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


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6 minutes ago, Chad Fuck said:


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

Maybe she was banging Jody?

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10 hours ago, BearSchlong said:

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

Spoiler

Looks like that’s covered in the next episode.

 

This week’s episode…

Dan Marino Holy Shit GIF

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

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

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

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

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

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

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8 hours ago, atomheartbevo said:
  Reveal hidden contents

Looks like that’s covered in the next episode.

 

This week’s episode…

Dan Marino Holy Shit GIF

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

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7 minutes ago, BillyGoatHill said:

JFC.... Dusty in here.

BEST episode yet. 🇺🇸 

Agreed.

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

Anthony Boyle crushed that episode. 

Awesome Drag Queen GIF by Paramount+

Edited by Js1
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37 minutes ago, BearSchlong said:

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

About to rewatch it.

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

Spoiler

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

 

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

Edited by kevwun
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2 hours ago, Buzzrock said:

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

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

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

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

Spoiler

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

 

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5 hours ago, Buzzrock said:

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

What does feathering mean wrt to an engine?

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

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

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

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


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

Full-Metal-Jacket-Joker-and-Rafterman-ap

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

Spoiler

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

And just for fun:

 

Edited by Chad Fuck
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5 hours ago, The Ace of Aces said:

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

Yes.  I love Buck being an astrophysicist and all…

My hot take: Crosby and Rosenthal are better characters.

Fight Me Lets Go GIF by Mr. Paradise

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7 hours ago, The Ace of Aces said:

 

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

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

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30 minutes ago, NeverMarryAStripper said:

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

Yep.

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

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9 hours ago, The Ace of Aces said:

 

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

 

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

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4 hours ago, atomheartbevo said:

Yes.  I love Buck being an astrophysicist and all…

My hot take: Crosby and Rosenthal are better characters.

Fight Me Lets Go GIF by Mr. Paradise

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

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4 hours ago, Doc Sam Beckett said:

Where are my god dammed Red Tails?! 

3 hours ago, BillyGoatHill said:

Yep.

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

Already posted but spoilers

Spoiler

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

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

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

 

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

https://100thbg.com

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

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

and just in general maintaining a massive database

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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