August 1, 2025 • 47 mins
In this episode of Rosie the Reviewer, we continue our Masters of the Air series with episodes 4 through 6. George is back again to help us cover everything from Quinn and Bailey’s escape routes to Black Week, and welcome Rosie Rosenthal. We break down new character arcs, major missions, and quiet emotional ... uh, breakdowns, including Bucky's slow downward spiral, Crosby's grief, and Rosie finding his rhythm (with some help from Artie Shaw).
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
Welcome to Rosie the Reviewer. We're your host.
I'm Sam. And I'm.
And we like World War 2 media and we want to talk about it.
Welcome back to Rosie the reviewer.
This is episode 2 of our Mastersof the Air series.
We're going to be covering episodes four to six of the TV
(00:23):
show Masters of the Air, which came out in 2024.
You can watch it on Apple TV. Welcome back George, usually our
SAS Rogue Heroes correspondent, but this week helping us out
with Masters of the Air. Hello.
At the end of Episode 3, we lastleft most of the airmen of the
100th Bomb Group licking their wounds in North Africa after the
harrowing Regensburg mission. And one subplot that's going to
(00:44):
feature prominently over the next couple episodes is that
Quinn and Bailey have been shot down, so they're going to
attempt to make their way back to England.
We do not know yet if Bailey's still alive, right?
But we'll find out. Spoiler alert, he is alive.
Do we want to get straight to itthen?
Yeah. I mean, yeah.
Sure, let's do it. Let's get into the plot.
(01:15):
In episode 4, we open in Toluigma, Algeria.
It's August 20th, 1943. It's post Megansburg mission and
the boys have been stranded, basically writing for another
group of fly boys to come and save them and they're kind of
hanging out and writing letters home and being very cute about
(01:36):
it. I like the scene quite a lot.
It's one of my favorite Douglas moments because I'm sorry, I'm
seeing a cat to everybody, but he just admired a cat for just a
second. You can see him because this is
audio only, but he's very cute. Take it from us.
He's been meowing at me like crazy.
It's like he knows that I'm leaving.
Oh. No.
The cat's name is Oscar, and Oscar is also a famous World War
(02:00):
2 cat. Yes, it's better known as
Unsinkable Sam. He survived the sinking of three
different ships, I think 2 or one German ship and two Royal
Navy ships. But he looks just like my Oscar.
He's a little tuxedo cat, the white mark on his face.
Wait, did they call him unsinkable Sam as in your name?
Yeah, that was the nickname thathe got, but his real name was
(02:21):
Oscar. Sweet.
Anyway, they consult it. This is my favorite Douglas
scene because he writes home a letter to his girlfriend and
he's so unsure about it and it'sfunny.
I like it. Harry Crosby is extremely sweaty
and his boxer is an undershirt and he just looks so filthy and
like I just love it. It's my favorite look for him.
(02:43):
It's a good look. It's not, but like, I like it.
Yeah. So we get lots of Bailey and
Quinn escape subplot in this episode, sort of interspersed.
So they've been shot down and they survived, and they meet up
with the Resistance and then it becomes about how to get safely
back to England. If you listened to our Freedom
Line episode, then you heard us interview the actors who played
(03:05):
Bailey and Quinn about this. Essentially, the Resistance
interviews them, tries to figureout if they're German
infiltrators or not. This other quote UN quote,
American that they were with theResistance thinks that he's a
German infiltrator, so they shoot him.
It's very abrupt and violent. And then they're being taken
along by these women of the resistance.
And there were quite a lot of women involved in the
(03:27):
resistance. So it's cool to see some female
characters get some airtime on this show.
And they get taken onto a train.And at one point Quinn panics
and tries to run away. And the ladies are like, you
need to get your shit together. Like, this is life or death.
We cannot be panicking here. I've good memories from this
episode that we did with by Alexander and Bailey Brook.
And the funniest bit about it isthem saying they were
(03:49):
hyperventilated when Bob gets shot because they were
responding instead of acting andthey were just kind of dying
because he couldn't get any air.It was really funny.
So do listen to the episode please.
We move forward in time for about a month where it's
September 16th, 1943 and we get a little celebration because
(04:13):
Captain Glenn Dye and his crew have flown their their 25th
mission. We see them come in and they
busted time and shoot the flowers up and they have a
celebration that it's kind of a weird celebration because
they're the first and only one to have made it to 25.
And it's so weird to celebrate when lots of people are dying.
(04:36):
So the party starts out looking kind of fun and then everybody
gets quiet and there are only 12crews left of the original 35
who flew over from Greenland in May.
So it's been then, what, four months?
And there's only 12 left. So it's not good that there are
(04:57):
a lot of men. Yeah, it's pretty grim, and I
looked into the real Glenn Dyes crew.
Unfortunately, their misfortuneswere not over yet.
They made it back to the States,but most of them went on to
train on B29 bombers and navigator Lieutenant Timothy
Kavanaugh and Bombardier Lieutenant Francis Chaney were
actually killed in AB29 trainingaccident shortly after to the
(05:21):
States, while waste gunner ElderDickinson was behind a couple of
missions because I think he had been wounded or something like
that. So anyway, he had to continue to
fly and he was killed in action on his 25th mission over Bremen
on October 8th, 1943. We'll see this mission later on
in the episode. It's a virtual mission.
During the party, we also get introduced to some of Rosie
(05:45):
Rosenthal's crew. We'll get to Rosie in a minute,
but there's listen it Herbert Nash, played by Laurie Davidson,
who has a little flirtation withone of the Red Cross girls
called Helen. And it's very cute, but it also
breaks my heart because you justknow that it's not going to end
up great. And I can imagine this actually
(06:06):
happening. Stuff like this.
On a lighter note, with that Buck dancing with Big Brother
dog. And that's really cute.
So we get a little bit of everything in the sea.
The Buck dancing of meatball scene is that it's one of the
earliest times that we get that Buck and Bucky are just not
communicating because it's during the scene that we see
(06:28):
Bucky beginning to get very tense and touchy.
Like we've seen him earlier thathe was very invested in sort of
the well-being of his men. There's that wonderful line
where he's like, I've got to build a nest for the rest of you
dodos in Episode 1. And, you know, for all his
bluster, he really does care about them.
And he's sort of trying to get Buck to, like, interact with him
(06:50):
on, you know, come have fun, come do this.
And Buck is just shutting him down.
He's not giving Bucky that emotional reaction that he
wants. And then he goes away and dances
with Meatball. And all Bucky can do is, like,
stand and watch him do it. And he's affectionate.
But it feels like there's something missing there from a
connection to me. It's for sure such an
interesting relationship. Like when I first read Masters
(07:12):
of the Air, I was like 10 pages in and I was like, Oh my God,
when this TV show comes out, everyone is going to be obsessed
with these two guys. And I was right.
It's just like such a strange and interesting dynamic.
They're so different to reluctance personalities.
They're like opposite and it really becomes clear throughout
the series. Like this is pretty much the
beginning of it, Although we didalso see it when they came back
(07:35):
for interrogation. Yeah, you do get the sense that
Bucky went from like, I get white girl wasted because I'm
like 25 and that's fun to like, I get white girl wasted because
I don't have any other coping mechanisms and this is very
traumatic, right? Yeah.
And then after Buck and he have that conversation about Buck's
dead father being an alcoholic, all of this is very fraught in
(07:57):
the background. Like my best friend is now using
alcohol to cope with the realities of our life.
It's a real big tension and it'sso juicy.
Yeah, so we also get introduced to Robert Rosie Rosenthal,
played by Nate Man. And Rosie's such a cool guy.
I mean, in real life, he flew like 52 missions, which is way
(08:19):
more than anyone had to fly. He was a lawyer at the Nuremberg
trials, I think, just like a super interesting dude.
And we get introduced to him andhe meets Buck and Bucky and
that's this super awkward encounter.
And he ends up asking them for advice and Bucky tells him to
try and stay alive for 11 missions because most men are
averaging 11 missions. So he's like, well, if you can
(08:41):
stay alive for 11 missions, you beat the odds.
And it's just kind of fucking grim as well.
I just love how dorky he is in this scene.
Like if you go to Philip Abbott,there is a picture of Rosie
Rosenthal high up on the wall ina prime spot.
As of this year, there's now a memorial in Normandy for the 8th
Air Force, and it's one of the statues is Rosie.
He's a very big deal. And what we get to see is this
(09:03):
guy who comes up doing some dorky dancing, and then he has
to go talk to the big boys. Welcome, Bucky.
And he actually psychs himself up in the background before he
does it. It's just adorable.
And, you know, if you know anything about the history, you
know he's going to be a big deal.
But at this time, he's just a little dork.
I'm making awkward conversationsabout sitting in those clubs on
(09:27):
her training machines. It's so funny.
And his crew just searches him for it too.
Yeah, and this parallels with Harry Crosby storyline a little
bit too, where he starts out a little bit unsure and then
eventually like they both evolveinto these leaders of the one
hundredths effectively because they're they're simply they're
longer than anyone. Else Bucky goes on leave, We
(09:50):
follow him to London and it's October 8th.
If you listen carefully just now, October 8th, it's a pretty
good day for the 100. But Bucky's away in London where
he meets a woman named Paulina, played by Joanna Colleague.
And they have a little romance or sex, they have a moment
together. And it's, I do really like the
(10:13):
scene, by the way. They take their time to show
their relationships away from the base.
And I quite like that in the show because it did happen quite
a lot. And meanwhile, his friends in
100 are going to Bremen again. They've been there before, but
they're going to try to bomb theUber fans again.
And we also get one of my favorite scenes of the entire
(10:37):
show. We see Ken Lemons running the
wheel of the B17 trying to fix something on the plane, Esther a
taxiing, or Esther taking off. And it's amazing.
It's just cool he does it. I mean, he just looks cool.
It's fantastic. Yeah, it's the music again, and
(10:57):
this is quite good as well. And he's doing his little
heroics on that real the B17. And as we see Becky walking
around London the next morning, we see a little bit of the
Blitz. We see a London house in
shambles being hit by a bomb. And there's debris everywhere.
And someone is crying and screaming.
(11:18):
And Becky's looking out for this, thinking, is this why we
bomb, why we do what we do? That's what I got from it
anyway. And yeah, we get to see him away
from the best a bit. I like it.
Yeah, it'll parallel later with him seeing the bombing damage in
Germany too. I like those kind of next to
each other. Yes.
(11:38):
At the end of the episode we seeBucky and he calls in from
London and finds out that Box has gone down on a mission on
the October 8th mission and he decides to return early from
leave. He's on the phone and it's like
a baseball conversation I think that they're having because just
(12:00):
in case someone's listening, they can't be saying the thing.
Yeah, I also like that. I think the expression they used
for Buck being shot down was he went down swinging, which is a
baseball expression, but it's also a boxing expression and
Buck had specifically talked about boxing in an earlier
episode. Nice, I didn't live in real
life. I think one of the gut punches
of that scene for me is that Buck specifically going down.
(12:22):
It's big moment for Bucky, but also Buck's playing that Ken
fixed, Ken Lemons fixed earlier at the last minute to let him
go. And yeah, the weight of that, he
doesn't return. That's huge.
We discussed it a little bit last time.
Yeah, we'll see it in the next episode.
We see Ken Lemons responding to that as well.
And that's the worst thing, right?
(12:42):
Because they can't say anything until they've been into enter
relations. Ken Lemons comes to meet them,
but they can't say anything. It's just horrible.
And I've definitely said this before, but the first person
that Ken asks about his bubbles,and I'm like, yeah, he probably
knows bubbles pretty well. Bubbles are around the a lot
when he was group navigator and he wasn't flying a lot of
missions. So the mission that Buck went
(13:04):
down on is part of what is called Black Week.
Black Week was from October 8th to October 14, 1943.
And this is when the 8th Air Force in general but also the
hundreds are striking increase in missions but also in masses.
So just to give you an idea of the missions that they were on.
(13:25):
On October eight, it's Berman. On October nine is Marionberg.
We don't see it on the show, butRosie screws on that one as well
and he flies three in a row, which is pretty intense.
October 10th is in the next episode, it'll be Monster.
And October 14 is the Swanford Mission, which is also called
(13:47):
Black Thursday. So it was a really bad week for
the 100 and people were tired but there weren't enough men to
so they all had to fly. I think that's a really
fantastic bit of visual storytelling with Rosie here
because we meet him and he sort of like very buttoned up.
His hair is flat. He's, you know, looks very neat
(14:07):
and together. And then we see him after the
mission, I think his first mission, and suddenly his curls
were all popped, he's sweat, he's disheveled, and you know,
nothing's said about it, but youcan see the impact that it's
had. I think that's just a really
effective bit of Marcelia. Yeah, I remember reading in the
book, I think it was the Miller book, where they were talking
(14:27):
about how the Air Force had to hire psychologists to try and
figure out what do we do about battle fatigue?
What do we do about. I mean, they weren't calling it
PTSD yet, but this was kind of the first time in history where
they were like, all right, well,this is clearly an issue we
actually have to address becausethe attrition rate less losing
(14:47):
guys because they're cracking upis absolutely unsustainable.
Yeah, and to fly three of those missions, knowing the odds of
their first in a row, how do youeven get on the plane?
How do you even do it? I think it's episode 5, maybe
it's episode 4, actually, where we see one of the guys.
Is it on Rosy's crew? It is on Rosy's crew saying I
(15:10):
won't go up again. I won't do it.
And then the next day we see himgetting onto another mission.
Can't even imagine. In Episode 5, we see Bucky
drinking alone in a sport. The windows are fogged up and we
(15:31):
see, I don't know what you call them in English.
We call them like, nay, Beatles.They're the stupid kind of
Beatles that just flying to everything in the summer.
I don't know what their name is in English, but I thought this
was really funny because it reminds me of the Flack and the
fighters in the air. So I thought this was really
funny visual storytelling there.If you heard about Bucky Egan
(15:54):
and you're like, that seems likea guy who's really going to
maintain his composure and handle things, well, you're not
correct. Yeah.
So Harry Blakely and Douglas return late from the Bremen
mission. Everyone thought that their
plane got hit because there was some erroneous reporting that
went on. But, yeah, they had a super
crazy near miss, which I think George is going to talk to us
(16:15):
about. And they don't have to fly again
tomorrow, but we find out that everyone else will.
As Mark referenced, there will be going to Munster this time.
Yeah, I just, I really wanted tomention and I understand why
it's cut, but I really wanted tomention that like crazy at
return from the mission because it's insane and it deserves as a
little movie all on its own. And I'm going to do a terrible
(16:38):
job of actually recapping it because it's much crazier than
I'm going to make it sound. I mean, it begins with, you
know, obviously they're being shot at the flag, the planes
have damaged, one of the enginescatches fire.
And the only way that they can put it out, they can figure it
out, put it out, is by diving towards the land as low enough
and so fast enough to put it out.
(16:59):
And they do, and they succeed indoing that.
And this is whilst they're stillover the mainland.
So they put out the fire, they come back, they're still being
shot at, they are shooting back.Everything's just flying
everywhere. There's a really lovely note
that Harry makes. He says all the gunnery practice
that Blake made us do came in handy because he made them do
(17:20):
drills. And that's probably what saved
their lives, right? So after this they continue to
go. They're now over the ocean and
by the time they get over the ocean with this dreadfully shot
up plane, another engine catchesfire.
And so they have to decide, like, what are we going to do?
We're going to ditch the plane. Are we going to put this out?
What are we going to do? And they decide over the open
(17:41):
ocean, they're going to dive again.
And they do. This is crazy.
And they managed to put it out and Blakely manages to get it
done. Once that happens, they still
contemplate ditching the plane. And I think it's Douglas who
realizes that they can't do thatbecause all the dinghies have
been shut up to what they could.But there would be a problem.
Like, it's like, OK, fine, we'regoing to try and fly, but we do
(18:01):
need to dump everything out if we continue on, dump everything
out. So they're ditching all the
equipment. They are ditching the bomb site.
They're ditching all the shells,everything.
And Harry, bless his little soul, grabs the wrong handle and
he ditches the Hatch on the sideof the plane.
So even if they decided at this point they wanted a ditch, they
(18:22):
would all immediately drown as the water rushes to the plane.
So they can't do that anymore. They have no no chance but to
fly and then somehow they managed to make it back to
England and they find a field and they find like a little RAF
airstrip and they see it. They do manage to eventually
just land and go and in the one tree in the entire airfield,
(18:46):
they go right into it and they still survive.
There is a fantastic picture outthere.
I don't know if you can link to it on the website or something.
There's a fantastic picture of the plane which is completely
shot up and there's just a tree growing out of the cockpit.
It's magnificent. And written on the picture by
someone it says 800 holes. In the show there's a 1200 but
(19:11):
on the photo it says 800. But I it's crazy.
Just a testament to the power ofEast Anglian trees that they can
get hit by a 20 ton Boeing B174 engine bomber and the tree
survives and the plane does not.Damn right E Anglian trees do.
You think the B17 was less happybecause it had so many holes in
(19:32):
it? Well, Foley would have been
about 35 times so so I mean, it was quite a feat of navigation
on Harry's part because it was like, how do we get over land on
what little fuel in this dog shit falling apart plane, you
know? It's a lovely scene in a shower
where they kind of compliment him and he's like, it's just
luck and it's pleasure, he says.It happens a little too often
(19:56):
for it to be luck. John Brady, who a couple
episodes ago for accidentally flying them to occupied France.
So it was kind of nice that it was Brady who complimented him
because it kind of put a little bow on that, like, we're good
now sort of thing. Why the fuck do I always mess up
the names? Likely Brady like.
(20:17):
To be fair, this is the names. Harry gets promoted to group
navigator, replacing Bubbles, which means Bubbles will have to
fly again. And yeah, just doesn't bode
well. Scene where Harry gets kind of
sharness workplace by I think it's Jack kid and he asked him
do you think I'm the right man for the job?
(20:37):
And Jack kid just looks at him. He says nothing.
He's like, good luck buddy. I love Jack kid.
He's like forever just having todeal with all these men like
Buggy. Should I sing?
No, like he's just done with it all.
He's fantastic. I don't think we explained
exactly what a group navigator does, but a group navigator
(20:59):
plans all the roots before the mission, so they're up at all
hours of the day. We'll see a letter kind of
laying out the plans for every single ring and mission.
So. Yeah, I do wonder if it's a job
where you have to be up at all hours of the day or if that was
a thing that Harry Crosby decided that he would do.
Especially in the show, we see him experiencing a lot of guilt
(21:22):
because Bubbles is killed after Harry gets promoted.
So yeah, I do feel like it's a throw yourself into your work
type of situation because you would feel a lot of guilt if you
planned something that potentially didn't go well.
Yeah, I don't know. I feel like the 100th in general
had such a terrible time as well.
But they kind of had to do all that they could to keep the men
(21:45):
alive. Like so many of them are dying.
And I don't know how you can notdo everything in your power.
And Harry Crosby does seem like kind of man that would do
everything in his power to try and change it.
Up to and including methamphetamine spoilers.
It's. OK, everyone was doing it, even
the Germans. The mission breathing for the
(22:06):
next mission is pretty tense. Bucky is also pretty tense.
Last minute, when they're already on the truck to go to
the handstands, he swaps out hisjacket for someone else's
jacket. We don't really know why, but he
doesn't anyway and it's in the wake of Buck being sometimes, so
you can tell that it's really tripping him up.
(22:26):
First of all, he's flying with John Brady and you can tell the
way that Brady keeps looking at him that he's like, this is not
going to be good. We have this guy who's, like,
emotionally compromised. He's going to be flying on our
plane, like, not looking forwardto that.
And then they're in the cockpit together and John Brady is like,
oh, I see you swapped your jacket.
And Bucky's like, yeah, Buck hated that other jacket.
And John Bradys like oh fuck me.That is an excellent face
(22:51):
journey that Ben Radcliffe makesat that moment.
Yeah, so then they fly the monster mission.
It's October 10th, 1943, and it goes super badly.
Bubbles, this plane goes down despite having gotten his lucky
snow globe back from Cross, and Bucky's plane goes down as well.
And actually, of the 13 planes who actually made it all the way
(23:14):
to the mission, only Rosie's Fort returns.
And there's this really sad scene where they're an
interrogation. They're being asked what
happened to this plane, what happened to that plane, and they
keep having to be like, no record, you know, like, shit was
so crazy up there that we were not keeping track of who was
getting shot down when we narrowly made it back ourselves.
The fact that Rosie's plane madeit back later on the ground,
(23:36):
crews found that there's an unexploded cannon shell inside
one of the wing tanks, so that was a close run thing.
It would have been zero planes is what they were saying it.
Would have been zero planes. This also the mission where the
first plane that returns isn't their plane, some other crew
lands at their airfield as well so they're like someone coming
(23:58):
back and it's not even them. It's just horrible.
This scene though, the monster age in general, the scene is a
beautiful scene. I think it's done really well.
But also the scene beforehand, the monster age was a little bit
different to the other missions because their mission was to
bomb the factory brokers, not the actual factories.
(24:21):
So I think you said in the last episode that they could have
leaned into the like the morals of data bombing a little bit
more or black and bombing or whatever you want to call it.
And this is the only scene wherethey kind of do a little bit,
because I think it's Crookshank who says that church will just
be out. It'll be people on the streets.
(24:42):
And it's the only thing where people are kind of daunting
their mission. And then someone else says,
look, this is a war, people die.It's a Bucky that says it.
I think it is. Yeah, I think he's less polite
about it, but yeah, unfortunate because I think they had an
opportunity because Harry Crosbytalks about it in his memoir.
He has this part where he's like, yeah, we used to talk
(25:04):
about it all the time. Were we machines?
Had we adjusted too well to the humdrum business of winning the
war? Like they were constantly
talking about the ethics of a lot of the stuff that they were
doing. So it's not like none of the
guys thought about it. I.
Think narratively it might have been a little bit stronger as
well if they had set that up earlier, because I think the
scene is used more to display Bucky's deteriorating mental
(25:26):
state than anything else, and sothe morality gets almost lost in
the personal aspect. So this is also a storytelling
mechanism where they deviate from real life.
Because Bubbles doesn't actuallydie on this mission.
They use his step to affect Crosby.
In reality he dies on a mission to so to Vast in France on April
(25:51):
28th 1944. So it's quite a bit later.
But I do understand why they changed it for the series and I
quite like this change, even though I also understand the
criticism of it. Yeah, I think we see that a lot
with these. They end up streamlining things
and moving things around. And like you said, I think as
long as it's done for a reason and it makes sense in the
(26:13):
context of the show I I'm not really upset about it either.
But I had a few other moments. Sorry for being long about the
scene but it is quite a long scene.
Hand down when he tries to bail from his plane.
Got stuck on the escape hatch. It's such a like Jesus fuck how
hard do you want to make it to escape a plane?
What I also loved was that he's the one who's dangling for his
(26:36):
life outside of the plane and the other guys trying to unhook
him and he's like, just pull thelatch so that the door comes
off. Like he's the one who's like,
use your noggin. Another one that I really liked
also about the scene is when there's a moment in the sky
where Rosie's plane is the only one left and all we see is just
falling debris from other planes.
(26:58):
And I think it's a really powerful visual to look at.
And right after that, Rosie starts humming some Artie Shaw
because everybody stands and he's trying to make them
untense. And the music, I love the music.
This is the saddest scene of theepisode.
It's Crosby packing up Bubbles his bunk, and he finds the
(27:20):
letter that both had written to Jean, Harry's wife when he
thought that Harry was killed, over Berman.
I want to just applaud the actor.
Just makes me cry every single time.
Big, sad, wet eyes. This big sad wet eyes.
This is the only scene I think that made me cry the first time
I watched it because it's like the emotional whiplash of Harry
(27:44):
gets back late from Bremen by the skin of his own teeth and
like they're both joking about it but like how harrowing to
think that your best friend likealmost died and then like
literally 2 days later the otherone dies and then the survivor
has to go and you know, read this letter that was written and
it's just like man shattering. And he also dies because they
(28:04):
switched places too. Like if you're looking at that
and I'll be like more guilt, like you said before, it's just
horrible. Like, good luck with that for
the rest of your life. Episode 6, I put these notes
(28:26):
into three sort of subplots because they intersperse a lot
and some of the individual scenes, not a lot, quote UN
quote happens. So I just kind of summarize
them. But the first of the big plot
lines we pick up in Westphalia, Germany.
Bucky has been shot down, but hesurvived.
He was able to parachute to safety.
He gets caught by some German civilians and it's pretty tense.
(28:48):
He gets picked up and as they'regoing through this town, they
have to go from one train station to another, something
like that, because of the bombing damage.
And while they're in town, him and these other American airmen,
and they're German guards, the civilians realize that they're
American airmen above them. And they get really upset, as
you can imagine that you would be if you saw the guys who
dropped a bunch of bombs on yourtown.
(29:09):
And so they all get the shit kicked out of him.
And there's a moment where I guess the Germans think that
Bucky is dead along with the other American airmen, so
they're going to bury them. But Bucky manages to get away.
And then he gets picked up by some more actual soldiers and
then he gets taken to interrogation.
And this subplot didn't happen to him, but it did happen to
some other Allied airmen. And he gets subjected to
(29:30):
interrogation by this deceptively polite Luftwaffe
officer, Lieutenant Houseman, played by Louis Hoffman.
And there was a real Lieutenant Ulrich Houseman.
He specialized in using what they called modern nonviolent
interrogation techniques. So instead of beating the shit
out of this guy, I'm going to pretend to be his friend.
I'm going to talk to him about baseball.
I'm going to try and get him talking about other stuff, and
(29:51):
then maybe I'll get some details.
This real life guy had actually attended Columbia University in
the States. He even had an American pilot's
license. So he was quite familiar with
American culture. And in 1945, when he was aware
that the writing was on the wallfor the German 'cause he
actually made a plan with one ofhis American prisoners,
Lieutenant Colonel Don Hillman, who was AP47 fighter pilot.
(30:11):
And Houseman and another guard took Hillman and another
prisoner to meet the American advance where Houseman
surrendered and Hillman kind of put in a good word for him.
And eventually, Hillman actuallyhelped Houseman and his family
emigrate to the US. So I thought that was super
neat. But yeah, back to Bucky.
He ultimately gets taken to Stalag Luft 3, which is a POW
camp, and Sagan, Germany on October 17th, 1943.
(30:34):
We've talked about Stalag Luft 3before and our great escape
episode. And there he gets to reunite
with many fellow Airmen of the One Hundreds, including his best
buddy, Buck Levin. The scene where Bucky and the
others are attacked by the civilians, that's as far as I
know, didn't happen to John Egan, but happened to quite a
number of Allied airmen in Germany.
(30:57):
And there was one particular, it's called the Russell High
Massacre of note, where 6 American airmen were lynched and
killed by the townspeople in retribution.
And I think this is what this particular scene is alluding to,
but they're just making it happen to John Egan instead,
understand. As John Egan has been
transported, we also see prisoner transport, presumably
(31:21):
to your concentration camp. We don't see a whole lot of the
Holocaust in the show, but we see glimpses of it and this is
one of them. So they try and include little
bits and pieces I get, and you have to make a choice sometimes
want to show them what not to show.
But we see through the eyes of Ducky and I thought it was good
to mention that it is in there, but it's very solo.
(31:41):
For sure, and I think we got a brief moment with Rosie later
too. In episode 9 maybe.
And man, waking up after having been left for dead in the back
of a wagon full of corpses with some angry Germans who are about
to bury you alive got to be one of the worst ways to wake up.
Yeah, that's one hell of a hangover.
Yeah, he was probably mad. He's like, man, I got hit with a
(32:03):
tire iron. I didn't even drink.
I didn't even have fun last night so.
The second plot line, or some plot in this episode is Rosa's
group, because they are sent to what is called a Fleck house for
somewhere an hour because they've done three really
harrowing missions in a row, notto mention it's the first three
(32:24):
missions. So they are being sent for some
rest. And Rosie doesn't think he needs
it. So he meets written Doctor
Houston, played by Jamie Parker,and he's like, yes, you do need
it. So he makes him stay a whole
week before allowing him to return to action, which he's
very happy about. He's like, I cannot wait to get
(32:45):
out of this place, which I understand.
But also, you've just flown 3 wishes, your first one, and it's
like the worst week of the 100thand good luck trying to get
through US. Yeah, I feel like you
definitely. Or maybe I just got this vibe
because I feel like I'd be the same way.
But like the sort of quiet vibe that I got was that like if I
(33:08):
stop now, then I have to think about all this shit.
Whereas like if I keep going, ifI'm busy, if I'm not thinking
about it, then like I'll be finekind of thing.
I think it's really telling thatthe moment that Rosie stops sort
of fighting, staying there, is when it's pointed out to him
that actually what he's doing helps his crew.
So his actual rest is an active choice to be helping somebody
(33:33):
else. So it's when Pappy says to him
that he knew he wasn't alone in the sky when he heard Rosie
humming over the radio. And then that wonderful scene
with Jamie Parker with Doctor Houston, where the doctor
explains to him that it's like he likens it to is it the
drummer of the jazz record and that he's keeping everything
(33:54):
going. And that's what Rosie is doing
for his crew. And I think it's an absolutely
magnificent scene. It's so quiet, it's so
impactful. And I really want to shout out
Jamie Parker for doing it. He's been one of my favorite
actors for years. And it's such a small role, but
it carries so much weight. This is the moment I feel that
Rosie turns into the great RosieRosenthal.
(34:16):
It's this moment in the Flat house with Doctor Houston.
And when he gets back into his plan, before he gets back into
his plan, he actually drums a little Archie Shaw on the side
of his plane, which is one of the kind of reference to that
scene. So it's quite nicely wrapped up.
And that way I conducted. And this hot blood is where we
see the crust of war. We see a man in the gardens just
(34:41):
weeping and Rosie comes upon himand kind of turns around like he
doesn't know what to do with it and it breaks my heart.
Yeah, I also, I'm like, man, theidea of being like, yeah, go up
north and like, have a bath and read some books and come back in
a week and hopefully you'll be fully recovered from your first
handful of missions where you got to watch all of the leaders
(35:05):
of your outfit obliterated in front of you.
I mean, a bath is very healing. Yeah, and he does take one.
We do see him take a bath. Is there a bath in the Pacific?
Because there is one and not a brother.
I was just trying to remember ifthere was a bath in the Pacific.
Where they would have taken a bath.
They do go into the ocean for a swim though, so maybe that's.
(35:26):
It's like everything else in thePacific.
They're just having such a terrible time.
They're like, we don't even get to have a real bath.
One more scene I kind of quicklywanted to point out from that
supplant, you've already mentioned it briefly, George,
that they're sitting around the table, Rose's crew, and they're
telling stories and jokes. It's probably to me one of the
saddest scenes. So it's even though they're
(35:48):
joking because you can see the there.
How do you go on after seeing everybody die?
They're reaching for some kind of normality.
You can see the performance in it, in what should be an easy
thing, breakfast with your friends, and it's just not.
It's oh, it's painful. The third subplot is that Harry
(36:10):
took bubbles of stuff super hard.
That was his best buddy. So he gets sent to Oxford for a
conference between the allied nations representing the 100th
Bomb Group. And this is actually the first,
but not the only time that Harrygets sent on leave because he is
just so like traumatized and anxious that it's making him
into kind of a Dick. He goes to this conference and
(36:32):
he ends up being roommates with the secretive but charming
Stubbleton, Sandra Westgate, played by Belle Powley.
She put her name down by her initials, and so someone clearly
somewhere thought she was a man.So they end up being roommates
and they hit it off and start spending time together.
And I love Sandra. I think she's like probably one
of my favorite characters in theshow and I'm sad that her
(36:54):
plotline doesn't really get appropriately resolved.
George, you're a fantastic man. Please.
Yeah, I mean, I love Sandra too.She's so fantastic, fantastic.
And for Harry gets introduced toher in the worst way where he's
like got his hat on in front of a mirror and he's taking it was
a wire or a band or something that used to keep them stiff
(37:14):
because I think they removed it to soften it.
Yeah, it's like the Crusher Cup.Yeah, to make them look cool.
And up until now, Harry's not done that.
And now he's has and he's quoting a film star in his head,
sort of like pretending that he's cool.
And. And what I really wanted to do
was just give you this quote from Winging a Prayer just in
case 1 You thought the scene waslike far fetched 2 If you are
(37:38):
under the misapprehension that Harry Crosby was in any way a
cool guy, he said buck naked. I stood before the mirror.
I put the hat on. I tried at several angles over
one eye and then the other. I pushed it back with just the
appropriate carelessness. Crosby, I told myself you are a
rock like my guy. And then this woman comes in
(37:59):
that he's never met and catches him in the middle of doing this
impression. And just my guy, when I watched
that scene, I was like, Oh my God, what a fucking loser.
In like, the most affectionate way possible.
But this is how you know Harry Crosby has rizzed, because he
manages to recover from this hilarious first impression.
(38:19):
Is it Harry Crosby though? Or is it Anthony Boyle that has?
Lost I I've read a wing of prayer.
I think Harry Crosby has plenty over his.
I think he did too. Just the right amount of self
deprecating charm. You'll get a kick out of it if
you read his book. It's really he was really like a
funny, dry sense of humor kind of guy.
(38:40):
I've surprisingly also read the book but not truly yet.
I'm still after like a year of reading it, I'm halfway into it
there. Are a lot of women in that book?
He's so funny. There's so many parts of the
book where he just goes off on like a little mini tangent about
how much he loves women and you.It's like, it's totally sincere
and it's not creepy. It's literally just him being
(39:02):
like, women are fucking awesome,I love them.
Can we talk about it? In the scene we got a lot of
brilliant acting from Bell Party.
I think there's a little scene where he's talking to you, I
think British area for officers.And there's this comparison
between the Americans and the British in the eyes of the
(39:22):
British. The Yanks are over sexed,
overpaid and over here. And then the party says the
Brits are under sexed, underpaidand under Eisenhower.
And I thought that was great. Yeah, I'm glad they included
that because the Americans came over and they were getting paid
significantly more than the British soldiers.
And a lot of the British girls were drawn to this sort of
(39:44):
novelty in the flash of the American fly boys.
And so a lot of the British men were not very happy that the
Americans were stealing their girls.
And while they're spending time together, they also go to a
party. And there's a singer there in
the show. Her name is Ella Walsh.
(40:04):
And she sings the song called Get the Faces Down, which was
originally Rudy Guthrie song. The singer that performs it here
is called. Hopefully.
I'll pronounce this one. She's Irish.
It's called, I think. I'm guessing.
I'm hoping that's right. And it's a pretty song.
I don't know if I like it in theshow.
Specifically, it kind of takes me out of it's a little bit
(40:27):
because you see a little montageof things happening around our
characters. We also see Bucky during the
song and I thought it was a bit of a weird style choice even
though I did like the song. I almost when I first watched
it, I looked up the song becauseI hadn't heard it before.
The lyrics are by Woody Guthrie,but the melody is from an older
song called John Henry. In the tradition of folk songs
(40:50):
is how it goes a lot of the time.
And I I hadn't heard before so but I the way they style that
almost made it sound kind of modern, which like kind of took
me out of it a little bit. The original Woody Guthrie
version does not sound like that.
It's a little bit more like up tempo.
And yeah, the song was actually probably written by Woody
Guthrie sometime after November 19th, 1942.
(41:12):
He was known for holding quite left wing views.
So that was around when the Red Army attempted to relieve the
siege on the city of Stalingrad and the American Communist Party
and their supporters were advocating for a second front to
the Soviets. Hence the lyric.
Good people, what are we waitingon in support of the war effort?
American machinists used to attach stickers to their lathes
(41:32):
and their drill presses that read This Machine Kills
Fascists, and Guthrie is quite well known for having This
Machine kills fascists painted on his guitars.
Do we not also see during this montage the writing on the bombs
that are similar to the lyrics? Yeah, in the long tradition of
things being written on bombs, there's some really funny
(41:54):
pictures if you look some bombs from like an Easter bomb run
where the guys had written like Easter eggs for Hitler on the
side of them. And there's a bomb at one point
in the show where someone says something like, this is from
Buck Levin or something like that.
So it's like, yeah. But it seems like that was the
thing they did quite often. I don't know, I think this is
kind of the end of our notes, but I just wanted to.
(42:14):
So it ends with Rosie going backinto his throat and setting the
little rhythm on the side of theplane.
And the door of the plane says, if you can see this, you're too
fucking close. I love that.
And that's episode 436. Some book racks from George
(42:38):
please. So I've got one book rack for
once and it's called Sweating out the Mission, The 8th Air
Force Ground Support in World War 2.
It's by Malcolm Holland because there isn't enough said about
the ground support guys. It's quite a small book but it
gives a quite a nice overview ofwhat the 8th Air Force guys were
doing across whilst the pilots were flying the bombers and the
(43:01):
ground support were on the were on the ground.
But they want a series that is all about them.
To be honest. That is my book correct?
For you, I love it. And there is sort of 1.
It's a strange note that I have.And it's because, I guess
because I grew up in fairly nearthe area, I grew up near a lot
of the air bases. But the first time I watched
Master the Air, I remembered that in my grandmother's
(43:24):
effects, we had found this sort of manuscript, which looks like
an informal unit history that was compiled by an American
units, the 851st Ordnance Heavy Automotive Company.
And it basically details their time through training.
It has like funny quotes from the guys.
It has in jokes, It has statistics, all the vehicles
(43:45):
they fixed. And then at the end it has a
whole bunch of names and addresses.
And the reason I know that my grandmother had it is because
she was given it by one of the guys in this unit, which says
all my love, Jimmy. And I'm like, that's not my
grandfather's name. Excuse me but she has this.
But the reason I bring it up is because when I was reading it I
(44:06):
noticed they were based out of Harling Rd. which was near East
Harling and that's not very far away from Thorpe Abbot.
So I think it's 1516 miles away.And I read this quote from them
that really struck me. It said, as if having assorted
German planes and Akak shrapnel dropping around our heads wasn't
enough, every so often an overloaded B17 from a nearby
(44:27):
base would crack up on or near our depot.
The ones that did get off to Germany to lay their eggs would
have a sweating out as bad as their own ground crews.
Every flight that came back, we would count to see if any had
been lost on the mission. So it really sort of hit the
impact visually and emotionally that these guys who were not
part of the 8th Air Force, they were still there watching these
(44:50):
men fly out and not come home. And I thought that was just an
interesting thing to share with you.
But I don't wonder what your grandma was up to with Jimmy.
My grandma was a floozy, no? You're already here.
First, oh, I think you just lied.
Just on the right time. That's fine.
(45:10):
All of it's going to be cut. That's when we would have got
the real tea about Jimmy, but wemissed it.
I don't know anything about Jimmy.
I don't know who he is. I'll find him.
Please do. If you do find him, you have to
come and talk to us about it. You know this.
All right, what are we reading? What are you reading, George?
I'm reading not an SES book, nota world or two book.
I'm reading The Mercy in Chronicles.
It's by Max Adams. It is about king, author and the
(45:33):
Anglo-Saxon England from the 7thcentury to the 10th century.
It's pretty good. More history.
I have to be slightly on brand. Slightly nerdy, right?
What are you reading, Sam? Yeah, I'm reading For Whom the
Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway. It's his.
Well, he's he wrote a couple of war novels.
I think it takes place during the Spanish Civil War, which is
(45:57):
obviously right before World War2.
And I'm reading it because I'm planning on reading Point of No
Return by Martha Gellhorn, who is briefly married to Hemingway.
And I just kind of wanted to compare the two of them.
I loved our relationship. It's a really fun one to read
about for sure. I'm also reading Something
surprise. I started reading Mission Europe
(46:17):
like it figures this week and instead of starting at the very
beginning, I started in the middle of the book because each
chapter is about a different country and I wanted to read
specifically This is about the story by the way it done.
I only read about Nowadays is that story, but I wanted to read
about the Dutch SRE chapter, so there's a good two chapters in
(46:40):
the book about that. So it's been pretty good.
And together with my official history of SRE in the
Netherlands, I know pretty much older Snow.
I think about the Dutch SRE at this point, so it's interesting.
We will see everyone next week for episode 3 of our Masters of
the Air series for episodes 7 through 9.
(47:00):
And I'm really excited because Iread the Alexander Jefferson
memoir and we're going to get some Tuskegee Airmen next time.
So really looking forward to talking about that.
And in the meantime, you can listen to us wherever you get
your podcast. You can rate US five stars.
You can send this episode to a friend.
You can visit our website rosiethereviewer.com or you can
follow us on Instagram at Rosie the Reviewer Podcast.
(47:22):
Thank you for listening and thank you for joining George.
Thank you. See you next week.
Bye.
Welcome to Rosie the Reviewer. We're your host.
I'm Sam. And I'm.
And we like World War 2 media and we want to talk about it.
Welcome back to Rosie the reviewer.
This is episode 2 of our Mastersof the Air series.
We're going to be covering episodes four to six of the TV
(00:23):
show Masters of the Air, which came out in 2024.
You can watch it on Apple TV. Welcome back George, usually our
SAS Rogue Heroes correspondent, but this week helping us out
with Masters of the Air. Hello.
At the end of Episode 3, we lastleft most of the airmen of the
100th Bomb Group licking their wounds in North Africa after the
harrowing Regensburg mission. And one subplot that's going to
(00:44):
feature prominently over the next couple episodes is that
Quinn and Bailey have been shot down, so they're going to
attempt to make their way back to England.
We do not know yet if Bailey's still alive, right?
But we'll find out. Spoiler alert, he is alive.
Do we want to get straight to itthen?
Yeah. I mean, yeah.
Sure, let's do it. Let's get into the plot.
(01:15):
In episode 4, we open in Toluigma, Algeria.
It's August 20th, 1943. It's post Megansburg mission and
the boys have been stranded, basically writing for another
group of fly boys to come and save them and they're kind of
hanging out and writing letters home and being very cute about
(01:36):
it. I like the scene quite a lot.
It's one of my favorite Douglas moments because I'm sorry, I'm
seeing a cat to everybody, but he just admired a cat for just a
second. You can see him because this is
audio only, but he's very cute. Take it from us.
He's been meowing at me like crazy.
It's like he knows that I'm leaving.
Oh. No.
The cat's name is Oscar, and Oscar is also a famous World War
(02:00):
2 cat. Yes, it's better known as
Unsinkable Sam. He survived the sinking of three
different ships, I think 2 or one German ship and two Royal
Navy ships. But he looks just like my Oscar.
He's a little tuxedo cat, the white mark on his face.
Wait, did they call him unsinkable Sam as in your name?
Yeah, that was the nickname thathe got, but his real name was
(02:21):
Oscar. Sweet.
Anyway, they consult it. This is my favorite Douglas
scene because he writes home a letter to his girlfriend and
he's so unsure about it and it'sfunny.
I like it. Harry Crosby is extremely sweaty
and his boxer is an undershirt and he just looks so filthy and
like I just love it. It's my favorite look for him.
(02:43):
It's a good look. It's not, but like, I like it.
Yeah. So we get lots of Bailey and
Quinn escape subplot in this episode, sort of interspersed.
So they've been shot down and they survived, and they meet up
with the Resistance and then it becomes about how to get safely
back to England. If you listened to our Freedom
Line episode, then you heard us interview the actors who played
(03:05):
Bailey and Quinn about this. Essentially, the Resistance
interviews them, tries to figureout if they're German
infiltrators or not. This other quote UN quote,
American that they were with theResistance thinks that he's a
German infiltrator, so they shoot him.
It's very abrupt and violent. And then they're being taken
along by these women of the resistance.
And there were quite a lot of women involved in the
(03:27):
resistance. So it's cool to see some female
characters get some airtime on this show.
And they get taken onto a train.And at one point Quinn panics
and tries to run away. And the ladies are like, you
need to get your shit together. Like, this is life or death.
We cannot be panicking here. I've good memories from this
episode that we did with by Alexander and Bailey Brook.
And the funniest bit about it isthem saying they were
(03:49):
hyperventilated when Bob gets shot because they were
responding instead of acting andthey were just kind of dying
because he couldn't get any air.It was really funny.
So do listen to the episode please.
We move forward in time for about a month where it's
September 16th, 1943 and we get a little celebration because
(04:13):
Captain Glenn Dye and his crew have flown their their 25th
mission. We see them come in and they
busted time and shoot the flowers up and they have a
celebration that it's kind of a weird celebration because
they're the first and only one to have made it to 25.
And it's so weird to celebrate when lots of people are dying.
(04:36):
So the party starts out looking kind of fun and then everybody
gets quiet and there are only 12crews left of the original 35
who flew over from Greenland in May.
So it's been then, what, four months?
And there's only 12 left. So it's not good that there are
(04:57):
a lot of men. Yeah, it's pretty grim, and I
looked into the real Glenn Dyes crew.
Unfortunately, their misfortuneswere not over yet.
They made it back to the States,but most of them went on to
train on B29 bombers and navigator Lieutenant Timothy
Kavanaugh and Bombardier Lieutenant Francis Chaney were
actually killed in AB29 trainingaccident shortly after to the
(05:21):
States, while waste gunner ElderDickinson was behind a couple of
missions because I think he had been wounded or something like
that. So anyway, he had to continue to
fly and he was killed in action on his 25th mission over Bremen
on October 8th, 1943. We'll see this mission later on
in the episode. It's a virtual mission.
During the party, we also get introduced to some of Rosie
(05:45):
Rosenthal's crew. We'll get to Rosie in a minute,
but there's listen it Herbert Nash, played by Laurie Davidson,
who has a little flirtation withone of the Red Cross girls
called Helen. And it's very cute, but it also
breaks my heart because you justknow that it's not going to end
up great. And I can imagine this actually
(06:06):
happening. Stuff like this.
On a lighter note, with that Buck dancing with Big Brother
dog. And that's really cute.
So we get a little bit of everything in the sea.
The Buck dancing of meatball scene is that it's one of the
earliest times that we get that Buck and Bucky are just not
communicating because it's during the scene that we see
(06:28):
Bucky beginning to get very tense and touchy.
Like we've seen him earlier thathe was very invested in sort of
the well-being of his men. There's that wonderful line
where he's like, I've got to build a nest for the rest of you
dodos in Episode 1. And, you know, for all his
bluster, he really does care about them.
And he's sort of trying to get Buck to, like, interact with him
(06:50):
on, you know, come have fun, come do this.
And Buck is just shutting him down.
He's not giving Bucky that emotional reaction that he
wants. And then he goes away and dances
with Meatball. And all Bucky can do is, like,
stand and watch him do it. And he's affectionate.
But it feels like there's something missing there from a
connection to me. It's for sure such an
interesting relationship. Like when I first read Masters
(07:12):
of the Air, I was like 10 pages in and I was like, Oh my God,
when this TV show comes out, everyone is going to be obsessed
with these two guys. And I was right.
It's just like such a strange and interesting dynamic.
They're so different to reluctance personalities.
They're like opposite and it really becomes clear throughout
the series. Like this is pretty much the
beginning of it, Although we didalso see it when they came back
(07:35):
for interrogation. Yeah, you do get the sense that
Bucky went from like, I get white girl wasted because I'm
like 25 and that's fun to like, I get white girl wasted because
I don't have any other coping mechanisms and this is very
traumatic, right? Yeah.
And then after Buck and he have that conversation about Buck's
dead father being an alcoholic, all of this is very fraught in
(07:57):
the background. Like my best friend is now using
alcohol to cope with the realities of our life.
It's a real big tension and it'sso juicy.
Yeah, so we also get introduced to Robert Rosie Rosenthal,
played by Nate Man. And Rosie's such a cool guy.
I mean, in real life, he flew like 52 missions, which is way
(08:19):
more than anyone had to fly. He was a lawyer at the Nuremberg
trials, I think, just like a super interesting dude.
And we get introduced to him andhe meets Buck and Bucky and
that's this super awkward encounter.
And he ends up asking them for advice and Bucky tells him to
try and stay alive for 11 missions because most men are
averaging 11 missions. So he's like, well, if you can
(08:41):
stay alive for 11 missions, you beat the odds.
And it's just kind of fucking grim as well.
I just love how dorky he is in this scene.
Like if you go to Philip Abbott,there is a picture of Rosie
Rosenthal high up on the wall ina prime spot.
As of this year, there's now a memorial in Normandy for the 8th
Air Force, and it's one of the statues is Rosie.
He's a very big deal. And what we get to see is this
(09:03):
guy who comes up doing some dorky dancing, and then he has
to go talk to the big boys. Welcome, Bucky.
And he actually psychs himself up in the background before he
does it. It's just adorable.
And, you know, if you know anything about the history, you
know he's going to be a big deal.
But at this time, he's just a little dork.
I'm making awkward conversationsabout sitting in those clubs on
(09:27):
her training machines. It's so funny.
And his crew just searches him for it too.
Yeah, and this parallels with Harry Crosby storyline a little
bit too, where he starts out a little bit unsure and then
eventually like they both evolveinto these leaders of the one
hundredths effectively because they're they're simply they're
longer than anyone. Else Bucky goes on leave, We
(09:50):
follow him to London and it's October 8th.
If you listen carefully just now, October 8th, it's a pretty
good day for the 100. But Bucky's away in London where
he meets a woman named Paulina, played by Joanna Colleague.
And they have a little romance or sex, they have a moment
together. And it's, I do really like the
(10:13):
scene, by the way. They take their time to show
their relationships away from the base.
And I quite like that in the show because it did happen quite
a lot. And meanwhile, his friends in
100 are going to Bremen again. They've been there before, but
they're going to try to bomb theUber fans again.
And we also get one of my favorite scenes of the entire
(10:37):
show. We see Ken Lemons running the
wheel of the B17 trying to fix something on the plane, Esther a
taxiing, or Esther taking off. And it's amazing.
It's just cool he does it. I mean, he just looks cool.
It's fantastic. Yeah, it's the music again, and
(10:57):
this is quite good as well. And he's doing his little
heroics on that real the B17. And as we see Becky walking
around London the next morning, we see a little bit of the
Blitz. We see a London house in
shambles being hit by a bomb. And there's debris everywhere.
And someone is crying and screaming.
(11:18):
And Becky's looking out for this, thinking, is this why we
bomb, why we do what we do? That's what I got from it
anyway. And yeah, we get to see him away
from the best a bit. I like it.
Yeah, it'll parallel later with him seeing the bombing damage in
Germany too. I like those kind of next to
each other. Yes.
(11:38):
At the end of the episode we seeBucky and he calls in from
London and finds out that Box has gone down on a mission on
the October 8th mission and he decides to return early from
leave. He's on the phone and it's like
a baseball conversation I think that they're having because just
(12:00):
in case someone's listening, they can't be saying the thing.
Yeah, I also like that. I think the expression they used
for Buck being shot down was he went down swinging, which is a
baseball expression, but it's also a boxing expression and
Buck had specifically talked about boxing in an earlier
episode. Nice, I didn't live in real
life. I think one of the gut punches
of that scene for me is that Buck specifically going down.
(12:22):
It's big moment for Bucky, but also Buck's playing that Ken
fixed, Ken Lemons fixed earlier at the last minute to let him
go. And yeah, the weight of that, he
doesn't return. That's huge.
We discussed it a little bit last time.
Yeah, we'll see it in the next episode.
We see Ken Lemons responding to that as well.
And that's the worst thing, right?
(12:42):
Because they can't say anything until they've been into enter
relations. Ken Lemons comes to meet them,
but they can't say anything. It's just horrible.
And I've definitely said this before, but the first person
that Ken asks about his bubbles,and I'm like, yeah, he probably
knows bubbles pretty well. Bubbles are around the a lot
when he was group navigator and he wasn't flying a lot of
missions. So the mission that Buck went
(13:04):
down on is part of what is called Black Week.
Black Week was from October 8th to October 14, 1943.
And this is when the 8th Air Force in general but also the
hundreds are striking increase in missions but also in masses.
So just to give you an idea of the missions that they were on.
(13:25):
On October eight, it's Berman. On October nine is Marionberg.
We don't see it on the show, butRosie screws on that one as well
and he flies three in a row, which is pretty intense.
October 10th is in the next episode, it'll be Monster.
And October 14 is the Swanford Mission, which is also called
(13:47):
Black Thursday. So it was a really bad week for
the 100 and people were tired but there weren't enough men to
so they all had to fly. I think that's a really
fantastic bit of visual storytelling with Rosie here
because we meet him and he sort of like very buttoned up.
His hair is flat. He's, you know, looks very neat
(14:07):
and together. And then we see him after the
mission, I think his first mission, and suddenly his curls
were all popped, he's sweat, he's disheveled, and you know,
nothing's said about it, but youcan see the impact that it's
had. I think that's just a really
effective bit of Marcelia. Yeah, I remember reading in the
book, I think it was the Miller book, where they were talking
(14:27):
about how the Air Force had to hire psychologists to try and
figure out what do we do about battle fatigue?
What do we do about. I mean, they weren't calling it
PTSD yet, but this was kind of the first time in history where
they were like, all right, well,this is clearly an issue we
actually have to address becausethe attrition rate less losing
(14:47):
guys because they're cracking upis absolutely unsustainable.
Yeah, and to fly three of those missions, knowing the odds of
their first in a row, how do youeven get on the plane?
How do you even do it? I think it's episode 5, maybe
it's episode 4, actually, where we see one of the guys.
Is it on Rosy's crew? It is on Rosy's crew saying I
(15:10):
won't go up again. I won't do it.
And then the next day we see himgetting onto another mission.
Can't even imagine. In Episode 5, we see Bucky
drinking alone in a sport. The windows are fogged up and we
(15:31):
see, I don't know what you call them in English.
We call them like, nay, Beatles.They're the stupid kind of
Beatles that just flying to everything in the summer.
I don't know what their name is in English, but I thought this
was really funny because it reminds me of the Flack and the
fighters in the air. So I thought this was really
funny visual storytelling there.If you heard about Bucky Egan
(15:54):
and you're like, that seems likea guy who's really going to
maintain his composure and handle things, well, you're not
correct. Yeah.
So Harry Blakely and Douglas return late from the Bremen
mission. Everyone thought that their
plane got hit because there was some erroneous reporting that
went on. But, yeah, they had a super
crazy near miss, which I think George is going to talk to us
(16:15):
about. And they don't have to fly again
tomorrow, but we find out that everyone else will.
As Mark referenced, there will be going to Munster this time.
Yeah, I just, I really wanted tomention and I understand why
it's cut, but I really wanted tomention that like crazy at
return from the mission because it's insane and it deserves as a
little movie all on its own. And I'm going to do a terrible
(16:38):
job of actually recapping it because it's much crazier than
I'm going to make it sound. I mean, it begins with, you
know, obviously they're being shot at the flag, the planes
have damaged, one of the enginescatches fire.
And the only way that they can put it out, they can figure it
out, put it out, is by diving towards the land as low enough
and so fast enough to put it out.
(16:59):
And they do, and they succeed indoing that.
And this is whilst they're stillover the mainland.
So they put out the fire, they come back, they're still being
shot at, they are shooting back.Everything's just flying
everywhere. There's a really lovely note
that Harry makes. He says all the gunnery practice
that Blake made us do came in handy because he made them do
(17:20):
drills. And that's probably what saved
their lives, right? So after this they continue to
go. They're now over the ocean and
by the time they get over the ocean with this dreadfully shot
up plane, another engine catchesfire.
And so they have to decide, like, what are we going to do?
We're going to ditch the plane. Are we going to put this out?
What are we going to do? And they decide over the open
(17:41):
ocean, they're going to dive again.
And they do. This is crazy.
And they managed to put it out and Blakely manages to get it
done. Once that happens, they still
contemplate ditching the plane. And I think it's Douglas who
realizes that they can't do thatbecause all the dinghies have
been shut up to what they could.But there would be a problem.
Like, it's like, OK, fine, we'regoing to try and fly, but we do
(18:01):
need to dump everything out if we continue on, dump everything
out. So they're ditching all the
equipment. They are ditching the bomb site.
They're ditching all the shells,everything.
And Harry, bless his little soul, grabs the wrong handle and
he ditches the Hatch on the sideof the plane.
So even if they decided at this point they wanted a ditch, they
(18:22):
would all immediately drown as the water rushes to the plane.
So they can't do that anymore. They have no no chance but to
fly and then somehow they managed to make it back to
England and they find a field and they find like a little RAF
airstrip and they see it. They do manage to eventually
just land and go and in the one tree in the entire airfield,
(18:46):
they go right into it and they still survive.
There is a fantastic picture outthere.
I don't know if you can link to it on the website or something.
There's a fantastic picture of the plane which is completely
shot up and there's just a tree growing out of the cockpit.
It's magnificent. And written on the picture by
someone it says 800 holes. In the show there's a 1200 but
(19:11):
on the photo it says 800. But I it's crazy.
Just a testament to the power ofEast Anglian trees that they can
get hit by a 20 ton Boeing B174 engine bomber and the tree
survives and the plane does not.Damn right E Anglian trees do.
You think the B17 was less happybecause it had so many holes in
(19:32):
it? Well, Foley would have been
about 35 times so so I mean, it was quite a feat of navigation
on Harry's part because it was like, how do we get over land on
what little fuel in this dog shit falling apart plane, you
know? It's a lovely scene in a shower
where they kind of compliment him and he's like, it's just
luck and it's pleasure, he says.It happens a little too often
(19:56):
for it to be luck. John Brady, who a couple
episodes ago for accidentally flying them to occupied France.
So it was kind of nice that it was Brady who complimented him
because it kind of put a little bow on that, like, we're good
now sort of thing. Why the fuck do I always mess up
the names? Likely Brady like.
(20:17):
To be fair, this is the names. Harry gets promoted to group
navigator, replacing Bubbles, which means Bubbles will have to
fly again. And yeah, just doesn't bode
well. Scene where Harry gets kind of
sharness workplace by I think it's Jack kid and he asked him
do you think I'm the right man for the job?
(20:37):
And Jack kid just looks at him. He says nothing.
He's like, good luck buddy. I love Jack kid.
He's like forever just having todeal with all these men like
Buggy. Should I sing?
No, like he's just done with it all.
He's fantastic. I don't think we explained
exactly what a group navigator does, but a group navigator
(20:59):
plans all the roots before the mission, so they're up at all
hours of the day. We'll see a letter kind of
laying out the plans for every single ring and mission.
So. Yeah, I do wonder if it's a job
where you have to be up at all hours of the day or if that was
a thing that Harry Crosby decided that he would do.
Especially in the show, we see him experiencing a lot of guilt
(21:22):
because Bubbles is killed after Harry gets promoted.
So yeah, I do feel like it's a throw yourself into your work
type of situation because you would feel a lot of guilt if you
planned something that potentially didn't go well.
Yeah, I don't know. I feel like the 100th in general
had such a terrible time as well.
But they kind of had to do all that they could to keep the men
(21:45):
alive. Like so many of them are dying.
And I don't know how you can notdo everything in your power.
And Harry Crosby does seem like kind of man that would do
everything in his power to try and change it.
Up to and including methamphetamine spoilers.
It's. OK, everyone was doing it, even
the Germans. The mission breathing for the
(22:06):
next mission is pretty tense. Bucky is also pretty tense.
Last minute, when they're already on the truck to go to
the handstands, he swaps out hisjacket for someone else's
jacket. We don't really know why, but he
doesn't anyway and it's in the wake of Buck being sometimes, so
you can tell that it's really tripping him up.
(22:26):
First of all, he's flying with John Brady and you can tell the
way that Brady keeps looking at him that he's like, this is not
going to be good. We have this guy who's, like,
emotionally compromised. He's going to be flying on our
plane, like, not looking forwardto that.
And then they're in the cockpit together and John Brady is like,
oh, I see you swapped your jacket.
And Bucky's like, yeah, Buck hated that other jacket.
And John Bradys like oh fuck me.That is an excellent face
(22:51):
journey that Ben Radcliffe makesat that moment.
Yeah, so then they fly the monster mission.
It's October 10th, 1943, and it goes super badly.
Bubbles, this plane goes down despite having gotten his lucky
snow globe back from Cross, and Bucky's plane goes down as well.
And actually, of the 13 planes who actually made it all the way
(23:14):
to the mission, only Rosie's Fort returns.
And there's this really sad scene where they're an
interrogation. They're being asked what
happened to this plane, what happened to that plane, and they
keep having to be like, no record, you know, like, shit was
so crazy up there that we were not keeping track of who was
getting shot down when we narrowly made it back ourselves.
The fact that Rosie's plane madeit back later on the ground,
(23:36):
crews found that there's an unexploded cannon shell inside
one of the wing tanks, so that was a close run thing.
It would have been zero planes is what they were saying it.
Would have been zero planes. This also the mission where the
first plane that returns isn't their plane, some other crew
lands at their airfield as well so they're like someone coming
(23:58):
back and it's not even them. It's just horrible.
This scene though, the monster age in general, the scene is a
beautiful scene. I think it's done really well.
But also the scene beforehand, the monster age was a little bit
different to the other missions because their mission was to
bomb the factory brokers, not the actual factories.
(24:21):
So I think you said in the last episode that they could have
leaned into the like the morals of data bombing a little bit
more or black and bombing or whatever you want to call it.
And this is the only scene wherethey kind of do a little bit,
because I think it's Crookshank who says that church will just
be out. It'll be people on the streets.
(24:42):
And it's the only thing where people are kind of daunting
their mission. And then someone else says,
look, this is a war, people die.It's a Bucky that says it.
I think it is. Yeah, I think he's less polite
about it, but yeah, unfortunate because I think they had an
opportunity because Harry Crosbytalks about it in his memoir.
He has this part where he's like, yeah, we used to talk
(25:04):
about it all the time. Were we machines?
Had we adjusted too well to the humdrum business of winning the
war? Like they were constantly
talking about the ethics of a lot of the stuff that they were
doing. So it's not like none of the
guys thought about it. I.
Think narratively it might have been a little bit stronger as
well if they had set that up earlier, because I think the
scene is used more to display Bucky's deteriorating mental
(25:26):
state than anything else, and sothe morality gets almost lost in
the personal aspect. So this is also a storytelling
mechanism where they deviate from real life.
Because Bubbles doesn't actuallydie on this mission.
They use his step to affect Crosby.
In reality he dies on a mission to so to Vast in France on April
(25:51):
28th 1944. So it's quite a bit later.
But I do understand why they changed it for the series and I
quite like this change, even though I also understand the
criticism of it. Yeah, I think we see that a lot
with these. They end up streamlining things
and moving things around. And like you said, I think as
long as it's done for a reason and it makes sense in the
(26:13):
context of the show I I'm not really upset about it either.
But I had a few other moments. Sorry for being long about the
scene but it is quite a long scene.
Hand down when he tries to bail from his plane.
Got stuck on the escape hatch. It's such a like Jesus fuck how
hard do you want to make it to escape a plane?
What I also loved was that he's the one who's dangling for his
(26:36):
life outside of the plane and the other guys trying to unhook
him and he's like, just pull thelatch so that the door comes
off. Like he's the one who's like,
use your noggin. Another one that I really liked
also about the scene is when there's a moment in the sky
where Rosie's plane is the only one left and all we see is just
falling debris from other planes.
(26:58):
And I think it's a really powerful visual to look at.
And right after that, Rosie starts humming some Artie Shaw
because everybody stands and he's trying to make them
untense. And the music, I love the music.
This is the saddest scene of theepisode.
It's Crosby packing up Bubbles his bunk, and he finds the
(27:20):
letter that both had written to Jean, Harry's wife when he
thought that Harry was killed, over Berman.
I want to just applaud the actor.
Just makes me cry every single time.
Big, sad, wet eyes. This big sad wet eyes.
This is the only scene I think that made me cry the first time
I watched it because it's like the emotional whiplash of Harry
(27:44):
gets back late from Bremen by the skin of his own teeth and
like they're both joking about it but like how harrowing to
think that your best friend likealmost died and then like
literally 2 days later the otherone dies and then the survivor
has to go and you know, read this letter that was written and
it's just like man shattering. And he also dies because they
(28:04):
switched places too. Like if you're looking at that
and I'll be like more guilt, like you said before, it's just
horrible. Like, good luck with that for
the rest of your life. Episode 6, I put these notes
(28:26):
into three sort of subplots because they intersperse a lot
and some of the individual scenes, not a lot, quote UN
quote happens. So I just kind of summarize
them. But the first of the big plot
lines we pick up in Westphalia, Germany.
Bucky has been shot down, but hesurvived.
He was able to parachute to safety.
He gets caught by some German civilians and it's pretty tense.
(28:48):
He gets picked up and as they'regoing through this town, they
have to go from one train station to another, something
like that, because of the bombing damage.
And while they're in town, him and these other American airmen,
and they're German guards, the civilians realize that they're
American airmen above them. And they get really upset, as
you can imagine that you would be if you saw the guys who
dropped a bunch of bombs on yourtown.
(29:09):
And so they all get the shit kicked out of him.
And there's a moment where I guess the Germans think that
Bucky is dead along with the other American airmen, so
they're going to bury them. But Bucky manages to get away.
And then he gets picked up by some more actual soldiers and
then he gets taken to interrogation.
And this subplot didn't happen to him, but it did happen to
some other Allied airmen. And he gets subjected to
(29:30):
interrogation by this deceptively polite Luftwaffe
officer, Lieutenant Houseman, played by Louis Hoffman.
And there was a real Lieutenant Ulrich Houseman.
He specialized in using what they called modern nonviolent
interrogation techniques. So instead of beating the shit
out of this guy, I'm going to pretend to be his friend.
I'm going to talk to him about baseball.
I'm going to try and get him talking about other stuff, and
(29:51):
then maybe I'll get some details.
This real life guy had actually attended Columbia University in
the States. He even had an American pilot's
license. So he was quite familiar with
American culture. And in 1945, when he was aware
that the writing was on the wallfor the German 'cause he
actually made a plan with one ofhis American prisoners,
Lieutenant Colonel Don Hillman, who was AP47 fighter pilot.
(30:11):
And Houseman and another guard took Hillman and another
prisoner to meet the American advance where Houseman
surrendered and Hillman kind of put in a good word for him.
And eventually, Hillman actuallyhelped Houseman and his family
emigrate to the US. So I thought that was super
neat. But yeah, back to Bucky.
He ultimately gets taken to Stalag Luft 3, which is a POW
camp, and Sagan, Germany on October 17th, 1943.
(30:34):
We've talked about Stalag Luft 3before and our great escape
episode. And there he gets to reunite
with many fellow Airmen of the One Hundreds, including his best
buddy, Buck Levin. The scene where Bucky and the
others are attacked by the civilians, that's as far as I
know, didn't happen to John Egan, but happened to quite a
number of Allied airmen in Germany.
(30:57):
And there was one particular, it's called the Russell High
Massacre of note, where 6 American airmen were lynched and
killed by the townspeople in retribution.
And I think this is what this particular scene is alluding to,
but they're just making it happen to John Egan instead,
understand. As John Egan has been
transported, we also see prisoner transport, presumably
(31:21):
to your concentration camp. We don't see a whole lot of the
Holocaust in the show, but we see glimpses of it and this is
one of them. So they try and include little
bits and pieces I get, and you have to make a choice sometimes
want to show them what not to show.
But we see through the eyes of Ducky and I thought it was good
to mention that it is in there, but it's very solo.
(31:41):
For sure, and I think we got a brief moment with Rosie later
too. In episode 9 maybe.
And man, waking up after having been left for dead in the back
of a wagon full of corpses with some angry Germans who are about
to bury you alive got to be one of the worst ways to wake up.
Yeah, that's one hell of a hangover.
Yeah, he was probably mad. He's like, man, I got hit with a
(32:03):
tire iron. I didn't even drink.
I didn't even have fun last night so.
The second plot line, or some plot in this episode is Rosa's
group, because they are sent to what is called a Fleck house for
somewhere an hour because they've done three really
harrowing missions in a row, notto mention it's the first three
(32:24):
missions. So they are being sent for some
rest. And Rosie doesn't think he needs
it. So he meets written Doctor
Houston, played by Jamie Parker,and he's like, yes, you do need
it. So he makes him stay a whole
week before allowing him to return to action, which he's
very happy about. He's like, I cannot wait to get
(32:45):
out of this place, which I understand.
But also, you've just flown 3 wishes, your first one, and it's
like the worst week of the 100thand good luck trying to get
through US. Yeah, I feel like you
definitely. Or maybe I just got this vibe
because I feel like I'd be the same way.
But like the sort of quiet vibe that I got was that like if I
(33:08):
stop now, then I have to think about all this shit.
Whereas like if I keep going, ifI'm busy, if I'm not thinking
about it, then like I'll be finekind of thing.
I think it's really telling thatthe moment that Rosie stops sort
of fighting, staying there, is when it's pointed out to him
that actually what he's doing helps his crew.
So his actual rest is an active choice to be helping somebody
(33:33):
else. So it's when Pappy says to him
that he knew he wasn't alone in the sky when he heard Rosie
humming over the radio. And then that wonderful scene
with Jamie Parker with Doctor Houston, where the doctor
explains to him that it's like he likens it to is it the
drummer of the jazz record and that he's keeping everything
(33:54):
going. And that's what Rosie is doing
for his crew. And I think it's an absolutely
magnificent scene. It's so quiet, it's so
impactful. And I really want to shout out
Jamie Parker for doing it. He's been one of my favorite
actors for years. And it's such a small role, but
it carries so much weight. This is the moment I feel that
Rosie turns into the great RosieRosenthal.
(34:16):
It's this moment in the Flat house with Doctor Houston.
And when he gets back into his plan, before he gets back into
his plan, he actually drums a little Archie Shaw on the side
of his plane, which is one of the kind of reference to that
scene. So it's quite nicely wrapped up.
And that way I conducted. And this hot blood is where we
see the crust of war. We see a man in the gardens just
(34:41):
weeping and Rosie comes upon himand kind of turns around like he
doesn't know what to do with it and it breaks my heart.
Yeah, I also, I'm like, man, theidea of being like, yeah, go up
north and like, have a bath and read some books and come back in
a week and hopefully you'll be fully recovered from your first
handful of missions where you got to watch all of the leaders
(35:05):
of your outfit obliterated in front of you.
I mean, a bath is very healing. Yeah, and he does take one.
We do see him take a bath. Is there a bath in the Pacific?
Because there is one and not a brother.
I was just trying to remember ifthere was a bath in the Pacific.
Where they would have taken a bath.
They do go into the ocean for a swim though, so maybe that's.
(35:26):
It's like everything else in thePacific.
They're just having such a terrible time.
They're like, we don't even get to have a real bath.
One more scene I kind of quicklywanted to point out from that
supplant, you've already mentioned it briefly, George,
that they're sitting around the table, Rose's crew, and they're
telling stories and jokes. It's probably to me one of the
saddest scenes. So it's even though they're
(35:48):
joking because you can see the there.
How do you go on after seeing everybody die?
They're reaching for some kind of normality.
You can see the performance in it, in what should be an easy
thing, breakfast with your friends, and it's just not.
It's oh, it's painful. The third subplot is that Harry
(36:10):
took bubbles of stuff super hard.
That was his best buddy. So he gets sent to Oxford for a
conference between the allied nations representing the 100th
Bomb Group. And this is actually the first,
but not the only time that Harrygets sent on leave because he is
just so like traumatized and anxious that it's making him
into kind of a Dick. He goes to this conference and
(36:32):
he ends up being roommates with the secretive but charming
Stubbleton, Sandra Westgate, played by Belle Powley.
She put her name down by her initials, and so someone clearly
somewhere thought she was a man.So they end up being roommates
and they hit it off and start spending time together.
And I love Sandra. I think she's like probably one
of my favorite characters in theshow and I'm sad that her
(36:54):
plotline doesn't really get appropriately resolved.
George, you're a fantastic man. Please.
Yeah, I mean, I love Sandra too.She's so fantastic, fantastic.
And for Harry gets introduced toher in the worst way where he's
like got his hat on in front of a mirror and he's taking it was
a wire or a band or something that used to keep them stiff
(37:14):
because I think they removed it to soften it.
Yeah, it's like the Crusher Cup.Yeah, to make them look cool.
And up until now, Harry's not done that.
And now he's has and he's quoting a film star in his head,
sort of like pretending that he's cool.
And. And what I really wanted to do
was just give you this quote from Winging a Prayer just in
case 1 You thought the scene waslike far fetched 2 If you are
(37:38):
under the misapprehension that Harry Crosby was in any way a
cool guy, he said buck naked. I stood before the mirror.
I put the hat on. I tried at several angles over
one eye and then the other. I pushed it back with just the
appropriate carelessness. Crosby, I told myself you are a
rock like my guy. And then this woman comes in
(37:59):
that he's never met and catches him in the middle of doing this
impression. And just my guy, when I watched
that scene, I was like, Oh my God, what a fucking loser.
In like, the most affectionate way possible.
But this is how you know Harry Crosby has rizzed, because he
manages to recover from this hilarious first impression.
(38:19):
Is it Harry Crosby though? Or is it Anthony Boyle that has?
Lost I I've read a wing of prayer.
I think Harry Crosby has plenty over his.
I think he did too. Just the right amount of self
deprecating charm. You'll get a kick out of it if
you read his book. It's really he was really like a
funny, dry sense of humor kind of guy.
(38:40):
I've surprisingly also read the book but not truly yet.
I'm still after like a year of reading it, I'm halfway into it
there. Are a lot of women in that book?
He's so funny. There's so many parts of the
book where he just goes off on like a little mini tangent about
how much he loves women and you.It's like, it's totally sincere
and it's not creepy. It's literally just him being
(39:02):
like, women are fucking awesome,I love them.
Can we talk about it? In the scene we got a lot of
brilliant acting from Bell Party.
I think there's a little scene where he's talking to you, I
think British area for officers.And there's this comparison
between the Americans and the British in the eyes of the
(39:22):
British. The Yanks are over sexed,
overpaid and over here. And then the party says the
Brits are under sexed, underpaidand under Eisenhower.
And I thought that was great. Yeah, I'm glad they included
that because the Americans came over and they were getting paid
significantly more than the British soldiers.
And a lot of the British girls were drawn to this sort of
(39:44):
novelty in the flash of the American fly boys.
And so a lot of the British men were not very happy that the
Americans were stealing their girls.
And while they're spending time together, they also go to a
party. And there's a singer there in
the show. Her name is Ella Walsh.
(40:04):
And she sings the song called Get the Faces Down, which was
originally Rudy Guthrie song. The singer that performs it here
is called. Hopefully.
I'll pronounce this one. She's Irish.
It's called, I think. I'm guessing.
I'm hoping that's right. And it's a pretty song.
I don't know if I like it in theshow.
Specifically, it kind of takes me out of it's a little bit
(40:27):
because you see a little montageof things happening around our
characters. We also see Bucky during the
song and I thought it was a bit of a weird style choice even
though I did like the song. I almost when I first watched
it, I looked up the song becauseI hadn't heard it before.
The lyrics are by Woody Guthrie,but the melody is from an older
song called John Henry. In the tradition of folk songs
(40:50):
is how it goes a lot of the time.
And I I hadn't heard before so but I the way they style that
almost made it sound kind of modern, which like kind of took
me out of it a little bit. The original Woody Guthrie
version does not sound like that.
It's a little bit more like up tempo.
And yeah, the song was actually probably written by Woody
Guthrie sometime after November 19th, 1942.
(41:12):
He was known for holding quite left wing views.
So that was around when the Red Army attempted to relieve the
siege on the city of Stalingrad and the American Communist Party
and their supporters were advocating for a second front to
the Soviets. Hence the lyric.
Good people, what are we waitingon in support of the war effort?
American machinists used to attach stickers to their lathes
(41:32):
and their drill presses that read This Machine Kills
Fascists, and Guthrie is quite well known for having This
Machine kills fascists painted on his guitars.
Do we not also see during this montage the writing on the bombs
that are similar to the lyrics? Yeah, in the long tradition of
things being written on bombs, there's some really funny
(41:54):
pictures if you look some bombs from like an Easter bomb run
where the guys had written like Easter eggs for Hitler on the
side of them. And there's a bomb at one point
in the show where someone says something like, this is from
Buck Levin or something like that.
So it's like, yeah. But it seems like that was the
thing they did quite often. I don't know, I think this is
kind of the end of our notes, but I just wanted to.
(42:14):
So it ends with Rosie going backinto his throat and setting the
little rhythm on the side of theplane.
And the door of the plane says, if you can see this, you're too
fucking close. I love that.
And that's episode 436. Some book racks from George
(42:38):
please. So I've got one book rack for
once and it's called Sweating out the Mission, The 8th Air
Force Ground Support in World War 2.
It's by Malcolm Holland because there isn't enough said about
the ground support guys. It's quite a small book but it
gives a quite a nice overview ofwhat the 8th Air Force guys were
doing across whilst the pilots were flying the bombers and the
(43:01):
ground support were on the were on the ground.
But they want a series that is all about them.
To be honest. That is my book correct?
For you, I love it. And there is sort of 1.
It's a strange note that I have.And it's because, I guess
because I grew up in fairly nearthe area, I grew up near a lot
of the air bases. But the first time I watched
Master the Air, I remembered that in my grandmother's
(43:24):
effects, we had found this sort of manuscript, which looks like
an informal unit history that was compiled by an American
units, the 851st Ordnance Heavy Automotive Company.
And it basically details their time through training.
It has like funny quotes from the guys.
It has in jokes, It has statistics, all the vehicles
(43:45):
they fixed. And then at the end it has a
whole bunch of names and addresses.
And the reason I know that my grandmother had it is because
she was given it by one of the guys in this unit, which says
all my love, Jimmy. And I'm like, that's not my
grandfather's name. Excuse me but she has this.
But the reason I bring it up is because when I was reading it I
(44:06):
noticed they were based out of Harling Rd. which was near East
Harling and that's not very far away from Thorpe Abbot.
So I think it's 1516 miles away.And I read this quote from them
that really struck me. It said, as if having assorted
German planes and Akak shrapnel dropping around our heads wasn't
enough, every so often an overloaded B17 from a nearby
(44:27):
base would crack up on or near our depot.
The ones that did get off to Germany to lay their eggs would
have a sweating out as bad as their own ground crews.
Every flight that came back, we would count to see if any had
been lost on the mission. So it really sort of hit the
impact visually and emotionally that these guys who were not
part of the 8th Air Force, they were still there watching these
(44:50):
men fly out and not come home. And I thought that was just an
interesting thing to share with you.
But I don't wonder what your grandma was up to with Jimmy.
My grandma was a floozy, no? You're already here.
First, oh, I think you just lied.
Just on the right time. That's fine.
(45:10):
All of it's going to be cut. That's when we would have got
the real tea about Jimmy, but wemissed it.
I don't know anything about Jimmy.
I don't know who he is. I'll find him.
Please do. If you do find him, you have to
come and talk to us about it. You know this.
All right, what are we reading? What are you reading, George?
I'm reading not an SES book, nota world or two book.
I'm reading The Mercy in Chronicles.
It's by Max Adams. It is about king, author and the
(45:33):
Anglo-Saxon England from the 7thcentury to the 10th century.
It's pretty good. More history.
I have to be slightly on brand. Slightly nerdy, right?
What are you reading, Sam? Yeah, I'm reading For Whom the
Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway. It's his.
Well, he's he wrote a couple of war novels.
I think it takes place during the Spanish Civil War, which is
(45:57):
obviously right before World War2.
And I'm reading it because I'm planning on reading Point of No
Return by Martha Gellhorn, who is briefly married to Hemingway.
And I just kind of wanted to compare the two of them.
I loved our relationship. It's a really fun one to read
about for sure. I'm also reading Something
surprise. I started reading Mission Europe
(46:17):
like it figures this week and instead of starting at the very
beginning, I started in the middle of the book because each
chapter is about a different country and I wanted to read
specifically This is about the story by the way it done.
I only read about Nowadays is that story, but I wanted to read
about the Dutch SRE chapter, so there's a good two chapters in
(46:40):
the book about that. So it's been pretty good.
And together with my official history of SRE in the
Netherlands, I know pretty much older Snow.
I think about the Dutch SRE at this point, so it's interesting.
We will see everyone next week for episode 3 of our Masters of
the Air series for episodes 7 through 9.
(47:00):
And I'm really excited because Iread the Alexander Jefferson
memoir and we're going to get some Tuskegee Airmen next time.
So really looking forward to talking about that.
And in the meantime, you can listen to us wherever you get
your podcast. You can rate US five stars.
You can send this episode to a friend.
You can visit our website rosiethereviewer.com or you can
follow us on Instagram at Rosie the Reviewer Podcast.
(47:22):
Thank you for listening and thank you for joining George.
Thank you. See you next week.
Bye.
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