The following article contains spoilers for Masters of the Air.
Summary
- Masters of the Air depicts the experiences of the 100th Bomb Group crewmen during WWII, facing deadly missions behind enemy lines.
- The German defenders posed a significant threat to the vulnerable B-17 bombers, leading to high casualty rates and many of the crews being taken prisoner.
- Despite the risks and wavering morale, the real-life crew members of the 100th Bomb Group displayed resilience, usually lacking the maturity or training of their enemies.
Apple Studios’ Masters of the Air takes the action to 30,000 feet above the battlefield. Austin Butler, Callum Turner, Anthony Boyle, Barry Keoghan, and others among a large cast who depict the revolving door of crewmen that made up the 100th Bomb Group of the US Army Air Corps. Part of the unit better known as the “Bloody Hundredth,” Johnny Egan (played by Callum Turner) and Gale Cleven (Austin Butler) dodged their way through Nazi air defenses to repeatedly bring the war home to Germany, in an attempt to cripple their production capabilities and morale. They used the heavily armed but vulnerable Boeing B-17, a.k.a. the Flying Fortress.
The group was plagued by atrocious attrition rates and rushed training. Their crews consisted of the standard roster of 9–10 personnel: pilot, co-pilot, navigator, bombardier, radio operator, flight engineer, two side gunners, ball turret gunner, and tail gunner. However, even decked out with the largest armaments, best-trained officers, and the latest technology, it often wasn’t enough to get home alive, as the miniseries is apt to illustrate. So, what about the real story?
Hell in the Heavens
The Flying Fortress was never intended to need escorts, but the combination of German fighters and flak cannons took a toll on the crews, which soon turned to escort fighters to protect them and their payload. Adding extra peril was the US Army’s strategy of daytime bombing. This contrasted with the British RAF, who had given up on flying in the daytime due to the high-casualty rate, resorting to sloppy aerial carpet bombardments under cover of pitch darkness to protect their limited reserve of airmen.
The American B-17s bombers, however, used the Norden bombsight for precision bombing, the only flaw being that it could only operate in the riskiest time of the day when the plane’s bombardier could visibly spot the intended target. The preponderance of the US Army’s planes whittled down the German defenses at the cost of tens of thousands of lives. 1943 would prove to be a meat grinder for US bombers over Germany, the month of October one of the bloodiest in the history US Army Air Corps, Oct. 14 dubbed “Black Thursday.”
Sharing the flight deck with Cleven was fellow officer Johnny Egan. These two personalities formed the nucleus of the newly inaugurated 100th Bomb Group. Cleven and Egan maintained their friendship despite being moved to different planes. Shot down, awakened from his fall by an angry farmer holding him hostage with a pitchfork, Cleven was taken away to be interrogated. In a twist worthy of the Hollywood treatment, he was reunited with his pal Egan, who had also been captured by the Germans and being held in the same Luftwaffe POW camp. Both would survive, but not without a harrowing escape.
The July 1943 campaign known as “Blitz Week” had been a catastrophe for the US Air Corps and especially Cleven and Egan’s group, the 100th losing twelve planes in under fifteen minutes. Stress, inexperience, panic, shrapnel, and malfunctions were but the tip of the iceberg when it came to the terrors that faced crewmen of the 100th. Harry Crosby (portrayed by Anthony Boyle) found a role in the Air Corps as a navigator, the epitome of a group of men forced to deal with their inner demons under extreme duress.
If it wasn’t his motion sickness plaguing him, it was his lingering insecurity. In his autobiography, which serves as a substantial source for the miniseries, he recalled the impostor syndrome he experienced. He nearly cracked under the pressure when thrust into a leadership role at age 22. As he recalled in his memoir, “My God in Heaven, I am the lead navigator. The worst navigator in the group leading the whole 13th Combat Wing.”
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The earliest obstacle, Gary Goetzman told Good Morning America, was to find actors with a tangible friendship and charisma when casting. Above all, “what was important was how they would get along, what would their chemistry be — and these boys, quite frankly, have chemistry with about anybody in the world.”
Filling out the rest of the cast was no easier, especially when it came to the role of Robert Rosenthal. It was Rosenthal (depicted in the show by Nate Mann) who whipped the beaten-down 350th Bomb Squadron back to fighting shape, credited as the backbone of the squadron, appealing to their sense of connection and obligation, rejecting clichéd patriotic spiels or political speeches. Rosenthal simply told them the blunt truth, “if they didn’t fly they would be letting down friends who had helped to keep them alive up to now.”
In rebuilding the shattered remains of the 350th, Rosenthal noted that the spirit of the group only picked up when Mustang fighters eventually were supplied by the Army, offering better protection in 1944 and ’45. However, there was some controversy about including the Tuskegee Airmen as part of the show, as they did not operate out of England, but Italy. Writer John Orloff addressed the controversy in an Instagram post, explaining it was a necessary inclusion.
Making it home was a matter of chance, with crewmen standing a low probability on average of reaching the 25 flights required in order to complete a tour (later bumped to 30). The 100th was full of eccentrics like Johnny Egan, who chalked up his fortune to his charms and rituals, joking, “I carried two rosaries, two good luck medals, and a $2 bill off of which I had chewed a corner for each of my missions. I also wore my sweater backwards and my good luck jacket.” (via the book Masters of the Air)
Interestingly, one of the most intense moments for pilots of the B-17s was the moment of targeting. The two pilots were rendered spectators at the most crucial stage of the entire operation, completely impotent. In that period of time, the controls of the plane were switched over to the bombardier who commandeered the plane to more accurately aim the bombsight of the Norden device and keep the path steady and flat at high altitude — perhaps the earliest example of fly-by-wire flight controls.
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A Lasting Legacy Against the Odds
Robert Rosenthal’s string of luck stands in contrast to the short career of his fellow pilots and crews. After being shot down twice, saved by astonished Red Army troops outside Berlin, Rosenthal reverted to his lawyer duties in the post-war period, serving as a legal assistant during the Nuremberg Trials. This was after talking his superiors into stationing him in the Pacific theater immediately following Germany’s surrender. Gale Cleven remained in the Army, now part of the Air Force, then getting a degree from Harvard and running a small college, dying in 2006. Egan also stayed in the Air Force and flew many more missions over Korea, adding to his medal count and easing into a desk job before he passed away in 1961 from a heart attack.
The golden era of the classic bomber formation that established the Air Force’s reputation in books, movies, and pulp literature was extremely short, under three years. Many vets were not wholly comfortable with their actions or the hero worship that accompanied them home. Crosby (played by Anthony Boyle) put his service in perspective before his death, telling an interviewer he felt terrible for “blow[ing] a city off the map,” and that war was “the ultimate failure.” Their work was important to them, but for most men, it was far from romantic.
Based on the book by Donald Miller, Masters of the Air: America’s Bomber Boys Who Fought the Air War Against Nazi Germany, the show does condense the action to the main characters, with some historical liberties. However, in comparison with many historical retellings, Masters of the Air is impressively accurate, showcasing incredible attention to detail from the writers, production designers, costuming and makeup teams, and the entire crew. The cast is rounded out by Barry Keoghan, James Murray, Nikolai Kinski, Stephen Campbell Moore, and Sawyer Spielberg. You can watch the series on Apple TV+.
