February 5, 2024 • 50 mins
🎙️
In this episode of 'Talk with History', hosts Scott and Jenn review the Apple TV Plus miniseries 'Masters of the Air'. They explore how closely the show portrays the historical realities of the experiences of World War 2 B-17 bomber crews. They delve into the complexities of flying planes, the psychological pressures the soldiers endure in combat and the resounding aviation concepts passed down to subsequent generations. They also touch upon the relevance of superstitions in the aviation world and the hidden meanings behind nose art.
Jenn, a former US Navy aviator, provides her insightful perspectives throughout the episode.
0:00 Masters of the Air Watch with history
00:05 Introduction to the Podcast and Hosts
00:31 Appreciation for Listener Reviews and Feedback
00:48 Discussion on the Bedford Boys Episode
02:00 Introduction to the Main Topic: Masters of the Air
03:45 Insights into the Life of a Pilot
04:58 Jenn's Personal Experience as a Naval Aviator
07:45 Historian Bias
09:57 The Setting
10:07 The Impact of the Hundredth Bomber Group
11:31 Differences between WWII ground warfare and air warfare
14:45 Challenges of flying in a B17
23:21 Training to be a POW
24:28 The Importance of Sharing Information
25:17 The Bloody Hundredth: Reputation and Reality
27:59 The Unpredictable Nature of Combat
29:59 Dealing with combat and the role of superstition in aviation
33:14 The Importance of Checklists in Aviation
36:45 LT Rosenthal
38:39 The Munster Raid and how they got their name
40:05 Why a book about the 100th?
41:40 Larger-than-life stories
43:39 The Legacy of the Men of the Century
45:22 The Impact of Nose Art and Personalization on Morale
48:31 Conclusion: The Masters of the Air
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:05):
Welcome to Talk With History.
I'm your host Scott here withmy wife and historian, Jen.
Hello.
Today's podcast is part of our seriesWe are Calling Watch With History.
The Watch with History series willfocus on your favorite historical
films where Jen and I will review theHollywood historic classics we all
know and love, while also discussingthe history behind these films
(00:27):
along with some interesting facts.
We hope you enjoy watch with history.
3, 2, 1.
Here we go.
And real quick, before we getinto our main topic, I just
wanna give a shout out to.
VA jam over.
They gave us five starreview on Apple podcasts.
That's awesome.
So I really appreciate that.
(00:47):
The title of the five Starreview is Bedford Boys.
I was incredibly moved by this episode.
Thank you for sharing.
We have received a lot of reallygreat feedback on that episode.
If you're watching this and you'recurious, the Bedford Boys, we talk about.
The National World War IIMonument Monument in Bedford,
Virginia that we got to visit.
It's an amazing, it's probablyone of the best episodes that
(01:10):
I've done for the podcast.
Um, and I, I've re received someincredible feedback on that.
It's a very good sister episode to thissince we're about World War II today.
Call Lincoln in the show notes.
Uh, Bedford Boyce is about D-Day,and it's about per capita, Bedford
Virginia took the highest loss of life.
(01:30):
Than any other city or town inthe United States of America.
That's right.
So again, thank you for the feedback.
Uh, we we're getting morestars, I guess on Spotify.
They don't do reviews.
We've got seven, five starreviews over on Spotify.
So if you're listening, thank you so much.
Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts,five star reviews, positive or negative.
We will read them.
(01:51):
And also kind give us a drop ussome stars on Spotify as well.
Today's episode is for the historybuffs and the aviation enthusiasts.
Because we're taking off on a deepdive into the skies of World War ii,
(02:11):
we are zeroing in on the Apple TVplus mini series Masters of the Air.
A show that's captivated audienceswith its portrayal of the eighth
Air Force's B 17 Bomber Crews.
But how close does Masters of theair actually fly to the historical
realities of those missions?
And more importantly, what is itreally like to be strapped into
(02:34):
one of those metal beasts hurdlingtowards flack filled German skies?
Now as a naval aviator, Jen spentcountless hours in cockpits facing down
G-forces and the ever present threatof that pesky thing called gravity.
But I'm sure nothing compares tothe pressure cooker of a B 17 on
a daylight raid over Nazi Germany.
(02:57):
These young Americans, barely out of theirteens faced unimaginable dangers, icy
temperatures, oxygen deprivation, and theconstant dance with death that came from
German fighters and anti-aircraft fire.
So in this episode, we're gonna pullback the curtain on masses of the air.
We'll separate theHollywood heroics from the.
Gut wrenching reality by examiningthe decisions the characters
(03:20):
make in the heat of the momentand why they do what they do.
From the Bombardiers agonizingchoices to the pilot's split.
Second reactions, we'll explorethe psychology and the tactics that
keep these planes in their crewsin the air mission after mission.
So strap yourselves in, folks.
We're about to take off ona journey through history.
(03:41):
A flight into the heart of what itmeant to be a master of the air.
Alright, Jen here, here we aretalking about Masters of the Air.
Ugh.
I'm so excited to do this episode.
I'm so honored to do this episode and totalk about this because oh, we always.
(04:05):
We laugh about it because therunning joke is, how do you know
who the pilots are in the room?
Don't worry.
They'll tell you.
That's right.
And I, Scott says, I always seem to workinto a conversation that I'm a pilot.
I always seem to work it in somehow.
And if you're a pilot, you understandthat you've worked really hard, you've
mastered an aircraft, you've masteredsomething, you've gotten your wings.
(04:26):
It's it's accomplishmentthat you're really proud of.
I always say there's two egotisticalpeople you want in your life,
your surgeon and your pilot.
That's right.
So this is where we start tosee, uh, in, in this episode.
I really appreciate those kind ofcharacteristics, those types of
characters, those types of people, and.
(04:49):
There are people on here who,who we surprisingly don't know
that I'm a pilot, so yeah.
She wears a hat withlittle aviator wings on it.
She wears a flight jacketin multiple videos.
Yes.
But if for, for those who who aren'tfamiliar with, this is the first time
you're seeing one of our, our episodes.
So Jen was a naval ator.
She flew in the Navyfor about seven years.
She got the chance to fly allsorts of different aircraft.
(05:10):
I mean, even as a midshipman, shegot to fly in an F 14, F 14, so
she flew T 30 fours, which is Fthree, t3, all all those aircraft.
Mm-Hmm.
She, she got to fly.
Now, her primary aircraft was.
Helicopter Helicopter B,black Hawk paint silver.
Yeah.
Seahawk.
So, so, but she flew combatmissions right after nine 11.
I mean, she's legit.
And so I, I like to kind of put thatout there and me put that out there
(05:33):
so that people kind of understandwhere we're going in this podcast.
'cause not only are we gonna talkabout the show, some of it's.
Historical kind of inaccuracies, butyou're also gonna talk about kind of the
mindset of pilots that fly into combat.
Mm-Hmm.
And kind of why, especiallyin these first couple episodes
they're doing what they're doing.
(05:54):
Yes.
And I like to stress too, that I,I was winged 20 something years
ago, so my call sign was Yoko.
I broke up the band, oneof the first females.
So proving yourself a lot as a woman.
But first in my class at a flightschool and always rated one of
the best pilots in the squadron.
And I had great comradery withall the guys I flew with because.
(06:18):
You will see, just like in Masters of theAir personalities can be very different,
but when you start to build the trustthat you're good at your job, then that
love comes shining through and it reallydoesn't matter when you're in the cockpit.
It's you two in your crew and you've goteach other and you're in this together.
(06:39):
So that really is thecamaraderie you feel as a pilot.
So that's what I think they're reallytrying to show in the first couple
episodes is these hodgepodge crews,these hodgepodge people coming from
all around the US and they stressout with the dots on the map.
Yep.
That these men are comingfrom all different areas.
So this very differentpersonalities and they're showing.
(07:02):
These two really good characters whoare gonna have this deep seated love for
each other that are very different andlove, I mean the brotherhood love, they
are gonna really rely on each other toget each other through this together.
And that's GaN and Cleven.
Yeah.
And.
They couldn't be more different.
When you really think about it,they, they, they really are.
(07:23):
And they, I think they do agood job as we record this.
We've only seen the,the first two episodes.
Mm-Hmm.
But Jen's been reading thebook and, and so we've kind
of making our way through it.
We're looking forward tothe next episode coming out.
And, you know, kind of one lastthing that, that Jen wanted to stress
before we kind of really dive into theshow and the characters was kind of
the, you know, the, you know, you'veacknowledged kind of your own bias here.
(07:45):
Yeah.
So I wanted to talk about that.
As a historian, and I am a historian,academic historian, you have to
acknowledge your bias, and my biaswill definitely be on the side of
these pilots because I know what ittakes to go through this training.
It's hard training.
It's academic, it's fast paced, it'shigh level, and then you have to fly at
(08:09):
high efficiency and be very good at it.
And what they don't show is what ittakes to make it through flight school.
And how many people actuallywash out a flight school?
'cause you have to be both.
You have to be good at knowing theiraircraft and schematics and what
an aircraft is doing, but you alsohave to fly the aircraft and be
good at understanding aerodynamics.
And so.
(08:30):
What you're gonna see a lot of, andthey've already stressed it in these
first couple episodes, and we'll talkmore about this is the high learning curve
that all of these men are going through.
This type of bombing is new.
This type of flying is new for them.
This bomb site is new, even though they'vegotten very proficient of it in America.
(08:54):
They're not proficient using it in Europe.
Different weather conditions.
Even when you see GaN listento Crosby who's giving him
details about how to fly back.
He's, I, I suggest we go 2, 4 4 andthen turn south when we hit Scotland.
And then you see GaN think about it.
Let's do that.
That's not what normally happens.
(09:16):
Your plans are all donebefore you even leave.
Right.
But they're adjusting on the fly.
They're adjusting on the fly.
Yeah.
And you're gonna see this,you're gonna see the, this is
unknown territory for these men.
This is new.
They're making it up as they go.
So you're gonna see error,you're gonna see human error and
you're so, you're gonna see me.
Really feel for them and, and makingtheir decisions in the cockpit and making
(09:39):
them quickly, under a lot of pressure.
And because I know what that feelslike, I'm going to be biased and really
side with them and, and forgive thema lot of their errors where there will
be a lot of that probably happening.
Yeah.
And, and I think that'sgood to acknowledge so.
Let's dive in.
Yes.
Let's dive into the show.
So we've watched the first coupleepisodes, so why don't you kinda lay
(10:00):
the groundwork for us and, and forthe audience about where we're at,
kind of the general setting, and thenlet's, let's just kind of dive in.
So we're gonna talkabout the bloody 100th.
So you have to think ofthe eighth Air Force.
(10:21):
We've seen Banded brothers.
They're giving you theinfantry of the Army.
You've seen the Pacific.
They're giving you the Marines.
This is gonna be the Army Air Corps.
So we're getting the third chapter,and this is the eighth Air Force.
This is the hundredth bomber group.
Bombardment group, and it's madeup of four squadrons, which the
numbers are weird and crazy.
Because I never understoodhow squadron numbers are made
(10:42):
up anyway, in the military.
You know what, it's kind of like aclassic, it's a running joke on any
military base that two buildingsthat are next to each other, their
numbers could be two and then217, it's probably the same thing.
Right?
The numbering justdoesn't really make sense.
It doesn't.
So the, the four squadrons that are partof the hundred that are there at Thorpe
Abbott's airfield is 3 49, 3 53 51, and.
(11:11):
Yeah.
So those are the fourgroups you're gonna get.
And you have Egan's inone, CLS in another.
And so you're gonna get, they'remaking up these four groups now.
They're in, um, nor Norfolk, England,and we're in Norfolk, Virginia.
Oh yeah.
That's interesting.
So it's very interesting.
It's about an hour anda half north of London.
It's by Norridge.
(11:31):
So they're, they're kind ofclose to the, like a little
city, but away from the big city.
Yeah.
And this is another kind of change.
You're gonna see from likeBand of Brothers or Pacific.
You're gonna see.
Hot meals, you're gonna see warmshowers, you're gonna see them being
woken up from nice, warm bunks.
So this is a different type of warfarethese air crew are fighting, right?
(11:54):
Yeah.
Because they're, they're,they're flying back.
You know, those that make it back,they're flying back from their mission.
Mm-Hmm.
To a spot that is well behind.
Enemy line, they're flying backto England, north of London.
Yes.
And these airfields, because there'shundreds of these airfields that
basically were put up in Londonand surrounding areas, they're kind
of squeezed into village areas.
(12:15):
So what you also see is a lot of civiliansthat are kind of like on the airfield with
them and kind of watching and and farming.
As they're landing aircraft, whichyou don't get stateside here in
America, our airfields are, are bases.
So they're, they're, they're fenced off.
Fenced off.
Yeah.
And so you're not gonna see that here.
So you're getting this understandingthat this war fighting during
(12:38):
World War II was very much immersedinto the whole civilian lifestyle.
Yeah.
I mean, it was all hands on deck.
You know, for in the Navy, thatmeans that everybody's fighting.
Yeah.
And so the local peoplebuilt these places for them.
So.
Even if you visit Thorpe Abbott today,there's a real sense of community there.
People are very protectiveof their history.
(12:58):
Yeah.
That these men came and did.
So there's a lot ofcomradery there, and I.
There is a little, kind of the spoileralert, there is a kind of little
animosity scene between the Britishpilots and the American pilots.
Yeah.
It was episode one, I think, and I thinkpeople have a little hard time with
that because they're like, well, therereally wasn't this kind of animosity,
but you and I spoke about this inthis Hollywood ease that gets done.
(13:20):
Yeah.
And we really believe.
Spielberg doesn't just throw charactersin for no reason, and there is gonna be a
moment where there's like a full circle.
The hundredth is gonna become thebloody hundredth and these men are
going to these British men Yeah.
Are really gonna appreciate.
Nope.
Uh, my, my only guess is thatthose, these, these Brits are
gonna, uh, make a second appearancesomewhere during the show.
We haven't seen it yet.
(13:40):
We haven't seen it yet, but, so wekind of open up the beginning of
June and so you have to think ThorpeAbbott flew its first mission.
June 25th, and that's, we'regonna, they're gonna lo lose those
three bombers and that was 44.
43.
43 43.
And so they're gonna flytheir last mission in 45.
So you got 8 22 months.
(14:01):
Yeah.
Right.
So in 22 months, you're going to seea lot, and I stress this to people.
When America entered the war,we were like sixth in creating
aircraft, making aircraft.
We were sixth in a, in military wise.
By the end of the war, we're number one.
Yeah, that's crazy.
We're be rolling off aircraft like crazy.
We're gonna, the whole countrycomes together and starts building.
(14:23):
When they're losing these aircraft,they're replacing these aircraft.
And the 17 is the third most builtbomber, but the 24, the liberator is
gonna be the first most built bomber.
So you can imagine they're just turningout these aircraft, the 17 that you
see on there in the, in the show.
It's pretty authentic.
It's hard because it's not alot of seventeens that fly now.
(14:45):
Yeah.
B seventeens.
B seventeens.
So.
It's CGI i'd, but remember this is,I think it's before they got the
chin turt on the front, but it'scalled the Flying Fortress because
the first time somebody looked atit and saw all these guns, they're
like, wow, that's a flying fortress.
And that's how it got its nicknamehas the ball turt underneath it
(15:06):
has what they call a square D.
So they have a D on the tail that'spainted with a white square behind it.
Oh, okay.
And that's the hundredth.
So when you see the square D on the tail.
And each bomber has 10 people on it.
So when you start to have theselosses of aircraft, that's something
that is very different than you'regonna see at Band of Brothers.
(15:28):
And Well, and I was thinking about, Iwas thinking about the 10 people in this
aircraft, because I think it's about thesame amount of people in a B 29 mm-Hmm.
B 29 is much, muchbigger, bigger aircraft.
Mm-Hmm.
Pressurized ca, you know,cabin and all that stuff.
Our Masters of the air video, we havea master of the air video where we go
to the National Air and Space Museum.
(15:49):
Mm-Hmm.
Um, as well as Arlington National Cemeteryand visit some of these real masters
there, real masters of the air andthey have the fuselage of a B 17 there.
And I'm thinking you're walking next to itand it's not like it's towering over you.
10 men in this aircraft.
I mean, a lot of 'em are just kinda.
They, they can't stand up all the way.
(16:11):
It, it's, that's a, that's10 men in this aircraft.
That's a lot, that's a lot for the,for the size of, of the aircraft.
It's you, you kind of have to, ifyou ever get a chance to be in the DC
area and you go to National Air SpaceMuseum, try to go see that it's, right
now it's off kind of in the back.
Yeah.
I have a feeling once this showgets more popular, it will kind
of, it might be brought out.
So I wanna stress some things becauseagain, I, my heart belongs to the
(16:36):
air crew and the people who are onthis aircraft and the people who
are keeping this aircraft flying.
10 men in this aircraft, most ofthem are not gonna wear seat belts.
Most of them might be strapped intotheir gun, the ball tour guy, but other
people are doing two or three jobs.
Navigator is not onlynavigating, he's working a gun.
They're in freezingtemperatures, and I'm not joking.
(16:57):
Negative 60, negative40, negative 20 degrees.
It's an un pressurized cabin.
So what does that mean?
It means they have to be onoxygen and there's no heat.
There's no air conditioning.
It's because the air's thinner.
Your hair's thinner up there.
No, which means you can go faster.
But it's also colder,but it's also colder.
A lot colder, and there's no oxygen.
(17:19):
So you have to wear the oxygen maskanytime you're above 10,000 feet.
Now, as a helicopterpilot, we stayed below.
Anytime you go above 10,000 feet, you haveto put on oxygen or you become hypoxic.
So hypoxia is where there's notenough oxygen molecules and you
basically just suffocate your brain.
Yeah.
You don't realize it's happening.
You'll pass out.
Yeah.
Mm-Hmm.
And that's why you haveto catch your own hypoxia.
You don't realize it's ha you, youdon't, you get kind of euphoric.
(17:42):
So.
They, they said filming this mastersof the air, that was the hardest part.
To portray drama because most of thisdrama's gonna happen above 10,000 feet.
Most of this drama's gonna happen, right?
They all, they all have towear masks, masks realistic,
so you won't see them talk.
It's hard to see inflection.
It's hard to see ization oftheir, their, their lines.
Facial, facial expression,facial expression.
(18:03):
So all you see is eyes.
So you'll see a lot of interactionhappen below 10,000 feet.
That's where you see Crosbygrow up and stuff, get air sick.
And he actually said, Crosby said oncehe put the oxygen on, he was fine.
Mm-hmm.
And they're really not below10,000 feet for very long,
but they do it for the show.
Sure.
So they can have more ofthat interaction and talking.
But these air crew are wearing theseflight jackets and we get these
(18:27):
flight jackets now more ceremonial.
I did wear mine over theRocky Mountains in a T 34.
That's un pressurized.
Because I was freezing my buttoff over the Rocky Mountains.
But that's where theflight jacket comes from.
'cause it actually was apurposeful gear you were issued.
Yeah.
I mean that's why they have, that'swhere they have the thick collars.
Yeah.
And all this stuff.
And we still have some remnants of athick collar, but they were much thicker.
(18:48):
Yeah.
Then And they had the pants andthey had a heated suit underneath.
Kind of like an electric blanket theywould wear that you could plug in.
Oh wow.
Now this is 1940s.
Electric technology.
So those didn't always work so great.
But.
This is where you get the issue of menpeeing because they don't have access
to a toilet and then it's freezingand then they're getting frostbite.
(19:08):
Yeah.
That's where that's coming from.
And so this crew on an aircraft, thesehours are like four hour missions.
Three hours of nothing.
One hour of complete chaos.
And so even when they're flyingback with injured people, it's
usually an hour to get back andeverybody has to be their own medic.
(19:31):
So if someone's hurt, another person'scoming off a gun or coming off of
something to help somebody, and you'regonna see, this is what I think you're
gonna see a lot more of as it progresses.
Yeah.
Is these crews are gonna get tighter.
They're gonna overcome a lot oftheir differences because of what
you have to do to get through amission when it's just 10 of you.
(19:52):
Also, if something happens to youraircraft, the 10 of you go down together
and that's why you lose 10 at a time.
That's what's different about the Pacificand Band of Brothers is there's no cover.
If something happens, that's it.
You go, you're all going.
You go down or the airplane explodes.
I mean that's, yeah, and they haveparachutes and they have life preservers.
(20:16):
But I want to remind everybody,these men did not go to jump school.
Now in a helicopter.
I.
You got nothing.
You're not, you're not wearinga parachute in he, you're not
wearing a parachute in helicopter.
Right?
You're going down with the aircraft.
You're going down with the aircraft.
So I know kind of what that feels like.
But I have flown an aircraft whereyou are strapped into the parachute.
Usually they're strapped into yourejection seat or the seat you're in.
But the T 34 was a bail out whereyou had to open the cockpit,
(20:39):
get on the wing, and bail out.
So I went to school.
Before you did that,they prepared you for it.
These men were not prepared for that.
So if.
There was an instance wherethey are gonna bail out.
They're that's they'relearning on the fly.
Yeah.
This is, here we go.
I'm gonna pull this.
Shoot.
I hope it opens and itis the best I can do.
'cause I never got trained in this.
(20:59):
And this is probably one of my biggestproblems with this, uh, depiction,
this Hollywood depiction of this.
Yeah.
'cause this is true as well, is when eaganfirst goes through the flack field, flack
is where they fire up metal that hits you.
And it just disperses.
It could hit you like ahundred miles an hour.
So you don't know.
It's little pieces of metal.
(21:20):
Yeah.
It's basically like a anti-aircraft.
Shotgun.
Yeah.
And you don't know where it's gonna hit.
And so flack fields, peoplejust flew through them.
One of the hardest thing for pilots to do,because you can't do anything for flack.
Yeah.
You have to, can't fight back.
You just have to hope for flack.
Yeah.
You just, that's what a wing anda prayer comes from with flack.
You just go and so.
(21:41):
When GaN first flies through theflag field and they make it back, and
the other pilot says to him, don'ttell them, they'll figure it out.
I think it's the worst thing you can do.
Yeah.
That, that was, that was an interestingkind of mentorship that, that they gave.
That someone more seniorgave to Egan before.
Mm-Hmm.
And that was even cl Even'sresponse at the end of that episode.
Why didn't you tell me?
(22:01):
Yeah, so I think what they'regetting into there is that these
men weren't trained for this becausethere was no way to train for this.
And this is where my loyalty comes tothese guys is as a pilot, you realize
everything you learn, everythingyou train on is written in blood.
Someone has learned from this and donethis and more than likely died from it.
(22:22):
And so you learned theemergency procedure or how to?
Survive something like this.
Yeah.
Well, in aviation, mistakes are fataland you learn from your mistakes.
And so if you've learned fromsomeone else's mistakes, you've
learned from someone else's fatality.
Exactly.
That's why they say natopsis is is written blood.
Written blood.
Mm-Hmm.
So, and Natops is kind of the, theNavy's aviation Bible aviation Bible
(22:46):
that we carry on our, and that'swhy our, our emergency procedures.
Are all learned because someone else haslearned what to do to save themselves.
But I think you always prepare someoneby telling 'em what to expect, because
what you're doing as a pilot isyou're aviate, navigate, communicate.
And if you can't even do that becauseyou're experiencing something you've never
(23:06):
seen before, it's hard to do your job.
So if someone can at leastprepare you, hey, they're gonna
fire this flack up at you.
It's gonna be metal.
There's nothing you can do.
Be prepared for not beingable to do anything.
Now, I'm not sure if you would lookthis up ahead of time, but I know
you've, you've talked now, every nowand then about going to SEER School.
Yeah.
So they search, evade, rescue and Escape.
(23:28):
Rescue and Escape.
So, PPW Camp.
Yeah.
POW.
They, they train pilots kind of how, ifthey go down behind enemy lines, how to
basically escape or if they get caught.
Mm-Hmm.
How to be a POW.
Did they train this be duringWorld War ii or was this kind
of a lesson learned after?
This was, again, it's all baptism by fire.
(23:49):
Right.
That's kind of what I thinkepisode one and two is really
showing you at baptism by fire.
Yeah.
POW Sears School comes out of Vietnam.
Okay.
All right.
So that's, that's where it camefrom, comes out of, so everything we
learn, because pilots, we learned,we learned from the, from World War
II and Vietnam because pilots whowere captured during Vietnam Yep.
Didn't know how to take the.
(24:10):
Being captured.
Yeah.
And being tortured.
Yeah.
And so they teach us now how to do that.
Yeah.
Which is what I think you alwaystell if you learn something, you
always tell, we call it the gouge
in flight school.
You learn something.
You learn somethingthat they're gonna ask.
(24:30):
You learned a little piece of information.
Yeah.
Gimme the goe.
You always give the goe.
I think that's probably why I was, I was.
First in my class out of flightschool, as I always gave the gouge,
if I learned goe, I would tell you.
So if I'm learning something ona flight, I'm gonna come back and
be like, this is what happened.
Yeah.
Be prepared for this because it,it just allows you to have a mental
preparedness, which I think ispilots is the biggest thing you need.
(24:52):
So as far as the, the TV show sofar is, is concerned, I mean, how
are they doing with, as far as thecharacters and their accuracy there?
I know you've been kind of huntingdown some other interviews and
stuff like that about why they kindof focused so much on some of the
aviation scenes that they showed.
Sure.
(25:16):
I wanna stress they, they.
So focus on the hundredth because ofits reputation as the bloody hundredth.
Yeah.
Although statistically, it's not gonnabe more losses than any other aircrew.
Every other, if you joinedthe eighth, it's a 50% chance.
Yeah.
So that's gonna be the same.
It's just that these, a couplemissions that the A hundredth
had, they had catastrophic losses.
(25:37):
There's gonna be some missionsthat come back unscathed.
But a couple missions, they'regonna have just one aircraft come
back, two, and you're gonna learn.
There's a couple things that kindof add to this, and again, baptisms
by fire, things are written inblood formation flying bombing.
So let's talk a littlebit about formation.
They, and they actuallystress that quite a bit.
(25:57):
Mm-Hmm.
So when you fly in formation,it is safer as a group because
it's just like anything else.
There's safety in numbers, right?
But.
Where you end up in formation canmake you much more vulnerable.
And they talk about that.
So there were times when the hundredthwould be a part of a group and they
(26:18):
would get, uh, I think it's calledPurple Heart Corner, where they would
be at the back corner of a formation.
So when the, the lo HFA wouldcome, that's what they call
the mil, the German Air Force.
Yeah.
That's, they pick off the backleft and they work their way in.
And so.
You knew if you were sitting in that partof the formation, your easy pickings.
(26:40):
Yeah.
So it, it, it was interestingbecause they'd be kind of in, in
like, I'll call it the ready room.
Mm-Hmm.
So the, the pilots would be gettingtheir briefings and the colonel
would be up front saying, okay,we're going on this mission.
This is where we're going,and this is the spot we have.
And you would either see them justcompletely dejected, oh no, this is,
this is, we do not wanna be there.
(27:00):
Or just.
Overly joyous saying Yeah,they're basically out in front.
They're gonna be the ones droppingthe bomb and and they're not
gonna be picked off from the back.
Yes.
So for, I love formation flying.
It's my favorite flying to do.
And the closer you are tucked intosomebody, the, the more fun it is.
But it's also dangerous because thankGod B seventeens are dual piloted.
(27:23):
Because if you are flying formation,you really do not take your eyes off the
aircraft because you're tucked into them.
Now they're not quite as close,but they are pretty tight.
But you can't take your eyes off them.
'cause as you see, youcould fly into them.
All it takes is through a cloud, asecond to glance away, and you could
tilt into another aircraft, hit anotheraircraft because you're so close.
So one pilot's looking at the controls,making sure you're not losing air
(27:45):
pressure or gas a fuel or is leaking.
And the other pilots sting in formation
now as.
They start to fire as the theyengage of the German attacker
fighters and they engage and theystart to fire their machine guns.
(28:07):
People ask, well, do theyhit each other by mistake?
Now they fire a stream of bullets.
Yeah.
And they're so close in formation.
The answer is yes.
So I always tell people, situsituational awareness is the most
effective thing in combat, and usuallythe first thing to leave, yeah.
And you don't realize it.
You're engaging the enemy andyou're firing, and then all of
a sudden you're firing right tothe aircraft right beside you.
(28:29):
So the friendly fire did happen.
Bombs were dropped on our own aircraft.
Oh wow.
By our own aircraft.
Again, I give these air crew bigleeway because this is so much.
An experiment.
These men are learning this, this is new.
So, well, and, and you, if you evertalk to someone that's been through
(28:50):
combat situations, so there's, there's,there's, I, I've, there's people
that I've, I've worked with or workedwith, uh, that have done deployments
of Afghanistan and stuff like that.
And I, I heard someone talk about onetime a situation where, you know, they go
through all this training, they're doingconvoys and this, that, and the other.
And this, this chief gets out of, ofa Humvee because they're stopping.
(29:10):
'cause they thought they saw an IED.
Mm-Hmm.
And then they, you know, someonestarts approaching their convoy
and my chief said his, uh, hegot so amped up and so locked in.
Like he almost shot this guy.
Mm-Hmm.
Because he couldn't hear anything.
This is, this is him telling,he couldn't hear anything.
All he saw was this person andhe almost pulled the trigger.
(29:33):
And luckily his buddies were there.
No, no, no.
He's a friendly.
And so I can only imagine flyingthrough the air over Nazi Germany
and all of a sudden you've gotenemy aircraft attacking you.
The same exact thing's gonna happen.
You get locked in trying to shoot thataircraft to protect your own and the
like you said, the first thing thatgoes away is that situational awareness.
(29:55):
And, and the unfortunate happened.
The commanding officer that yousee, um, Harding was a big drinker.
He encouraged his men to drink.
So you see that a little bit of that.
An Egan Yeah.
Is a big drinker.
And this is how men will dealwith this kind of stress.
(30:18):
Yeah.
He encouraged it.
He encouraged them to fight.
You see the fighting, this is all fromreal life because this helps you alleviate
that stress and the next day, 'causeyou're doing it all again and, and you
don't know who's coming back every time.
Yeah.
And there would be months where you'dhave no casualties and then all of a
(30:39):
sudden you'd lose 50% of everybody.
Yeah.
So.
Superstitions are big and they showa lot of that, uh, in the first
couple episodes with the salt.
Yep.
With uh, which is fun.
Which is also funny.
It was funny.
I love that Cleven took the card eventhough GaN this is my lucky card.
Take the card and Cleven.
No, but you see Cleveneventually take the card.
I'll tell you why.
(30:59):
'cause every pilot is superstitious.
Yeah.
I don't care who you are.
We do believe that there is, it's,everybody's got their own thing.
It's, we believe it's a bitof luck and a bit of skill.
Is luck again where youend up in formation.
If the fighters come out that day,if they don't come out that day.
If you have good weather, ifyou don't have good weather.
(31:21):
And then the skill of thepilot when it's needed.
Yeah, it really is a bit of both.
And I also wanna stress you're notflying with the same crew all the time.
Yeah.
And I think that's agood thing to remember.
'cause a lot of people think, and wetalked about this in our Arlington video
about mess with the air at Arlington,about how a lot of people will assume
that the same pilots are flying with theaircraft because of the nose art and they
(31:43):
painted it and this, that, and the other.
And that is absolutely not the case.
No, because you gotta think people aregetting injured, people are getting
what they call, they have PTSD, I thinkthey call it flack fire or something
where they give 'em a little break.
Yeah.
And same thing with aircraft.
Aircraft would get damagedaircraft and you'd be down for
a while, go down for a while.
And so you would do a hodgepodge crewand you almost see that with Crosby
(32:03):
being pulled in this navigator 'causethe navigator's sick and you're flying
with different people all the time.
So you have to reallylearn this camaraderie.
With everybody.
Yeah.
You kind of build thiscamaraderie with everyone.
Everyone.
And Crosby, I really appreciate he,I think he writes a book, I think he
wrote Wing and a prayer, but he talksabout how that first mission, how
(32:25):
he's, let's fight this, this, this,and this, and then as if flying back.
He forgets to make radio callsabout the change that they made and
they land and he's given an award.
He thinks he's gonna be court-martialed.
'cause he didn't tell themthat he changed the plan.
Yeah.
And they give him an awardbecause they think he didn't make
radio calls for radio silence.
(32:45):
Oh.
That's, which kept thefighters from coming.
And it, it saved, they only lostthree planes everybody made.
But it's really justbecause he forgot Really?
'cause he forgot.
And again, all this baptismby fire, sometimes it's luck.
Yeah.
So then you learn, oh, maybeI shouldn't make radio calls.
Maybe we'll learn.
Yeah.
That now on, on the other side.
Mm-Hmm.
One of the things thatyou actually appreciated.
With some of the pre-flight scenes.
(33:06):
Yes.
So I love the checklist.
Yeah.
I loved that scene.
And did, and they, I think, was ityou, we had either seen a video or you
were listening to a, a, another podcastthat they intentionally put those,
check those check listings in there.
(33:26):
I, I listened to Tom Hanks talk about it.
So Tom Hanks loves the B 17.
I mean, he, he executive producerof Master of the Air, he wanted
to stress how just measured pilotsare and how we are so rigorous with
rules and regulation, and we do thosechecklists every time, every step.
(33:49):
You do not skip a step.
You do not half as it, you'regonna do the whole thing and.
I think it builds trust because you'redoing it together and you're zeroing
things out and you're setting thingsup and you're getting ready and it just
shows how attention to detail you bothare and you're not gonna skip anything.
Well, and it's the same for the restof the crew and every crew is doing it.
(34:09):
Mm-hmm.
It is a normal thing and that's becauseyou're not flying with the same crew.
So you do it every time and everyaircraft you have your checklist
that's usually on your knee board,which is a, a board you strapped
to your leg and you go through it.
And he showed explicitly in that scene.
Each cockpit was doing it, and they, heshowed a different part of the checklist
(34:30):
as each cockpit's going through it.
They're all doing the same one.
They're all doing the same one.
Yeah.
They're all doing it the same way.
And I just really appreciate that.
As a pilot, you're gonna do apre takeoff checklist, a takeoff
checklist, and after takeoff checklist.
Yeah.
And, and, and, and for, for those watchingthe video, Jen had secretly watched
the two episodes the night before.
And then told me in the morning,Hey, it came out Thursday night.
(34:52):
I watched it.
I'll watch it with you again tonight.
And then when we were goingthrough the checklist scene,
I've never seen her so happy.
She's checklist, checklist, she's soexcited about these checklists because
it is such an important part of what,what pilots do and that piece of it,
right, that it was, was so realisticand kind of, again, showing that true
pilot nature and, and what the crews doand, and all the steps that it takes.
(35:17):
Every single time they're takingoff, every single time, they're
not just jumping in and cowboyingoff the runway every single time.
And if something fails on thatchecklist and the aircraft can't
fly, okay, we're gonna get out.
We're gonna go to the next one.
Mm-Hmm.
I want people to know.
We know every switch, every circuitbreaker, every instrument on that panel.
(35:38):
Every single.
I know what everyone does.
I know what electricalsource it's connected to.
I know what it's showing you.
I know if I lose power, what I'mgonna keep, what I'm gonna lose.
I know if a circuit breaker getsunset, if I can reset it, if I can't.
I know everything about that panel ofevery aircraft I have ever flown in.
It's not just the one you're assignedto, it's every aircraft you fly in.
(36:01):
You know everything about it.
That's why pilots are not dumb.
I tell people all the time,we're not, it is like cowboy.
It is a little bit of that, but youalso have to be pretty smart when,
and just like you said earlier,right, there's, there's kind of
two people, overly confident slashcocky people you want in your life.
It's a pilot and your surgeon.
And both require incredibleintelligence following procedure.
(36:25):
Mm-hmm.
And, and knowing this stuff blind,but also following those checklists.
I mean, I'm, I'm not a doctor.
I don't know too many that are surgeons.
I.
But I'm sure they have their own checklistthat they do every time when they're
prepping a patient or doing Mm-Hmm.
Everything, all that stuff before theycut somebody open, similar kind of thing.
(36:49):
So bloody 100th gets, its.
Its name, let's say onecharacter we haven't seen yet.
You're gonna see Rosie Rosenthal.
Uh, he's gonna be in this, he, he'sa big part of Masters of the Air.
Yes.
You were talking about him.
Rosie Rosenthal is consideredthe old man because he's 25.
Oh my gosh.
To a military college.
Mm-Hmm.
And I was 1920, and I rememberthere was, we had someone who had
(37:13):
been in the Navy for a few yearsbefore he came to the Naval Academy.
He was 25 years old andwe call him the old man.
So I've, I've absolutely, I've absolutelybeen there, but now it makes me roll
my eyes and wish I was 25 again.
I know.
So Rosie Rosenthal is a lawyer.
Uh, he's Jewish.
So for the him, this is,you know, means a lot.
And he comes there and he's amazing pilot.
(37:34):
He does two combat tours.
He doesn't have to fly as manymissions as he does he, I think.
At first you had to do 25 before yougot sent home, but then it changed.
They changed it to 35.
He ended up doing 50,but he survived them all.
And being a lawyer, he's part ofthe Nuremberg Trials and he's gonna,
actually, I think he interviews thesecond in command of the Nazi party.
Oh, wow.
So after Hitler commits suicide,he's the next guy who's interrogated
(37:59):
during the Berg trials and he's in,he's in charge of the Lou Hoffa.
Rosie Rosenthal's interviewing theman who's responsible for killing his.
Fellow air crewman, his velo pilotsand who tried to kill him, and he's
part of the whole, his execution and,and he follows through with all of it.
Yeah.
And he's just a very unassuming guy.
(38:20):
And you're gonna see, he's definitelygonna be a character in Master of the Air.
Yeah.
That I, people like thatjust absolutely blow my mind.
And, and usually those people, ifyou ever meet someone like that.
Are the most kind of just understated.
You would never know it by just passing'em on the subway or, or whatever.
(38:43):
August 17th, 1943.
We haven't gotten to this missionyet, but we'll see it Regensburg, they
have a, they're flying in formation.
They're flying in thatpurple heart corner.
Mm-Hmm.
Like we talked about before, of.
22 planes that go up of the hundred, they,they lose nine, so they have a 40% loss,
but the big one is October 10th, 1943.
(39:06):
It's a monster raid.
They're, I think they'redropping bombs on a worker camp.
So think about war economics.
Yeah.
That's what they're, they're tryingto hit centers of gravity targets on,
they're, they're hitting steel mills.
They're hitting gasoline.
They're hitting oil rigs.
They're hitting, they're hittingplaces that kill the war.
Economics.
Yeah.
Which they eventually do in Germany.
We'll talk more about how the technology'sgonna shift here from the Germans
(39:28):
being the better pilots with the betteraircraft to the Americans being the
better pilots with the better aircraft.
But they're gonna launch 13 planes.
Only one will make it back, and thatwill be Rosie Rosenthal's plane.
That's where they get thereputation of the bloody 100th.
That's ab Absolutely wild.
Mm-Hmm, absolutely wild.
I, I can't even, he's gonnaland after losing two engines.
(39:51):
I.
He's gonna lose his intercom system andthey're gonna lose this supplemental
oxygen and he still gets the plane back.
I know he's badass.
This is what we're gonna see depicted.
Yeah.
This is what this dramasensation's gonna show.
(40:12):
And so it's differentthan Band of brothers.
It's different than the Pacific.
You're gonna see this a massive loss.
In a short period of time, and that'sthe gut punch of being an aviator.
And you and I know you can seesomeone in the hallway one day
and then lose them the next.
Yeah.
And when it happens to 50% or the guysyou've been hanging out, all the guys
(40:35):
you've been in hanging out with forthe last couple months, this is why
they have this amazing reputation.
The reason why this book exists in.
Masters there is about them isbecause they have more documentation
than any other bomber group.
Okay.
And when Ronald Miller was teachingat Oxford, he had gone over to Thorpe
(40:56):
Abbotts and they had so much, uh.
Stories and they had captured somuch of people's interactions.
Yeah.
And he found this really greatrelationship between GaN and Cleven.
Yeah.
And he was able to pull somuch accuracy from That's cool.
These stories that he could write this.
So saving all of that is also important.
(41:17):
Saving these stories is also important.
So I just wanted to stress that as well.
But you're gonna get thesecolorful personalities.
You're gonna get.
The survivalism of survivingthings like this Sure.
And what it takes and how people do it.
Medicate with alcohol.
Yeah.
Fighting.
They, they don't know.
They didn't know then what we know now.
Exactly.
Another myth that's kind of created,I don't know if they're gonna show
(41:38):
it in this because people don'tknow if it's exactly accurate, but
the four 18 is a captain where.
The loof Hoffa have basicallytaken over the plane and they wanna
capture the plane and to kind ofsurrender, you would drop your gear.
So they're, they're, he's dropped his gearand they're taking him into a, a landing
(42:01):
field, and he ends up right before helands shooting, he has them shoot both
the planes and then raises his gear.
And flies back And takes off.
Yes.
And so they claim that the Lu Hoffa nowhas a vendetta against the square D.
Interesting.
They're looking for the squared.
They're looking for the bloody 100th.
No one knows if that'sexactly what happened.
Yeah.
(42:21):
If maybe somes claim he had lostan engine, so he had surrendered,
but then got the engine back.
Oh.
And then knew, and then was like,was like, all right, here we go.
Let's buckle up boys.
But people don't also think that theloof are like, had it out for one.
Sure.
Because like they're not gonnawaste their time to fly to these B
seventeens when they can pick up thesebest B seventeens that are closer.
(42:42):
Sure.
So it just might be a lot ofmyth and folklore, which you
get a lot of in aviation anyway.
Sure.
Avi Aviator stories, they get betterevery time and there's a reason for that.
Right.
They start off here andthey end up way over here.
So one thing I will say that's kindof funny is you see him bring the dog.
On the plane.
Yeah.
So at one point this is true,they're in Africa and they somehow
(43:06):
get like this little donkey ontothe, just another aviator thing.
Of course they do,aviators do stupid things.
And so they get this and they bringthe little donkey back to England and
they have it in the base for a while.
Show up bringing back a donkey.
But I do wanna, I wanted to saythere is a, a really good quote.
(43:29):
Here,
the hundredth bomber groupmajor, John Bennett, he summed
it up as what the hundred lacks.
In luck, it makes up foreign courage.
The men of the century have fightinghearts and they were called the men
of the century 'cause of the one.
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
That's awesome.
I really love that.
(43:50):
There is a lot more,they're wearing their.
Their survival vests and their parachutes.
We still wear life vests when we fly.
That stuff has all kind of just beeninnovated, but we still wear it.
And parachutes, they usually are,like I said, in the ejection seats.
And if you do bail out, sometimesseals wear 'em before they bail out.
(44:12):
But you're not bailingout in a helicopter.
Yeah.
So we don't have 'em.
Yeah.
But a lot of the stuff that they haveand they're wearing has just evolved.
And we still do the same things today.
We still have the same things today.
Things that, like I said, born in blood,but we still have the flight jacket.
We still have a lot of thingsthat are born of aviation that
we still follow through becausewe are very much about tradition.
(44:34):
Yeah.
And loyalty.
And once a pilot, always a pilot.
There is a comradery with us and I just,I just really appreciate watching this.
I do love it.
I see peoples.
Criticisms online, and I do knowthat there is some historical
accuracies that aren't there, but asfar as I'm concerned, I love seeing.
(44:54):
Yeah.
And we would love to hear fromyou guys watching this video and
kind of what you thought of theshow, any experience you may have,
whether you're an aviator yourself.
Or kind of just what you thought of thiscompared to Band of Brothers or your
favorite character, your favorite lines.
Uh, we, we wanna hear from you guysbecause we, we've had other videos
that are growing in popularity and,and we love having these conversations.
(45:17):
Sure.
And as we close, I just wannatouch on one last thing.
Sure.
No art.
Yes.
Yeah.
So if you know me, I love No Art,and we actually have an episode
coming out tomorrow on No Artbecause I, I love it so much and I.
I appreciate again.
What these men are going throughand what it takes to reinspire
(45:41):
yourself to get out there every day.
And the superstition thatkind of comes with it.
So there's, there's aircraftnames that are famous.
Ola Gay and Memphis Bell.
Right?
And the Memphis Bell was the girlfriendof the pilot and she was from
Memphis, so he painted her on board.
Their names are like, lady Luck.
You saw Alice from Dallas in the episode.
(46:02):
Uh, boss Lady Denver Doll, Liberty Bell.
Pickle puss, which I love.
But there's one really famous oneand I, I want Scott to put the
picture on here, Mason and Dixon.
And it is full on.
Yeah.
And it's named after the pilot,Floyd, Floyd Mason, and the
navigator, William Dixon.
(46:23):
And it's a ranches semi nude, painted bySergeant Frank Stevens of the three 51st.
And.
I just love that this is what it tookthem to really get behind each other.
Sure.
And believe in their, believe inthemselves, believe in their aircraft,
and it's also an o to the air crew.
Well, and and one of the things Ithink you said in, in the no art video,
(46:44):
that's, if you're watching this, thenthat video has already been released.
But you said that the, the no ark getsmore risque the further away that these
squadrons are basically from the whereverthe DC main DC the DC is, or the further
they are away, the more risque they getand the closer you are to death, I think.
And like I said, the commandingofficer kind of encourages drinking.
(47:05):
Yeah.
And I think he probably encouragedwhatever it takes to make you
laugh, to bring a smile onyour face to make you believe.
I think he probablyreally encouraged in them.
So it's just really somethingthat I, I love nos art because of
what it means and what it means tothese men and the history of it.
So I just wanted totalk about that as well.
Yeah, it, it's a ton of fun.
(47:26):
We're enjoying the show, andagain, we wanna hear from you guys.
So if you guys have anything else that youkind of wanna contribute or, or, or talk
about in the comments, please let us know.
Uh, we, we wanna hear from you.
Oh, one last thing.
Jude Law's son is at air crewman.
Oh, is he the, that's the headair crewman, like the crew chief.
Yeah.
Oh, that's why he's so cute.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And good looking.
That's chief law's son,so I love an air crewman.
(47:50):
The, the crew chief who'sin charge of the aircraft.
That's his aircraft.
Yeah.
And they, they actually talk veryspecifically about crew chiefs.
Yes.
And kind of give him alot of props on the show.
I, as a pilot, that's not youraircraft, it's his aircraft
or her aircraft, and they.
Treat that like their baby.
They take care of it.
They make sure everything is greatbefore you go up, and it's just a real
(48:13):
team spirit when you're, you're takingcare of an aircraft in the military.
So I, I really appreciate that.
Yeah, that's cool.
Good for him.
Well, folks, we've justlanded back on Terra firma.
After a throwing tour through the skiesof World War II with Masters of the Air.
(48:35):
I hope you enjoyed exploring the shows.
Portrayal of B 17 missions with usseparating the Hollywood dog fights
from the bone chilling reality ofthose young American bomber crews.
Remember, this wasn't justabout historical accuracy.
It was about getting inside theheads of these guys, understanding
the why behind their actions inthe face of unimaginable danger.
(48:58):
We explored their moral quandaries,the pilot's lightning fast decisions,
and the navigator's unwavering focus.
Amidst flack bursts in fighter attacks.
And what did we learned that thesemasters of the air weren't just
daredevils in flying machines.
They were strategists, psychologists,and sometimes reluctance warriors
(49:18):
all bound together by a sharedmission and a brotherhood forged
in the crucible of combat.
We also remember the comradery, the humor.
That kept them sane and thesheer awe of soaring through the
clouds towards a distant target.
We explored the bond between crewmates, the trust they placed in each
other's skills and courage, knowingthat one misstep could doune them all.
(49:41):
Masters of the air may not be a.
Perfect historical document, butit captured the essence of what
it meant to be a B 17 crewman.
It reminded us of the extraordinarysacrifices made by these ordinary
men, their bravery, etched inthe skies over Nazi Germany.
So as the engines cool down andthe landing gear for tracks,
let's carry that memory with us.
(50:03):
Let's remember the roar of theengines, the sting of the cold,
and the unyielding courage of thosewho dared to be masters of the air.
Thank you for listening to Talkwith History podcast and please
reach out to us@talkwithhistory.com.
More importantly, if you know someoneelse that may enjoy this episode or
that loves Masters of the Year as muchas we do, please share it with them.
(50:24):
We rely on you, our community to grow,and we appreciate you all every day.
We'll talk to you next time.
Thank you.
Welcome to Talk With History.
I'm your host Scott here withmy wife and historian, Jen.
Hello.
Today's podcast is part of our seriesWe are Calling Watch With History.
The Watch with History series willfocus on your favorite historical
films where Jen and I will review theHollywood historic classics we all
know and love, while also discussingthe history behind these films
(00:27):
along with some interesting facts.
We hope you enjoy watch with history.
3, 2, 1.
Here we go.
And real quick, before we getinto our main topic, I just
wanna give a shout out to.
VA jam over.
They gave us five starreview on Apple podcasts.
That's awesome.
So I really appreciate that.
(00:47):
The title of the five Starreview is Bedford Boys.
I was incredibly moved by this episode.
Thank you for sharing.
We have received a lot of reallygreat feedback on that episode.
If you're watching this and you'recurious, the Bedford Boys, we talk about.
The National World War IIMonument Monument in Bedford,
Virginia that we got to visit.
It's an amazing, it's probablyone of the best episodes that
(01:10):
I've done for the podcast.
Um, and I, I've re received someincredible feedback on that.
It's a very good sister episode to thissince we're about World War II today.
Call Lincoln in the show notes.
Uh, Bedford Boyce is about D-Day,and it's about per capita, Bedford
Virginia took the highest loss of life.
(01:30):
Than any other city or town inthe United States of America.
That's right.
So again, thank you for the feedback.
Uh, we we're getting morestars, I guess on Spotify.
They don't do reviews.
We've got seven, five starreviews over on Spotify.
So if you're listening, thank you so much.
Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts,five star reviews, positive or negative.
We will read them.
(01:51):
And also kind give us a drop ussome stars on Spotify as well.
Today's episode is for the historybuffs and the aviation enthusiasts.
Because we're taking off on a deepdive into the skies of World War ii,
(02:11):
we are zeroing in on the Apple TVplus mini series Masters of the Air.
A show that's captivated audienceswith its portrayal of the eighth
Air Force's B 17 Bomber Crews.
But how close does Masters of theair actually fly to the historical
realities of those missions?
And more importantly, what is itreally like to be strapped into
(02:34):
one of those metal beasts hurdlingtowards flack filled German skies?
Now as a naval aviator, Jen spentcountless hours in cockpits facing down
G-forces and the ever present threatof that pesky thing called gravity.
But I'm sure nothing compares tothe pressure cooker of a B 17 on
a daylight raid over Nazi Germany.
(02:57):
These young Americans, barely out of theirteens faced unimaginable dangers, icy
temperatures, oxygen deprivation, and theconstant dance with death that came from
German fighters and anti-aircraft fire.
So in this episode, we're gonna pullback the curtain on masses of the air.
We'll separate theHollywood heroics from the.
Gut wrenching reality by examiningthe decisions the characters
(03:20):
make in the heat of the momentand why they do what they do.
From the Bombardiers agonizingchoices to the pilot's split.
Second reactions, we'll explorethe psychology and the tactics that
keep these planes in their crewsin the air mission after mission.
So strap yourselves in, folks.
We're about to take off ona journey through history.
(03:41):
A flight into the heart of what itmeant to be a master of the air.
Alright, Jen here, here we aretalking about Masters of the Air.
Ugh.
I'm so excited to do this episode.
I'm so honored to do this episode and totalk about this because oh, we always.
(04:05):
We laugh about it because therunning joke is, how do you know
who the pilots are in the room?
Don't worry.
They'll tell you.
That's right.
And I, Scott says, I always seem to workinto a conversation that I'm a pilot.
I always seem to work it in somehow.
And if you're a pilot, you understandthat you've worked really hard, you've
mastered an aircraft, you've masteredsomething, you've gotten your wings.
(04:26):
It's it's accomplishmentthat you're really proud of.
I always say there's two egotisticalpeople you want in your life,
your surgeon and your pilot.
That's right.
So this is where we start tosee, uh, in, in this episode.
I really appreciate those kind ofcharacteristics, those types of
characters, those types of people, and.
(04:49):
There are people on here who,who we surprisingly don't know
that I'm a pilot, so yeah.
She wears a hat withlittle aviator wings on it.
She wears a flight jacketin multiple videos.
Yes.
But if for, for those who who aren'tfamiliar with, this is the first time
you're seeing one of our, our episodes.
So Jen was a naval ator.
She flew in the Navyfor about seven years.
She got the chance to fly allsorts of different aircraft.
(05:10):
I mean, even as a midshipman, shegot to fly in an F 14, F 14, so
she flew T 30 fours, which is Fthree, t3, all all those aircraft.
Mm-Hmm.
She, she got to fly.
Now, her primary aircraft was.
Helicopter Helicopter B,black Hawk paint silver.
Yeah.
Seahawk.
So, so, but she flew combatmissions right after nine 11.
I mean, she's legit.
And so I, I like to kind of put thatout there and me put that out there
(05:33):
so that people kind of understandwhere we're going in this podcast.
'cause not only are we gonna talkabout the show, some of it's.
Historical kind of inaccuracies, butyou're also gonna talk about kind of the
mindset of pilots that fly into combat.
Mm-Hmm.
And kind of why, especiallyin these first couple episodes
they're doing what they're doing.
(05:54):
Yes.
And I like to stress too, that I,I was winged 20 something years
ago, so my call sign was Yoko.
I broke up the band, oneof the first females.
So proving yourself a lot as a woman.
But first in my class at a flightschool and always rated one of
the best pilots in the squadron.
And I had great comradery withall the guys I flew with because.
(06:18):
You will see, just like in Masters of theAir personalities can be very different,
but when you start to build the trustthat you're good at your job, then that
love comes shining through and it reallydoesn't matter when you're in the cockpit.
It's you two in your crew and you've goteach other and you're in this together.
(06:39):
So that really is thecamaraderie you feel as a pilot.
So that's what I think they're reallytrying to show in the first couple
episodes is these hodgepodge crews,these hodgepodge people coming from
all around the US and they stressout with the dots on the map.
Yep.
That these men are comingfrom all different areas.
So this very differentpersonalities and they're showing.
(07:02):
These two really good characters whoare gonna have this deep seated love for
each other that are very different andlove, I mean the brotherhood love, they
are gonna really rely on each other toget each other through this together.
And that's GaN and Cleven.
Yeah.
And.
They couldn't be more different.
When you really think about it,they, they, they really are.
(07:23):
And they, I think they do agood job as we record this.
We've only seen the,the first two episodes.
Mm-Hmm.
But Jen's been reading thebook and, and so we've kind
of making our way through it.
We're looking forward tothe next episode coming out.
And, you know, kind of one lastthing that, that Jen wanted to stress
before we kind of really dive into theshow and the characters was kind of
the, you know, the, you know, you'veacknowledged kind of your own bias here.
(07:45):
Yeah.
So I wanted to talk about that.
As a historian, and I am a historian,academic historian, you have to
acknowledge your bias, and my biaswill definitely be on the side of
these pilots because I know what ittakes to go through this training.
It's hard training.
It's academic, it's fast paced, it'shigh level, and then you have to fly at
(08:09):
high efficiency and be very good at it.
And what they don't show is what ittakes to make it through flight school.
And how many people actuallywash out a flight school?
'cause you have to be both.
You have to be good at knowing theiraircraft and schematics and what
an aircraft is doing, but you alsohave to fly the aircraft and be
good at understanding aerodynamics.
And so.
(08:30):
What you're gonna see a lot of, andthey've already stressed it in these
first couple episodes, and we'll talkmore about this is the high learning curve
that all of these men are going through.
This type of bombing is new.
This type of flying is new for them.
This bomb site is new, even though they'vegotten very proficient of it in America.
(08:54):
They're not proficient using it in Europe.
Different weather conditions.
Even when you see GaN listento Crosby who's giving him
details about how to fly back.
He's, I, I suggest we go 2, 4 4 andthen turn south when we hit Scotland.
And then you see GaN think about it.
Let's do that.
That's not what normally happens.
(09:16):
Your plans are all donebefore you even leave.
Right.
But they're adjusting on the fly.
They're adjusting on the fly.
Yeah.
And you're gonna see this,you're gonna see the, this is
unknown territory for these men.
This is new.
They're making it up as they go.
So you're gonna see error,you're gonna see human error and
you're so, you're gonna see me.
Really feel for them and, and makingtheir decisions in the cockpit and making
(09:39):
them quickly, under a lot of pressure.
And because I know what that feelslike, I'm going to be biased and really
side with them and, and forgive thema lot of their errors where there will
be a lot of that probably happening.
Yeah.
And, and I think that'sgood to acknowledge so.
Let's dive in.
Yes.
Let's dive into the show.
So we've watched the first coupleepisodes, so why don't you kinda lay
(10:00):
the groundwork for us and, and forthe audience about where we're at,
kind of the general setting, and thenlet's, let's just kind of dive in.
So we're gonna talkabout the bloody 100th.
So you have to think ofthe eighth Air Force.
(10:21):
We've seen Banded brothers.
They're giving you theinfantry of the Army.
You've seen the Pacific.
They're giving you the Marines.
This is gonna be the Army Air Corps.
So we're getting the third chapter,and this is the eighth Air Force.
This is the hundredth bomber group.
Bombardment group, and it's madeup of four squadrons, which the
numbers are weird and crazy.
Because I never understoodhow squadron numbers are made
(10:42):
up anyway, in the military.
You know what, it's kind of like aclassic, it's a running joke on any
military base that two buildingsthat are next to each other, their
numbers could be two and then217, it's probably the same thing.
Right?
The numbering justdoesn't really make sense.
It doesn't.
So the, the four squadrons that are partof the hundred that are there at Thorpe
Abbott's airfield is 3 49, 3 53 51, and.
(11:11):
Yeah.
So those are the fourgroups you're gonna get.
And you have Egan's inone, CLS in another.
And so you're gonna get, they'remaking up these four groups now.
They're in, um, nor Norfolk, England,and we're in Norfolk, Virginia.
Oh yeah.
That's interesting.
So it's very interesting.
It's about an hour anda half north of London.
It's by Norridge.
(11:31):
So they're, they're kind ofclose to the, like a little
city, but away from the big city.
Yeah.
And this is another kind of change.
You're gonna see from likeBand of Brothers or Pacific.
You're gonna see.
Hot meals, you're gonna see warmshowers, you're gonna see them being
woken up from nice, warm bunks.
So this is a different type of warfarethese air crew are fighting, right?
(11:54):
Yeah.
Because they're, they're,they're flying back.
You know, those that make it back,they're flying back from their mission.
Mm-Hmm.
To a spot that is well behind.
Enemy line, they're flying backto England, north of London.
Yes.
And these airfields, because there'shundreds of these airfields that
basically were put up in Londonand surrounding areas, they're kind
of squeezed into village areas.
(12:15):
So what you also see is a lot of civiliansthat are kind of like on the airfield with
them and kind of watching and and farming.
As they're landing aircraft, whichyou don't get stateside here in
America, our airfields are, are bases.
So they're, they're, they're fenced off.
Fenced off.
Yeah.
And so you're not gonna see that here.
So you're getting this understandingthat this war fighting during
(12:38):
World War II was very much immersedinto the whole civilian lifestyle.
Yeah.
I mean, it was all hands on deck.
You know, for in the Navy, thatmeans that everybody's fighting.
Yeah.
And so the local peoplebuilt these places for them.
So.
Even if you visit Thorpe Abbott today,there's a real sense of community there.
People are very protectiveof their history.
(12:58):
Yeah.
That these men came and did.
So there's a lot ofcomradery there, and I.
There is a little, kind of the spoileralert, there is a kind of little
animosity scene between the Britishpilots and the American pilots.
Yeah.
It was episode one, I think, and I thinkpeople have a little hard time with
that because they're like, well, therereally wasn't this kind of animosity,
but you and I spoke about this inthis Hollywood ease that gets done.
(13:20):
Yeah.
And we really believe.
Spielberg doesn't just throw charactersin for no reason, and there is gonna be a
moment where there's like a full circle.
The hundredth is gonna become thebloody hundredth and these men are
going to these British men Yeah.
Are really gonna appreciate.
Nope.
Uh, my, my only guess is thatthose, these, these Brits are
gonna, uh, make a second appearancesomewhere during the show.
We haven't seen it yet.
(13:40):
We haven't seen it yet, but, so wekind of open up the beginning of
June and so you have to think ThorpeAbbott flew its first mission.
June 25th, and that's, we'regonna, they're gonna lo lose those
three bombers and that was 44.
43.
43 43.
And so they're gonna flytheir last mission in 45.
So you got 8 22 months.
(14:01):
Yeah.
Right.
So in 22 months, you're going to seea lot, and I stress this to people.
When America entered the war,we were like sixth in creating
aircraft, making aircraft.
We were sixth in a, in military wise.
By the end of the war, we're number one.
Yeah, that's crazy.
We're be rolling off aircraft like crazy.
We're gonna, the whole countrycomes together and starts building.
(14:23):
When they're losing these aircraft,they're replacing these aircraft.
And the 17 is the third most builtbomber, but the 24, the liberator is
gonna be the first most built bomber.
So you can imagine they're just turningout these aircraft, the 17 that you
see on there in the, in the show.
It's pretty authentic.
It's hard because it's not alot of seventeens that fly now.
(14:45):
Yeah.
B seventeens.
B seventeens.
So.
It's CGI i'd, but remember this is,I think it's before they got the
chin turt on the front, but it'scalled the Flying Fortress because
the first time somebody looked atit and saw all these guns, they're
like, wow, that's a flying fortress.
And that's how it got its nicknamehas the ball turt underneath it
(15:06):
has what they call a square D.
So they have a D on the tail that'spainted with a white square behind it.
Oh, okay.
And that's the hundredth.
So when you see the square D on the tail.
And each bomber has 10 people on it.
So when you start to have theselosses of aircraft, that's something
that is very different than you'regonna see at Band of Brothers.
(15:28):
And Well, and I was thinking about, Iwas thinking about the 10 people in this
aircraft, because I think it's about thesame amount of people in a B 29 mm-Hmm.
B 29 is much, muchbigger, bigger aircraft.
Mm-Hmm.
Pressurized ca, you know,cabin and all that stuff.
Our Masters of the air video, we havea master of the air video where we go
to the National Air and Space Museum.
(15:49):
Mm-Hmm.
Um, as well as Arlington National Cemeteryand visit some of these real masters
there, real masters of the air andthey have the fuselage of a B 17 there.
And I'm thinking you're walking next to itand it's not like it's towering over you.
10 men in this aircraft.
I mean, a lot of 'em are just kinda.
They, they can't stand up all the way.
(16:11):
It, it's, that's a, that's10 men in this aircraft.
That's a lot, that's a lot for the,for the size of, of the aircraft.
It's you, you kind of have to, ifyou ever get a chance to be in the DC
area and you go to National Air SpaceMuseum, try to go see that it's, right
now it's off kind of in the back.
Yeah.
I have a feeling once this showgets more popular, it will kind
of, it might be brought out.
So I wanna stress some things becauseagain, I, my heart belongs to the
(16:36):
air crew and the people who are onthis aircraft and the people who
are keeping this aircraft flying.
10 men in this aircraft, most ofthem are not gonna wear seat belts.
Most of them might be strapped intotheir gun, the ball tour guy, but other
people are doing two or three jobs.
Navigator is not onlynavigating, he's working a gun.
They're in freezingtemperatures, and I'm not joking.
(16:57):
Negative 60, negative40, negative 20 degrees.
It's an un pressurized cabin.
So what does that mean?
It means they have to be onoxygen and there's no heat.
There's no air conditioning.
It's because the air's thinner.
Your hair's thinner up there.
No, which means you can go faster.
But it's also colder,but it's also colder.
A lot colder, and there's no oxygen.
(17:19):
So you have to wear the oxygen maskanytime you're above 10,000 feet.
Now, as a helicopterpilot, we stayed below.
Anytime you go above 10,000 feet, you haveto put on oxygen or you become hypoxic.
So hypoxia is where there's notenough oxygen molecules and you
basically just suffocate your brain.
Yeah.
You don't realize it's happening.
You'll pass out.
Yeah.
Mm-Hmm.
And that's why you haveto catch your own hypoxia.
You don't realize it's ha you, youdon't, you get kind of euphoric.
(17:42):
So.
They, they said filming this mastersof the air, that was the hardest part.
To portray drama because most of thisdrama's gonna happen above 10,000 feet.
Most of this drama's gonna happen, right?
They all, they all have towear masks, masks realistic,
so you won't see them talk.
It's hard to see inflection.
It's hard to see ization oftheir, their, their lines.
Facial, facial expression,facial expression.
(18:03):
So all you see is eyes.
So you'll see a lot of interactionhappen below 10,000 feet.
That's where you see Crosbygrow up and stuff, get air sick.
And he actually said, Crosby said oncehe put the oxygen on, he was fine.
Mm-hmm.
And they're really not below10,000 feet for very long,
but they do it for the show.
Sure.
So they can have more ofthat interaction and talking.
But these air crew are wearing theseflight jackets and we get these
(18:27):
flight jackets now more ceremonial.
I did wear mine over theRocky Mountains in a T 34.
That's un pressurized.
Because I was freezing my buttoff over the Rocky Mountains.
But that's where theflight jacket comes from.
'cause it actually was apurposeful gear you were issued.
Yeah.
I mean that's why they have, that'swhere they have the thick collars.
Yeah.
And all this stuff.
And we still have some remnants of athick collar, but they were much thicker.
(18:48):
Yeah.
Then And they had the pants andthey had a heated suit underneath.
Kind of like an electric blanket theywould wear that you could plug in.
Oh wow.
Now this is 1940s.
Electric technology.
So those didn't always work so great.
But.
This is where you get the issue of menpeeing because they don't have access
to a toilet and then it's freezingand then they're getting frostbite.
(19:08):
Yeah.
That's where that's coming from.
And so this crew on an aircraft, thesehours are like four hour missions.
Three hours of nothing.
One hour of complete chaos.
And so even when they're flyingback with injured people, it's
usually an hour to get back andeverybody has to be their own medic.
(19:31):
So if someone's hurt, another person'scoming off a gun or coming off of
something to help somebody, and you'regonna see, this is what I think you're
gonna see a lot more of as it progresses.
Yeah.
Is these crews are gonna get tighter.
They're gonna overcome a lot oftheir differences because of what
you have to do to get through amission when it's just 10 of you.
(19:52):
Also, if something happens to youraircraft, the 10 of you go down together
and that's why you lose 10 at a time.
That's what's different about the Pacificand Band of Brothers is there's no cover.
If something happens, that's it.
You go, you're all going.
You go down or the airplane explodes.
I mean that's, yeah, and they haveparachutes and they have life preservers.
(20:16):
But I want to remind everybody,these men did not go to jump school.
Now in a helicopter.
I.
You got nothing.
You're not, you're not wearinga parachute in he, you're not
wearing a parachute in helicopter.
Right?
You're going down with the aircraft.
You're going down with the aircraft.
So I know kind of what that feels like.
But I have flown an aircraft whereyou are strapped into the parachute.
Usually they're strapped into yourejection seat or the seat you're in.
But the T 34 was a bail out whereyou had to open the cockpit,
(20:39):
get on the wing, and bail out.
So I went to school.
Before you did that,they prepared you for it.
These men were not prepared for that.
So if.
There was an instance wherethey are gonna bail out.
They're that's they'relearning on the fly.
Yeah.
This is, here we go.
I'm gonna pull this.
Shoot.
I hope it opens and itis the best I can do.
'cause I never got trained in this.
(20:59):
And this is probably one of my biggestproblems with this, uh, depiction,
this Hollywood depiction of this.
Yeah.
'cause this is true as well, is when eaganfirst goes through the flack field, flack
is where they fire up metal that hits you.
And it just disperses.
It could hit you like ahundred miles an hour.
So you don't know.
It's little pieces of metal.
(21:20):
Yeah.
It's basically like a anti-aircraft.
Shotgun.
Yeah.
And you don't know where it's gonna hit.
And so flack fields, peoplejust flew through them.
One of the hardest thing for pilots to do,because you can't do anything for flack.
Yeah.
You have to, can't fight back.
You just have to hope for flack.
Yeah.
You just, that's what a wing anda prayer comes from with flack.
You just go and so.
(21:41):
When GaN first flies through theflag field and they make it back, and
the other pilot says to him, don'ttell them, they'll figure it out.
I think it's the worst thing you can do.
Yeah.
That, that was, that was an interestingkind of mentorship that, that they gave.
That someone more seniorgave to Egan before.
Mm-Hmm.
And that was even cl Even'sresponse at the end of that episode.
Why didn't you tell me?
(22:01):
Yeah, so I think what they'regetting into there is that these
men weren't trained for this becausethere was no way to train for this.
And this is where my loyalty comes tothese guys is as a pilot, you realize
everything you learn, everythingyou train on is written in blood.
Someone has learned from this and donethis and more than likely died from it.
(22:22):
And so you learned theemergency procedure or how to?
Survive something like this.
Yeah.
Well, in aviation, mistakes are fataland you learn from your mistakes.
And so if you've learned fromsomeone else's mistakes, you've
learned from someone else's fatality.
Exactly.
That's why they say natopsis is is written blood.
Written blood.
Mm-Hmm.
So, and Natops is kind of the, theNavy's aviation Bible aviation Bible
(22:46):
that we carry on our, and that'swhy our, our emergency procedures.
Are all learned because someone else haslearned what to do to save themselves.
But I think you always prepare someoneby telling 'em what to expect, because
what you're doing as a pilot isyou're aviate, navigate, communicate.
And if you can't even do that becauseyou're experiencing something you've never
(23:06):
seen before, it's hard to do your job.
So if someone can at leastprepare you, hey, they're gonna
fire this flack up at you.
It's gonna be metal.
There's nothing you can do.
Be prepared for not beingable to do anything.
Now, I'm not sure if you would lookthis up ahead of time, but I know
you've, you've talked now, every nowand then about going to SEER School.
Yeah.
So they search, evade, rescue and Escape.
(23:28):
Rescue and Escape.
So, PPW Camp.
Yeah.
POW.
They, they train pilots kind of how, ifthey go down behind enemy lines, how to
basically escape or if they get caught.
Mm-Hmm.
How to be a POW.
Did they train this be duringWorld War ii or was this kind
of a lesson learned after?
This was, again, it's all baptism by fire.
(23:49):
Right.
That's kind of what I thinkepisode one and two is really
showing you at baptism by fire.
Yeah.
POW Sears School comes out of Vietnam.
Okay.
All right.
So that's, that's where it camefrom, comes out of, so everything we
learn, because pilots, we learned,we learned from the, from World War
II and Vietnam because pilots whowere captured during Vietnam Yep.
Didn't know how to take the.
(24:10):
Being captured.
Yeah.
And being tortured.
Yeah.
And so they teach us now how to do that.
Yeah.
Which is what I think you alwaystell if you learn something, you
always tell, we call it the gouge
in flight school.
You learn something.
You learn somethingthat they're gonna ask.
(24:30):
You learned a little piece of information.
Yeah.
Gimme the goe.
You always give the goe.
I think that's probably why I was, I was.
First in my class out of flightschool, as I always gave the gouge,
if I learned goe, I would tell you.
So if I'm learning something ona flight, I'm gonna come back and
be like, this is what happened.
Yeah.
Be prepared for this because it,it just allows you to have a mental
preparedness, which I think ispilots is the biggest thing you need.
(24:52):
So as far as the, the TV show sofar is, is concerned, I mean, how
are they doing with, as far as thecharacters and their accuracy there?
I know you've been kind of huntingdown some other interviews and
stuff like that about why they kindof focused so much on some of the
aviation scenes that they showed.
Sure.
(25:16):
I wanna stress they, they.
So focus on the hundredth because ofits reputation as the bloody hundredth.
Yeah.
Although statistically, it's not gonnabe more losses than any other aircrew.
Every other, if you joinedthe eighth, it's a 50% chance.
Yeah.
So that's gonna be the same.
It's just that these, a couplemissions that the A hundredth
had, they had catastrophic losses.
(25:37):
There's gonna be some missionsthat come back unscathed.
But a couple missions, they'regonna have just one aircraft come
back, two, and you're gonna learn.
There's a couple things that kindof add to this, and again, baptisms
by fire, things are written inblood formation flying bombing.
So let's talk a littlebit about formation.
They, and they actuallystress that quite a bit.
(25:57):
Mm-Hmm.
So when you fly in formation,it is safer as a group because
it's just like anything else.
There's safety in numbers, right?
But.
Where you end up in formation canmake you much more vulnerable.
And they talk about that.
So there were times when the hundredthwould be a part of a group and they
(26:18):
would get, uh, I think it's calledPurple Heart Corner, where they would
be at the back corner of a formation.
So when the, the lo HFA wouldcome, that's what they call
the mil, the German Air Force.
Yeah.
That's, they pick off the backleft and they work their way in.
And so.
You knew if you were sitting in that partof the formation, your easy pickings.
(26:40):
Yeah.
So it, it, it was interestingbecause they'd be kind of in, in
like, I'll call it the ready room.
Mm-Hmm.
So the, the pilots would be gettingtheir briefings and the colonel
would be up front saying, okay,we're going on this mission.
This is where we're going,and this is the spot we have.
And you would either see them justcompletely dejected, oh no, this is,
this is, we do not wanna be there.
(27:00):
Or just.
Overly joyous saying Yeah,they're basically out in front.
They're gonna be the ones droppingthe bomb and and they're not
gonna be picked off from the back.
Yes.
So for, I love formation flying.
It's my favorite flying to do.
And the closer you are tucked intosomebody, the, the more fun it is.
But it's also dangerous because thankGod B seventeens are dual piloted.
(27:23):
Because if you are flying formation,you really do not take your eyes off the
aircraft because you're tucked into them.
Now they're not quite as close,but they are pretty tight.
But you can't take your eyes off them.
'cause as you see, youcould fly into them.
All it takes is through a cloud, asecond to glance away, and you could
tilt into another aircraft, hit anotheraircraft because you're so close.
So one pilot's looking at the controls,making sure you're not losing air
(27:45):
pressure or gas a fuel or is leaking.
And the other pilots sting in formation
now as.
They start to fire as the theyengage of the German attacker
fighters and they engage and theystart to fire their machine guns.
(28:07):
People ask, well, do theyhit each other by mistake?
Now they fire a stream of bullets.
Yeah.
And they're so close in formation.
The answer is yes.
So I always tell people, situsituational awareness is the most
effective thing in combat, and usuallythe first thing to leave, yeah.
And you don't realize it.
You're engaging the enemy andyou're firing, and then all of
a sudden you're firing right tothe aircraft right beside you.
(28:29):
So the friendly fire did happen.
Bombs were dropped on our own aircraft.
Oh wow.
By our own aircraft.
Again, I give these air crew bigleeway because this is so much.
An experiment.
These men are learning this, this is new.
So, well, and, and you, if you evertalk to someone that's been through
(28:50):
combat situations, so there's, there's,there's, I, I've, there's people
that I've, I've worked with or workedwith, uh, that have done deployments
of Afghanistan and stuff like that.
And I, I heard someone talk about onetime a situation where, you know, they go
through all this training, they're doingconvoys and this, that, and the other.
And this, this chief gets out of, ofa Humvee because they're stopping.
(29:10):
'cause they thought they saw an IED.
Mm-Hmm.
And then they, you know, someonestarts approaching their convoy
and my chief said his, uh, hegot so amped up and so locked in.
Like he almost shot this guy.
Mm-Hmm.
Because he couldn't hear anything.
This is, this is him telling,he couldn't hear anything.
All he saw was this person andhe almost pulled the trigger.
(29:33):
And luckily his buddies were there.
No, no, no.
He's a friendly.
And so I can only imagine flyingthrough the air over Nazi Germany
and all of a sudden you've gotenemy aircraft attacking you.
The same exact thing's gonna happen.
You get locked in trying to shoot thataircraft to protect your own and the
like you said, the first thing thatgoes away is that situational awareness.
(29:55):
And, and the unfortunate happened.
The commanding officer that yousee, um, Harding was a big drinker.
He encouraged his men to drink.
So you see that a little bit of that.
An Egan Yeah.
Is a big drinker.
And this is how men will dealwith this kind of stress.
(30:18):
Yeah.
He encouraged it.
He encouraged them to fight.
You see the fighting, this is all fromreal life because this helps you alleviate
that stress and the next day, 'causeyou're doing it all again and, and you
don't know who's coming back every time.
Yeah.
And there would be months where you'dhave no casualties and then all of a
(30:39):
sudden you'd lose 50% of everybody.
Yeah.
So.
Superstitions are big and they showa lot of that, uh, in the first
couple episodes with the salt.
Yep.
With uh, which is fun.
Which is also funny.
It was funny.
I love that Cleven took the card eventhough GaN this is my lucky card.
Take the card and Cleven.
No, but you see Cleveneventually take the card.
I'll tell you why.
(30:59):
'cause every pilot is superstitious.
Yeah.
I don't care who you are.
We do believe that there is, it's,everybody's got their own thing.
It's, we believe it's a bitof luck and a bit of skill.
Is luck again where youend up in formation.
If the fighters come out that day,if they don't come out that day.
If you have good weather, ifyou don't have good weather.
(31:21):
And then the skill of thepilot when it's needed.
Yeah, it really is a bit of both.
And I also wanna stress you're notflying with the same crew all the time.
Yeah.
And I think that's agood thing to remember.
'cause a lot of people think, and wetalked about this in our Arlington video
about mess with the air at Arlington,about how a lot of people will assume
that the same pilots are flying with theaircraft because of the nose art and they
(31:43):
painted it and this, that, and the other.
And that is absolutely not the case.
No, because you gotta think people aregetting injured, people are getting
what they call, they have PTSD, I thinkthey call it flack fire or something
where they give 'em a little break.
Yeah.
And same thing with aircraft.
Aircraft would get damagedaircraft and you'd be down for
a while, go down for a while.
And so you would do a hodgepodge crewand you almost see that with Crosby
(32:03):
being pulled in this navigator 'causethe navigator's sick and you're flying
with different people all the time.
So you have to reallylearn this camaraderie.
With everybody.
Yeah.
You kind of build thiscamaraderie with everyone.
Everyone.
And Crosby, I really appreciate he,I think he writes a book, I think he
wrote Wing and a prayer, but he talksabout how that first mission, how
(32:25):
he's, let's fight this, this, this,and this, and then as if flying back.
He forgets to make radio callsabout the change that they made and
they land and he's given an award.
He thinks he's gonna be court-martialed.
'cause he didn't tell themthat he changed the plan.
Yeah.
And they give him an awardbecause they think he didn't make
radio calls for radio silence.
(32:45):
Oh.
That's, which kept thefighters from coming.
And it, it saved, they only lostthree planes everybody made.
But it's really justbecause he forgot Really?
'cause he forgot.
And again, all this baptismby fire, sometimes it's luck.
Yeah.
So then you learn, oh, maybeI shouldn't make radio calls.
Maybe we'll learn.
Yeah.
That now on, on the other side.
Mm-Hmm.
One of the things thatyou actually appreciated.
With some of the pre-flight scenes.
(33:06):
Yes.
So I love the checklist.
Yeah.
I loved that scene.
And did, and they, I think, was ityou, we had either seen a video or you
were listening to a, a, another podcastthat they intentionally put those,
check those check listings in there.
(33:26):
I, I listened to Tom Hanks talk about it.
So Tom Hanks loves the B 17.
I mean, he, he executive producerof Master of the Air, he wanted
to stress how just measured pilotsare and how we are so rigorous with
rules and regulation, and we do thosechecklists every time, every step.
(33:49):
You do not skip a step.
You do not half as it, you'regonna do the whole thing and.
I think it builds trust because you'redoing it together and you're zeroing
things out and you're setting thingsup and you're getting ready and it just
shows how attention to detail you bothare and you're not gonna skip anything.
Well, and it's the same for the restof the crew and every crew is doing it.
(34:09):
Mm-hmm.
It is a normal thing and that's becauseyou're not flying with the same crew.
So you do it every time and everyaircraft you have your checklist
that's usually on your knee board,which is a, a board you strapped
to your leg and you go through it.
And he showed explicitly in that scene.
Each cockpit was doing it, and they, heshowed a different part of the checklist
(34:30):
as each cockpit's going through it.
They're all doing the same one.
They're all doing the same one.
Yeah.
They're all doing it the same way.
And I just really appreciate that.
As a pilot, you're gonna do apre takeoff checklist, a takeoff
checklist, and after takeoff checklist.
Yeah.
And, and, and, and for, for those watchingthe video, Jen had secretly watched
the two episodes the night before.
And then told me in the morning,Hey, it came out Thursday night.
(34:52):
I watched it.
I'll watch it with you again tonight.
And then when we were goingthrough the checklist scene,
I've never seen her so happy.
She's checklist, checklist, she's soexcited about these checklists because
it is such an important part of what,what pilots do and that piece of it,
right, that it was, was so realisticand kind of, again, showing that true
pilot nature and, and what the crews doand, and all the steps that it takes.
(35:17):
Every single time they're takingoff, every single time, they're
not just jumping in and cowboyingoff the runway every single time.
And if something fails on thatchecklist and the aircraft can't
fly, okay, we're gonna get out.
We're gonna go to the next one.
Mm-Hmm.
I want people to know.
We know every switch, every circuitbreaker, every instrument on that panel.
(35:38):
Every single.
I know what everyone does.
I know what electricalsource it's connected to.
I know what it's showing you.
I know if I lose power, what I'mgonna keep, what I'm gonna lose.
I know if a circuit breaker getsunset, if I can reset it, if I can't.
I know everything about that panel ofevery aircraft I have ever flown in.
It's not just the one you're assignedto, it's every aircraft you fly in.
(36:01):
You know everything about it.
That's why pilots are not dumb.
I tell people all the time,we're not, it is like cowboy.
It is a little bit of that, but youalso have to be pretty smart when,
and just like you said earlier,right, there's, there's kind of
two people, overly confident slashcocky people you want in your life.
It's a pilot and your surgeon.
And both require incredibleintelligence following procedure.
(36:25):
Mm-hmm.
And, and knowing this stuff blind,but also following those checklists.
I mean, I'm, I'm not a doctor.
I don't know too many that are surgeons.
I.
But I'm sure they have their own checklistthat they do every time when they're
prepping a patient or doing Mm-Hmm.
Everything, all that stuff before theycut somebody open, similar kind of thing.
(36:49):
So bloody 100th gets, its.
Its name, let's say onecharacter we haven't seen yet.
You're gonna see Rosie Rosenthal.
Uh, he's gonna be in this, he, he'sa big part of Masters of the Air.
Yes.
You were talking about him.
Rosie Rosenthal is consideredthe old man because he's 25.
Oh my gosh.
To a military college.
Mm-Hmm.
And I was 1920, and I rememberthere was, we had someone who had
(37:13):
been in the Navy for a few yearsbefore he came to the Naval Academy.
He was 25 years old andwe call him the old man.
So I've, I've absolutely, I've absolutelybeen there, but now it makes me roll
my eyes and wish I was 25 again.
I know.
So Rosie Rosenthal is a lawyer.
Uh, he's Jewish.
So for the him, this is,you know, means a lot.
And he comes there and he's amazing pilot.
(37:34):
He does two combat tours.
He doesn't have to fly as manymissions as he does he, I think.
At first you had to do 25 before yougot sent home, but then it changed.
They changed it to 35.
He ended up doing 50,but he survived them all.
And being a lawyer, he's part ofthe Nuremberg Trials and he's gonna,
actually, I think he interviews thesecond in command of the Nazi party.
Oh, wow.
So after Hitler commits suicide,he's the next guy who's interrogated
(37:59):
during the Berg trials and he's in,he's in charge of the Lou Hoffa.
Rosie Rosenthal's interviewing theman who's responsible for killing his.
Fellow air crewman, his velo pilotsand who tried to kill him, and he's
part of the whole, his execution and,and he follows through with all of it.
Yeah.
And he's just a very unassuming guy.
(38:20):
And you're gonna see, he's definitelygonna be a character in Master of the Air.
Yeah.
That I, people like thatjust absolutely blow my mind.
And, and usually those people, ifyou ever meet someone like that.
Are the most kind of just understated.
You would never know it by just passing'em on the subway or, or whatever.
(38:43):
August 17th, 1943.
We haven't gotten to this missionyet, but we'll see it Regensburg, they
have a, they're flying in formation.
They're flying in thatpurple heart corner.
Mm-Hmm.
Like we talked about before, of.
22 planes that go up of the hundred, they,they lose nine, so they have a 40% loss,
but the big one is October 10th, 1943.
(39:06):
It's a monster raid.
They're, I think they'redropping bombs on a worker camp.
So think about war economics.
Yeah.
That's what they're, they're tryingto hit centers of gravity targets on,
they're, they're hitting steel mills.
They're hitting gasoline.
They're hitting oil rigs.
They're hitting, they're hittingplaces that kill the war.
Economics.
Yeah.
Which they eventually do in Germany.
We'll talk more about how the technology'sgonna shift here from the Germans
(39:28):
being the better pilots with the betteraircraft to the Americans being the
better pilots with the better aircraft.
But they're gonna launch 13 planes.
Only one will make it back, and thatwill be Rosie Rosenthal's plane.
That's where they get thereputation of the bloody 100th.
That's ab Absolutely wild.
Mm-Hmm, absolutely wild.
I, I can't even, he's gonnaland after losing two engines.
(39:51):
I.
He's gonna lose his intercom system andthey're gonna lose this supplemental
oxygen and he still gets the plane back.
I know he's badass.
This is what we're gonna see depicted.
Yeah.
This is what this dramasensation's gonna show.
(40:12):
And so it's differentthan Band of brothers.
It's different than the Pacific.
You're gonna see this a massive loss.
In a short period of time, and that'sthe gut punch of being an aviator.
And you and I know you can seesomeone in the hallway one day
and then lose them the next.
Yeah.
And when it happens to 50% or the guysyou've been hanging out, all the guys
(40:35):
you've been in hanging out with forthe last couple months, this is why
they have this amazing reputation.
The reason why this book exists in.
Masters there is about them isbecause they have more documentation
than any other bomber group.
Okay.
And when Ronald Miller was teachingat Oxford, he had gone over to Thorpe
(40:56):
Abbotts and they had so much, uh.
Stories and they had captured somuch of people's interactions.
Yeah.
And he found this really greatrelationship between GaN and Cleven.
Yeah.
And he was able to pull somuch accuracy from That's cool.
These stories that he could write this.
So saving all of that is also important.
(41:17):
Saving these stories is also important.
So I just wanted to stress that as well.
But you're gonna get thesecolorful personalities.
You're gonna get.
The survivalism of survivingthings like this Sure.
And what it takes and how people do it.
Medicate with alcohol.
Yeah.
Fighting.
They, they don't know.
They didn't know then what we know now.
Exactly.
Another myth that's kind of created,I don't know if they're gonna show
(41:38):
it in this because people don'tknow if it's exactly accurate, but
the four 18 is a captain where.
The loof Hoffa have basicallytaken over the plane and they wanna
capture the plane and to kind ofsurrender, you would drop your gear.
So they're, they're, he's dropped his gearand they're taking him into a, a landing
(42:01):
field, and he ends up right before helands shooting, he has them shoot both
the planes and then raises his gear.
And flies back And takes off.
Yes.
And so they claim that the Lu Hoffa nowhas a vendetta against the square D.
Interesting.
They're looking for the squared.
They're looking for the bloody 100th.
No one knows if that'sexactly what happened.
Yeah.
(42:21):
If maybe somes claim he had lostan engine, so he had surrendered,
but then got the engine back.
Oh.
And then knew, and then was like,was like, all right, here we go.
Let's buckle up boys.
But people don't also think that theloof are like, had it out for one.
Sure.
Because like they're not gonnawaste their time to fly to these B
seventeens when they can pick up thesebest B seventeens that are closer.
(42:42):
Sure.
So it just might be a lot ofmyth and folklore, which you
get a lot of in aviation anyway.
Sure.
Avi Aviator stories, they get betterevery time and there's a reason for that.
Right.
They start off here andthey end up way over here.
So one thing I will say that's kindof funny is you see him bring the dog.
On the plane.
Yeah.
So at one point this is true,they're in Africa and they somehow
(43:06):
get like this little donkey ontothe, just another aviator thing.
Of course they do,aviators do stupid things.
And so they get this and they bringthe little donkey back to England and
they have it in the base for a while.
Show up bringing back a donkey.
But I do wanna, I wanted to saythere is a, a really good quote.
(43:29):
Here,
the hundredth bomber groupmajor, John Bennett, he summed
it up as what the hundred lacks.
In luck, it makes up foreign courage.
The men of the century have fightinghearts and they were called the men
of the century 'cause of the one.
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
That's awesome.
I really love that.
(43:50):
There is a lot more,they're wearing their.
Their survival vests and their parachutes.
We still wear life vests when we fly.
That stuff has all kind of just beeninnovated, but we still wear it.
And parachutes, they usually are,like I said, in the ejection seats.
And if you do bail out, sometimesseals wear 'em before they bail out.
(44:12):
But you're not bailingout in a helicopter.
Yeah.
So we don't have 'em.
Yeah.
But a lot of the stuff that they haveand they're wearing has just evolved.
And we still do the same things today.
We still have the same things today.
Things that, like I said, born in blood,but we still have the flight jacket.
We still have a lot of thingsthat are born of aviation that
we still follow through becausewe are very much about tradition.
(44:34):
Yeah.
And loyalty.
And once a pilot, always a pilot.
There is a comradery with us and I just,I just really appreciate watching this.
I do love it.
I see peoples.
Criticisms online, and I do knowthat there is some historical
accuracies that aren't there, but asfar as I'm concerned, I love seeing.
(44:54):
Yeah.
And we would love to hear fromyou guys watching this video and
kind of what you thought of theshow, any experience you may have,
whether you're an aviator yourself.
Or kind of just what you thought of thiscompared to Band of Brothers or your
favorite character, your favorite lines.
Uh, we, we wanna hear from you guysbecause we, we've had other videos
that are growing in popularity and,and we love having these conversations.
(45:17):
Sure.
And as we close, I just wannatouch on one last thing.
Sure.
No art.
Yes.
Yeah.
So if you know me, I love No Art,and we actually have an episode
coming out tomorrow on No Artbecause I, I love it so much and I.
I appreciate again.
What these men are going throughand what it takes to reinspire
(45:41):
yourself to get out there every day.
And the superstition thatkind of comes with it.
So there's, there's aircraftnames that are famous.
Ola Gay and Memphis Bell.
Right?
And the Memphis Bell was the girlfriendof the pilot and she was from
Memphis, so he painted her on board.
Their names are like, lady Luck.
You saw Alice from Dallas in the episode.
(46:02):
Uh, boss Lady Denver Doll, Liberty Bell.
Pickle puss, which I love.
But there's one really famous oneand I, I want Scott to put the
picture on here, Mason and Dixon.
And it is full on.
Yeah.
And it's named after the pilot,Floyd, Floyd Mason, and the
navigator, William Dixon.
(46:23):
And it's a ranches semi nude, painted bySergeant Frank Stevens of the three 51st.
And.
I just love that this is what it tookthem to really get behind each other.
Sure.
And believe in their, believe inthemselves, believe in their aircraft,
and it's also an o to the air crew.
Well, and and one of the things Ithink you said in, in the no art video,
(46:44):
that's, if you're watching this, thenthat video has already been released.
But you said that the, the no ark getsmore risque the further away that these
squadrons are basically from the whereverthe DC main DC the DC is, or the further
they are away, the more risque they getand the closer you are to death, I think.
And like I said, the commandingofficer kind of encourages drinking.
(47:05):
Yeah.
And I think he probably encouragedwhatever it takes to make you
laugh, to bring a smile onyour face to make you believe.
I think he probablyreally encouraged in them.
So it's just really somethingthat I, I love nos art because of
what it means and what it means tothese men and the history of it.
So I just wanted totalk about that as well.
Yeah, it, it's a ton of fun.
(47:26):
We're enjoying the show, andagain, we wanna hear from you guys.
So if you guys have anything else that youkind of wanna contribute or, or, or talk
about in the comments, please let us know.
Uh, we, we wanna hear from you.
Oh, one last thing.
Jude Law's son is at air crewman.
Oh, is he the, that's the headair crewman, like the crew chief.
Yeah.
Oh, that's why he's so cute.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And good looking.
That's chief law's son,so I love an air crewman.
(47:50):
The, the crew chief who'sin charge of the aircraft.
That's his aircraft.
Yeah.
And they, they actually talk veryspecifically about crew chiefs.
Yes.
And kind of give him alot of props on the show.
I, as a pilot, that's not youraircraft, it's his aircraft
or her aircraft, and they.
Treat that like their baby.
They take care of it.
They make sure everything is greatbefore you go up, and it's just a real
(48:13):
team spirit when you're, you're takingcare of an aircraft in the military.
So I, I really appreciate that.
Yeah, that's cool.
Good for him.
Well, folks, we've justlanded back on Terra firma.
After a throwing tour through the skiesof World War II with Masters of the Air.
(48:35):
I hope you enjoyed exploring the shows.
Portrayal of B 17 missions with usseparating the Hollywood dog fights
from the bone chilling reality ofthose young American bomber crews.
Remember, this wasn't justabout historical accuracy.
It was about getting inside theheads of these guys, understanding
the why behind their actions inthe face of unimaginable danger.
(48:58):
We explored their moral quandaries,the pilot's lightning fast decisions,
and the navigator's unwavering focus.
Amidst flack bursts in fighter attacks.
And what did we learned that thesemasters of the air weren't just
daredevils in flying machines.
They were strategists, psychologists,and sometimes reluctance warriors
(49:18):
all bound together by a sharedmission and a brotherhood forged
in the crucible of combat.
We also remember the comradery, the humor.
That kept them sane and thesheer awe of soaring through the
clouds towards a distant target.
We explored the bond between crewmates, the trust they placed in each
other's skills and courage, knowingthat one misstep could doune them all.
(49:41):
Masters of the air may not be a.
Perfect historical document, butit captured the essence of what
it meant to be a B 17 crewman.
It reminded us of the extraordinarysacrifices made by these ordinary
men, their bravery, etched inthe skies over Nazi Germany.
So as the engines cool down andthe landing gear for tracks,
let's carry that memory with us.
(50:03):
Let's remember the roar of theengines, the sting of the cold,
and the unyielding courage of thosewho dared to be masters of the air.
Thank you for listening to Talkwith History podcast and please
reach out to us@talkwithhistory.com.
More importantly, if you know someoneelse that may enjoy this episode or
that loves Masters of the Year as muchas we do, please share it with them.
(50:24):
We rely on you, our community to grow,and we appreciate you all every day.
We'll talk to you next time.
Thank you.
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