Where are my god dammed Red Tails?! 

3 hours ago, BillyGoatHill said:

Yep.

First flew in '43 covering the Sicily invasion (from N Africa clearing sea lanes) and then providing bomber escort in mid '44 for the 12th and 15th Air Force (not the 8th which was based out of England).

Already posted but spoilers

Spoiler

They show up in episode 8 and a few of the listed Red Tail flyers (credited actors) were shot down during  Operation Dragoon (invasion of Southern France, after D-Day) and ended up in the same Stalag with Bucky/Buck and others and met them/bunked with them.

It would be great if this turned into a back door pilot for a Red Tails series, but the reality is they are covering a few Red Tails that were shot down and crossed paths with the 100th BG guys .

At least we will get some Operation Dragoon coverage, which is rare in film/TV   

 

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1 hour ago, kingkoopa6 said:

Elvis with a mask and flying was stone cold bad ass. 
never flinched never wavered. I enjoy that part of him. 

 

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as somebody who has spent a shitload of time doing genealogy research through many military-related websites, the 100th’s site is amazing 

https://100thbg.com

and as somebody who contributed a lot of records/info to various historical sites, including maintaining a few of my own, they’ve went above and beyond tracking everything, such as the aircraft

https://100thbg.com/database-search/?hundrethsearchType=aircraft#searchResultsHeader

and just in general maintaining a massive database

https://100thbg.com/database-search/

The FB page is solid, and a lot of the family members are very happy with the show

https://www.facebook.com/100thBGFoundation

Spoiler

One of the few recordings of Buck Cleven that exists, from 2003

https://www.facebook.com/100thBGFoundation/posts/pfbid0VBrchj3hePsYTjGWf2LZZCpiqt45AVjenveeryQogp7E51exV1UyzUGEUS5w2Eiql

Personnel pages are great, with lots of info, photos, newspaper articles, letters, etc.

This one has a letter from Cleven to parents of a gunner show down (Bailey, one of the ones the Resistance is helping in the show)

https://100thbg.com/personnel/?personnel_id=178

Edited February 18 by atomheartbevo

[Guest]

I like this series much better now than I did in the beginning.  I love the depiction of the conflicting emotions and the courage it took everyone to keep fighting, regardless of the persona they shared on the outside.

That's a huge part of why I loved BoB and was not optimistic that Masters would get there.

 

[TankedBevo 2504]

18 hours ago, Js1 said:

Crosby is my favorite 

Agreed. He almost made me tear up. Fantastic casting for him 

[Guest]

https://ftw.usatoday.com/2024/02/harry-crosby-masters-of-the-air-anthony-boyle