Swarms of German fighters cross American bomber formations like deadly lightning bolts in a sky streaked with contrails and the murderous glare of tracers. Up there, on an endless battlefield, a furious, desperate battle is taking place. The B-17s fall, plummeting into eternity or whirling around like giant burning tree leaves. The pilots of the Flying Fortresses try to maintain formation so as not to turn their planes into lonely prey. And amidst the storm of destruction, the gunner in the exposed ventral turret of one of the large machines explodes in a cloud of blood when hit. “Excellent,” said Briton James Holland, one of the most popular military historians, about the new war series “The Masters of the Air.” Of course, air warfare, particularly the American heavy bombers fired over Germany and occupied Europe, has never before been seen with the realism and emotion with which it is portrayed in this nine-part Apple TV+ miniseries. The Masters of the Air is very faithfully based on Donald L. Miller's extraordinary 2006 book of the same name, which Desperta Ferro has just published in Spanish.
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Using the same winning formula as “Blood Brothers” (Paratroopers) and “The Pacific” (Marines) and Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg as producers, “The Masters of the Air” follows the campaign of an American unit in World War II throughout the war. This time the story focuses on the members (pilots, crew, mechanics and commanders) of the “Bloody 100”, a long-suffering bombardment group of the famous 8th US Air Force that flew the famous bombing missions from their bases in the English countryside, Flying Fortresses, the formidable four-engine Boeing B-17 bombers wreaked havoc with which they sought to subjugate Nazi Germany.
An image from “The Masters of the Air”.
Throughout the series, we witness with all our hearts what humans are capable of suffering (and doing) in warlike, sensational and frightening scenes. Like the Messerschmitts Bf 109, which attack the bombers from the front and bombard them with bullets that leave large holes in the cabin, fuselage and flesh of the planes. Or that of the deadly little black clouds of flak (German anti-aircraft defense) that cover the sky, shaking the equipment like a giant hand with their explosions (laughs at the turbulence) and literally causing the planes and their crews to burst. At one point, from a B-17, they see a shower of debris from other disintegrated bombers falling, including a body that hits the wing. Other shocking scenes include that of the crew member who is trapped trying to jump into the bomb hatch with a parachute as his plane plunges into a dizzying fall and a comrade tries in agony to free him, or that of the airman who is following Returning from a Mission As the medics extract his wrecked companions, he sums up everything that has happened by falling to his knees on the runway and compulsively vomiting.
The series shows very well the contrast between the powerful bombers, marvels of aviation technology of the time, which take off in impressive phalanges, and the way in which they are destroyed. One pilot summarized as he tried to imagine the vision of ten men and three tons of metal reduced to a cloud of black smoke: “It seems impossible that something so large could disappear so quickly.” In the scene of an emergency landing a muddled B-17 with two broken engines and no wheels, several dead or seriously injured crew members, it is impossible not to shudder as the pilot utters the (in a different context) ever-so-familiar phrase: “Crew, prepare for the Landing before”.
A B-17 was shot down by an Me-262 over Crantenburg, Germany.
Most of these scenes come from the book and from real testimonies that Miller collected. The most incredible thing about the series is that it really happened. And that these young people from all parts of the USA and from all social classes were able to get back on their planes the next day after surviving bloody and terrible missions. 26,000 Eighth Air Force airmen died, more fatalities than the Marine Corps. The “Masters of the Air” clearly shows that in the Second World War, if there was anything worse than serving in submarines, it was serving in bombers, which made the vertigo feel like claustrophobia (how frightening the cramped interior of the B-17 !) and increased to the nightmare of fighting in a hostile environment. The lack of oxygen and the cold were – and the series shows this very well – along with the atmospheric conditions, two of the deadly dangers that the aviators were exposed to. In one chapter we see how a machine gunner, trying to unlock his weapon by removing his gloves, catches his hands on the metal and tears his skin.
The group's adventures are – as in Miller's book – particularly portrayed by a number of real characters, played here by actors such as Majors Gale Buck Cleven (Austin Butler) and John Bucky Egan (Callum Turner), and Lieutenants Harry Crosby (Anthony). Boyle), Glenn Graham (Darragh Cowley) and Curtis Biddick (Barry Keoghan, the very fashionable protagonist of Saltburn) or Corporal Ken Lemmons, played by Rafferty Law, son of Jude Law. The tried and tested formula of telling a story from inside a combat unit and emphasizing the human dimension of its members also works in “The Masters of the Air” (we inevitably suffer for the young people who have a really bad time on their planes) , everything and everyone It is difficult, especially now, to awaken affinity and identification with the military, which sows chaos and destruction, devastates cities and kills the civilian population with its bombs.
Image from the series “The Masters of the Air”.
And if there's one weapon that's hard to identify with, it's bombers. The debate over the terrible destruction caused by American strategic high-altitude bombing in World War II surfaces in Miller's book and in the series, with some airmen questioning the slaughter of civilians. In any case, both the series and the book advance the reassuring thesis that this suffering was necessary to put an end to the Nazis, and that the Germans had somehow demanded it. Miller tries to distinguish between the American bombing campaigns, which, he emphasizes, were always aimed at attacking the German war effort, even considering that the bombs could be redirected; and that of the British, who did not shy away from deliberately destroying cities. The series and book repeatedly remind us of the enormous sacrifices of the bombing planes, who lost 60 Flying Fortresses and almost 600 men in a single mission. Another complex issue mentioned in the book and series is racism: the democratic United States allowed some blacks to fly in fighter planes (the Tuskegee men), but definitely not in bombers.
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What sets the series apart is its technical and operational accuracy (the missions narrated are authentic, including the mission that ended with the landing in North Africa after the bombing of Regensburg) and a production design that combines everything from the aircraft to the aircraft , meticulously taking into account the smallest element of the era that runs through the flight clothing, with the iconic leather and sheepskin jackets. Also lots of good historical details. Among them is the secrecy with the Norden sight, the crucial instrument of the American bombers that allowed them to hit the targets with unprecedented precision, or the scene in which a radio operator previously eats the sheets with the frequencies and the secret identification of the device fall into enemy territory. Likewise the way the atmosphere in the bases (and the canteens) is portrayed, the superstitions of the crew members, the stress of combat, the fear (“the Focke-Wulf radio”), the mysticism of the 25 missions afterwards The fact that one went home (the true story of the B-17 Memphis Belle, to which the 1990 film of the same name was dedicated), the good relationship of the American personnel with the British children or the romantic and sexual relationships during the war is told. In parallel storylines, the series captures in great detail how the escape networks for downed pilots worked (with them Chuck Yeager was able to return to combat) and the lives of the captured aviators and those interned in concentration camps (Stalag Luft, like that of The Great Escape).
The disadvantages include the accentuated – and sometimes exaggerated – epic sense of the narrative and a certain aestheticism (it is doubtful that the bomber boys were all so handsome and posed so well). Two things that certainly help make The Masters of the Air a great show, but which bear little relation to the ultimate reality of how the bombers left the world below behind them.
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