Masters of the Air Episode 5 'Part Five' REACTION!!
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- čas přidán 1. 07. 2024
- Rosie's next mission signals a significant shift in the 100th's bombing strategy. Crosby receives a promotion, but it comes with a high price. Here's Nikki & Steven's reaction to episode 5 of Masters of the Air.
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0:00 - INTRO
3:39 - REACTION
26:41 - RECAP
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Great reaction. It will be interesting to see if they show any of the men who bailed out over Germany using their escape kits. Raf airman had things like concealed button compass s and small maps at times issued in case of being shot down and having to escape and evade the Germans as far as the nearest unoccupied country. Cheers from Australia 🇦🇺 look forward to the next one.
Just saw your Chernobyl reaction.
Jared Harris is such a beast actor! You shoud really consider watching him in „The Terror“ as Captain Crozier commander of the HMS Terror!
You can find the picture of Crosby's wrecked B-17 and, lo and behold, it crashed into literally the only tree in that entire field.
Ha wow
"Rosie" Rosenthal was well known for doing whatever he could to keep his crew moral up so him humming a song is accurate no matter how weird it sounds or looks.
Great choice of song as well. Artie Shaw wrote some weird and ominous swing music.
@@andreraymond6860 need to double check if he actually did hum this song but not that far in the books yet
The Chant - Artie Shaw ❤️
That repetition of "tail number so-and-so: No record" was bone chilling. These last two episodes really hit home the absolute worst luck of the "Bloody 100th". Awesome reactions as always.
My grandfather was a navigator in the 489th Bomber Squadron stationed in North Africa during WW2. His plane was shot down July 17th, 1943 over Italy. He successfully parachuted to land but became a prisoner of war, eventually ending up at Stalag 3-B in Germany where he remained until his liberation in 1945. He never spoke about the war or about his time as a POW. Upon his passing in 1994 I was left his squadron book, photos, and letters he both wrote and received. Watching this show makes me think of him. He was a gentle man who survived hell. Thank you for your reactions to these episodes.
Some info about Rosenthal: he was already a law school graduate prior to the war and working at a firm. He enlisted the day after Pearl Harbor and requested a combat line of service. What a fucking hero. Probably the greatest B17 pilot in history. And some trivia, I hope you don't mind spoilers about him, if you do, DON'T READ:
On his penultimate mission on February 3, 1945, Rosenthal led a mission to bomb Berlin. Among the buildings hit in the raid was the "People's Court" killing Roland Freisler, the notorious "hanging judge" of the Third Reich's Volksgerichtshof.
A Jewish lawyer from Brooklyn USA taking part in a mission that killed Hitlers favorite judge. That, is poetic fucking justice.
He also he interrogated Hermann Göring as an assistant US prosecutor during the Nuremberg Trials.
The swastikas on the planes show how many downed enemy planes that gunner position has
Ive known if it since cartoons as a child! The Red Baron biplanes!
Shot down by that bomber, not that gunner. Claims were widely inaccurate too.
@@andrewwaller5913 Sure! Every gunner in the 'box' probably claimed whatever fighter was actually shot down. So...divide the claims by 20 or even 50.
Known that since childhood. Had some Battler Britton comics.
@@nickmitsialisactually on at least one occasion 300 separate gunners claimed what turned out to be one german fighter. And, just to be clear, they claimed 300 fighters, not 1/300th of a fighter. Those figures were easy to verify after the war. Ironically, it was the wild over claims that helped keep morale among US bomber crew relatively stable. The same thing occurred with the actual bombing. Even when bombing was accurate it rarely caused damage that was permanent. The schweinfurt- regensburg raid is the classic example: in schweinfurt not a single bomb landed near the targeted ball bearing factory and in regensburg the 500lb bombs knocked buildings down but did no damage to equipment, which the germans dug out, dusted off, re-roofed and had going again in two days (which is british bombers dropped 2,000lb bombs). US bomber crew repeatedly flew disastrous missions that had very little impact on german industry. In fact the nazi’s incompetence and disorganisation probably did more damage to german industry than allied bombing.
Ironically, the germans had the same experience in the battle of britain. Theyd ‘destroy’ an airfield one day and find british fightings swarming up from the same airfield the next day. But the real slump in luftwaffe morale came when they realised that, based on claims, they had destroyed the entire british airforce, but there it was to meet them every day. That is, of course, why gun cameras starting being introduced.
Rosie Rosenthal did dogfights while stationed in the United States. He used skills learned there in his actions.during that mission. It was only his third mission on his way becoming a legendary pilot. He had to describe it to Curtis LeMay the big boss. I appreciate your commentary and the empathy you have for people.
My great-uncle was on this mission; he was Bucky's wingman. His plane, the Pasadena Nena (mentioned during the interrogation), went down over the Netherlands. After bailing out of the bomb bay door, he was captured and spent two years in Stalag 17b. This series of raids is famous - called Black Week. Just brutal all the way around.
17 Planes went up. 4 aborted due to mechanical failure, 1 came back successfully. That's 12 planes, 120 men shot down either killed wounded or presumed captured. To put that in perspective that's twice as many as Easy Company lost in the entire Normandy campaign, in just one mission from just the 100th bomb group. The other groups in the Munster mission lost an additional 14 planes. Out of 138 planes that carried out that mission 30 were lost, 16 from the 100th. That's 1 in every 5 planes, 1 in every 5 men.
and to put that to a further scale, each bomber group during ww2 was equiped with 36 planes. In episodes 3-5, they lost 32 of them.
Bucky saw what the Germans did to the Brits in London. The scene where they pulled out the child from the rubble kinda also made Bucky say what he said. it wasn’t just the loss of Buck.
I also saw that scene of him realizing what they were doing as well. You are far removed from the destruction at 20,000 feet, so seeing the aftermath of a bombing just brings home what happens on the ground after a mission.
Also the Munster raid it is true only Royal Flush commanded by "rosie" Rosenthal was the only 100th plane to make it back from the bombing.
Regarding Bucky Egan’s leave pass, as a major, Egan didnt have an assigned plane. Basically, if he was on a plane he would either be a spare observer and take a gun position or, as Egan did, he’d take a pilot’s seat and the co-pilot would be shunted to the spare on board. US bomb groups all took their higher officers on each mission - although they were usually in the planes in the safest positions. But they carried colonels and generals, all as ‘spares, on every mission. Sometimes on the same plane. It was considered necessary for morale. But occasionally one of those planes would go down and that would open up a lot of promotions.
By the way, by the time of events in this tv series the germans had been terror bombing british civilians in london, and other cities, for 3 years and would soon launch another round of terror bombing with unaimed v1 and v2 rockets targeting london. I know, because my grandfather was a royal engineer and when he returned from dunkirk he spent a year defusing and disposing of the unexploded bombs in london and my grandmothers, aunts, and mother and father were all bombed out in london. A v2 would later destroy my mother’s kindergarten - luckily for me, without my mother in it, although a lot of other women and children werent so lucky that day. So when youre thinking about german civilians under allied bombs you should perhaps bear in mind how much sympathy they deserved, because ultimately they were responsible for all of that.
My grandmother's brother, Kenneth, flew Lancasters, the biggest British heavy bomber, for the RAF in WWII. By the end of the war, he made it to Squadron Leader. I always thought he was the most charismatic member of my family, so was probably a great leader, but he attributed his success to luck. US bomber crews had 51% casualty rates partly due to day flying, but RAF bomber crews still had 46% casualties even from night flying. My great uncle passed away from cancer 12 years ago. He was too ill to visit the unveiling of the Bomber Command Memorial in London, opened by the Queen, but I went and took photos, and gave them to him for his final birthday, which pleased him a great deal.
His brother-in-law, my grandfather's brother, Leslie 'Johnny' Bull, wasn't so lucky. He was a Wellington bomber pilot. His plane went down due to engine failure during a reconnaissance mission over Northern France, he parachuted but was captured, and spent the next 2.5 years in POW camp Stalag Luft III in Western Poland. He was involved in the largest escape of POWs in WWII, when they dug tunnels to break out. He was the lead tunneler and the first one out. Steve McQueen's character was based on him in the film The Great Escape, but he was English and the true story didn't have a Hollywood ending. He was captured by a German border patrol, attempting to escape over a snowy mountain range on the Czechoslovakia border, and handed to the Gestapo. They "interrogated" him, and told him and 49 others they captured that they were driving them back to the camp, but stopped in a field and executed him and the others, on Hitler's direct orders. I don't know what he was like, but I'm convinced my great uncle Leslie was a complete badass.
Really appreciate your reactions to this amazing, powerful and tragic episode. Been following you guys since the Red Wedding, you're my first reaction channel I've followed. Keep up the great work! 👍
One of the things about the Bloody 100th (Crosby points this out in his writing) is that while other Groups lost more planes and crews the 100th had a pattern of taking a lot of casualties in single raids. In 350+ raids the 100th flew as part of between mid-1943 until mid-1945 the 100th took nearly 50% of their total losses in less than 10 total raids. They would go weeks not losing a plane and then in the space of a few hours they would lose multiple crews. This was naturally terrible for morale.
Crosby still flew missions as group navigator but he had all this extra work to brief others as well and he only flew with the lead plane usually.
4:52 "So he's dead then?" We're seeing the perspective of the remaining crews. Some men just disappear, those that remain have no idea what's happened to them.
The director played the theme to The Shinning in the cockpit before the cameras were rolling. They said they shot this episode like a horror movie, and I believe it they achieved it.
Despite what you might think, fighters shooting up parachuting bomber crews or other fighter pilots abandoning their airplanes was rare in the European theater. Eisenhower, when he heard of incidents of Americans doing it, issued orders that men would be heavily punished if it was discovered. There's some documented instances of Luftwaffe fighter wing commanders telling their pilots that, "If I hear you killed men abandoning their planes, I'll shoot you myself." The only instance, even in modern war rules, are that paratroopers are the only "legal" targets when it comes to shooting someone in a parachute.
Franz Stiegler wrote in his book that his wing commander told them that if he ever saw one of them shoot at a man in a parachute, he would shoot them himself.
Remember, both the Pacific and Band of Brothers increased the brutality with every episode until the very last ep relieved it. They're doing it again.
that one is true, spoiler below
The most dangerous bombing mission in human history happened 4 days after this mission. And what was left of the 100th was forced to join.
Egan actually forgot his lucky jacket didnt swap it but he did say that Cleven always hated that jacket
Omg where is your episode 6 reaction
the B17 could manouver like that. it wasnt a fighter manourverable but it could shift when the pilot wanted it to. most of the time though they were in formation and sticking together for a reason.
@@unclefester6501 I know
This episode, Rosenthal just showed how much of a bamf he is. I don't know anything else, but he teed up each shot to perfection
the raid on Munster was bad but the second Schweinfurt raid, also called Black Thursday was even WROSE. 77 b-17s shot down 171 damage .
254 men did not return (65 survived as prisoners-of-war),[20] while five killed-in-action and 43 wounded were in the damaged aircraft that returned (594 were listed as missing-in-action). Among the most seriously affected American units was the 306th Bomb Group. It lost 100 men: 35 died on the mission or of wounds and 65 were captured. The 305th Bomb Group lost 130 men (87%), with 36 killed. got this info off the internet
A good reaction as usual- interestingly the safest place on the B-17 was the ball turret @ 5.5% losses, also with losing Bucky, I wonder if the writers deliberately introduced not telling Buckys fate, as a way of showing that often you never knew what happened once they left the air base. Often it was years later when remains were found that we knew.
Think of it this way; the 100th lost the equivalent of Easy Company on that single Mission.
THE. ENTIRE. COMPANY. Officers, NCO's, and Enlisted Men.
They mark planes with enemy markings to show how many enemy planes they have shot down. Fairly common. Two swastikas ment that bomber has taken down two enemy fighters.
Thirty years ago, I read about the 100th. This episode did such a great job defining the air war.
Remember, Bucky saw the British girl being pulled from the bombed out building in London. That turned a page in Bucky’s mind. It drove home that civilians were going to die. The more brutal the sooner it would end.
Rosie Rosenthal on this mission, the pilot of the lone survivor, became “the old hand” of the squadron.
It will get worse. God rest the fallen.
The music in this episode really added to the tone of imminent doom.
The bomber pilot doing the maneuvering is Robert “Rosie” Rosenthal, the new guy who mentioned he and his crew were flying in their skivvies while training in Texas in the previous episode
So what they didn't show, and perhaps for some good reason, when the strategy of the air war was shifting from strategic targets to basically city targets, Egan kinda of shouted for joy about it and so did quite a few other airmen, but then there were others that questioned the new orders. So it is kind of depicted between Egan and Crank in the episode but yeah, you're seeing a shift here. Some men felt like, well they have been bombing England since 1940/41, it's time for payback, others really had a hard time with it. I think next episode is going to be tougher.
Also, this Munster mission wasn't the worst the 100th had historically, it gets worse, so it'll be interesting if the show goes that far or not.
After seeing a fellow pilot drop a bomb that skipped off the ground and exploded inside a Church, Chuck Yeager remarked that "if we were going to start doing things like that, then we'd better be damned sure we're on the Winning side."
the fighter escort was actually late to meet up they made a navigational error so used up most of the fuel before even meeting up so they couldnt stay even as long as the planners hoped
We appreciate your dedication and hard work. You'll always have our support.
I love your reactions! And I love this show so much! Can’t believe we only have 4 episodes left
The B-17 was designed to fly in formation, creating what was essentially a flying 'box' bristling with guns. In the thick of a fight, any bomber going out of formation was basically dead. Easy pickings for the massed fighters, as they no longer had the coverage of their squadron mates. Royal Flush was 'lucky' in that they were already passed where most of the NotZ fighters would be, so they had to contend with only a few 'stragglers.' And the B-17 was a still a 'nimble' aircraft, we're just used to seeing it in that fixed formation position. Real or not, I loved the part where Rosie was turning into that Bf-109 in what was basically a dogfight between a bomber and a fighter.
Been waiting for this all
Weekend 😂
Imagine a farmer doing stuff in his cornfield and out of nowhere he get that pissbomb on the head...
If you go back to 20:28 the plane that explodes and crashes into the other is She's Gonna, the one Bubbles was on.
I did some research after watching the first 2 episodes, 25 missions was selected to give crews a 50% of surviving. But one pilot (IIRC RAF) flew 4 tours, thats over 100 missions. The of the videos I watched said the 100th was selected because while it didn't have the worst casualty rates or flew the most missions they did partake in some of the worse missions. 11:09 No they are not German planes that is a scorecard to record successful (maybe completed) missions. Fighter pilots would record 'Kills', planes shot down.
For a bit of Context for this mission: The RAF Visited Munster in Germany on a number of nights during the war. It was NOT a popular destination at night - the guns were numerous and radar guided aft 1943. There were also 2 Nightfighter bases and sevreral dayfighter fields as well, all close by. And it was over 160km (100 miles) from the Western borders of Germany. And the Rockets were Wfgr Grenate, 21cm diamter mortar shells with a rocket propellant, carried in tubes under the wings of the fighters, 2x per Bf 109 fighter, 4x on the twin engined Bf 110s and Me 410s.
B17s were surprisingly maneuverable all things considered
22:22
Okay, this shit actually happened. “Old 666” was a B-17 in the early pacific war. The story of “Old 666” is genuinely fucking wild. Of course it’s a little dramatized, as the B-17’s can definitely NOT out turn a BF-109. However other than that, everything is possible.
It's pretty spry for it's size, and it has pretty good structural strength==then again, forcing the fighters into a tail chase is pretty 'unhealthy' for the fighter: attacking a B17 or B24 from the rear was a bad idea. The 50 cals outrange the 20mm by a bit, and the 'rate of closure' for a fighter (especially in an FW190, which lost a lot of power and performance at the peak altitude of the 'Fort') is actually uncomfortably slow. Some German fighter pilots said it's like trying to stand under a shower and not get wet.
Just adding to a previous comment each swastika was a "kill count" for a German plane shot down by the bomber plane. They got a bomb for each mission flown and star over the bomb was if they were lead that mission.
"They have German Nazi planes?" Steven's mind is blown!
Soo close to "The Ones Who Live" Hope you both have a wonderful week
B-17's were incredibly well built and could absorb massive amounts of punishment. They were well known for getting their crews back to base even after being mauled by AA fire and fighters. There are hundreds of pictures of B-17's with huge chunks missing and still in the air. There's one well known photo of a bomber taken from another bomber in the same formation that had been in a collision with a German fighter. The top gunner had killed the enemy pilot as he was diving on the bomber from above. The plane sliced through the fuselage of the bomber and she still stayed in the air, made it back, landed, and then promptly broke in half. She got her crew home. :)
Rosie Rosenthal was an absolute BOSS
The Munster mission solidified the Bloody 100th as being thought of as a “jinxed” group. The amount of losses was staggering.
I’ve just read this on WWII website;
‘The Munster raid wrapped up the bloodiest three days in Eighth Air Force’s history to that point. Eighty-eight B-17s had been lost in three days, nearly 900 men’. Shocking.
In case no one has mentioned it … Crosby wrote the book A Wing and a Prayer, so he survived and you probably have noticed his times when he seems to be in prayer. Also, over 70% of the plots never made it home. It was a tragic time, but credited with a big reason we won the war.
Capt. Joseph “Bubbles” Payne would actually die in April of 1944 in a disastrous and costly raid over Sottevast, France
Like Band of Brothers, MotA is mostly focusing on characters who will survive the war. If they didn't, you'd never get emotional involved with any character. However, along the way they will show and give some characters a small back story and then kill them off as it happened in the war (as best possible). The real story of Biddick's crash is even more horrific than shown. He was known as a "hard-luck" pilot who not only had that crash landing you see but other adventures where in one case they found 1,000+ holes in his plane. He also was so concerned about his crew it probably killed him. In this last flight, his cockpit was hit and entirely on fire after a massive explosion opened up the right side of the cockpit (probably oxygen canisters blowing up) big enough that other planes saw his co-pilot climb through the open hole, open his chute and hit the tail, never to be seen again. The plane, on fire, fell from the sky out of control and exploded. Four confirmed KIA's were found later in the war by graves registration services. Nobody saw other chutes but some did make it out and remained in Germany as POW's. The 8th AF lost more men in WW2 than the entire Marine Corps during the same period. Think of Iwo Jima...then think of the 8th.
And that sequence where Bucky and the pilot were arguing about who would jump last...really happened.
In order to drop live ordnance you have to pull the pin to make em active. If the pin isn’t pulled and bombs are dropped it’s likely they will just hit the ground.
I agree this episode was the most intense and harrowing. Definitely the strongest one so far.
Amazing episode 👏
Rosie Rosenthal is to Masters of The Air what Ronald Spiers was to Band Of Brothers. Dogfighting against German fighters? Badass.
16:15 - Yeah, rockets. They weren't like modern air-to-air missiles. The bombers had to fly in those tight formations to insure that as many bombs could hit the target as possible. Also, these bombers were designed in the 1930s, the designers thought that having so many guns on the aircraft would allow them to defend against fighters with the formations so tight. The Luftwaffe put 'ground attack' rockets on some of their fighters, and they'd just fire them off in the direction of those formations, hoping for a lucky hit. Germany (and the UK during the "Battle of Britain") were using fighter aircraft as a defensive weapon (another '30s theory), that's why the Allies didn't have 'long range' fighter protection until later in the war.
And this episode was rough..but if it helps those of us who weren't there even get a small idea of what these people went through, I'd consider it a successful monument to their memory. Somebody's got to tell their stories, especially since those who survived are getting older and passing away. I've read so many of their memoirs (and seen some interviews) where they have this '..well, I've never told anyone this before, but..' and then tell a story that scares the S out of me.
The airmen were apparently disgusted by the Munster mission. It was a direct intention to bomb the neighborhood near the RR yard to kill workers and their families. Yes, they did manage to avoid the cathedral, but the houses were deliberately bombed. Their overall commander at the time was Curtis LeMay, who proved his penchant for bloodthirsty missions against civilian targets in Japan. He planned encircling Tokyo with firebombs to create a "fire tornado", consuming the city. The most destructive air attack in the history of warfare, between 90,000 and 120,000 Japanese civilians were killed and over 1,000,000 made homeless in March 1945.
Just saw your Chernobyl reaction.
Jared Harris is such a beast actor! You shoud really consider watching him in „The Terror“ as Captain Crozier commander of the HMS Terror!
Rosenthal trained in fighters for a while and became an instructor pilot. They wanted him to stay stateside and be an instructor pilot but he lobbied heavily to be sent over, so eventually he was
When I was watching I commented on how Rosie was doing some Eager Beaver shit. The B-17 was known to be able to fly like a fighter, it just took a great pilot that knew the plane well and knew how she would react to different manuevers.
For context the Eager Beavers and Lucy/ Old-666 was a famous crew and plane from the pacific theatre. The pilot Jay Zeamer, was such a good pilot he could easily manuever the B-17 like a fighter. Jay and his Navigator would receive Medal of Honor for the missions flown on that plane. I believe Jay almost ended up in England. After Pearl Harbor, all the crew/planes got seperated into five squadrons. Buck and Bucky got put into one of the four heading to England. Jay ended up in the 5th, going to Australia.
Started your review asking about what happened to BUCK, they never really explained it in EP 5, but according to actual records BUCK did survive, he crashed in Belgium and was captured by the Germans and spent the rest of the war as a POW.
Awesome reaction of my favorite episode of Masters Of The Air!!!!!!!!!😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊
Any raid like that was primarily going to hit civilian areas. The 8th considered a bomb to have "hit" the target if it fell within 1000 feet of the aiming point. Most bombs were "misses," and often by a wide margin.
It was tragic, but it was only 12 unaccounted for. 4 turned back for mechanical issues.
Crosby was insanely humble
33:20 No, they did not use “captured” enemy Heinkel bombers against the Germans 😅. They did not capture enemy planes at all until after the war.
For some more knowledge for you from Episode 4 to this one is only 3 days. October 8-10. And Rosenthal who was on his 3rd mission in the Group watched 3 of the Group Squadron Commanders go down and almost the whole of the 100th Disappear. In those 3 days they were the only survivor of the 100th That mission. 390th her sister group along with the 95th got hit pretty hard but not as bad. And they faced I think that whole mission not just 100th was like over 300 fighters. In and out.
You need to look up The Fat Electrician old 666. The crew of old 666 was part of the 5th Air Force. Which was stationed in Pacific Theater of Operations.
The crew of Old 666 became the highest decorated Air crew of WW2.
This crew of Old 666 did the most dangerous missions. Mostly reconnaissance missions.
When that crew became the most experienced crew, leadership refused to give them the most dangerous missions. Sending the crew on standard missions. As the lead bomber. Which is the safest place in the formation.
This doesn't sit well with the pilot or crew, so they make a U Turn after their bombing run. Desend over the Japanese base, and strafe the base. While the rest of the bombers do their bombing run.
The crew of Old 666 gets back to base. The rest of the bomber crews view them as heroes. Leadership is pissed. Leadership was going to Court Martial the entire crew, but there was an Australian reporter who got word of heroism. Writes a story about the mission. The crew of Old 666 are given medals. Leadership is still angry, so leadership starts to give the crew the most dangerous missions again.
A couple more missions where the bombardier is insubordinate. Instead of bombing an officer's club, where there are innocent people. The bombardier takes the plane way off course, and bombs an ammunition dump.
Leadership is pissed because the crew of Old 666 didn't follow orders. So the very next day. The crew of Old 666 is give the exact same mission. The bombardier yet again takes the plane way off course, and bombs a fuel depot. Leadership grounds the entire crew.
The crew figures out, if they want to fly again. They are going to have to acquire a B-17.
So the crew goes to the boneyard to find a B-17. The crew finds a stripped B-17 with the faded tail numbers of 666. This is where they become known as Old 666.
The crew then proceeds to acquire all of the equipment to this wreck fly again. Including 19 Browning M2 .50 machine guns. 4 of those machine guns are spares, In case of a machine gun having a problem mid flight.
While the crew was rebuilding Old 666. They were also learning how to use the Browning M2 .50 machine gun.
Every crew member learned how to use those machine guns. Every crew member learned how to assemble and disassemble the machine guns while blindfolded in 1 minute or less.
For the rest of it, watch the Fat Electrician.
All the pilots had to learn to fly these planes like fighters. To survive they learned to do things they said could not be done.
I once saw Col. Bob Morgan fly a B-17 about 20ft off the runway with the wingtips vertical. He then leveled out, pulled back on the stick and hung it on the props. This was at a show in the 90's
A few historical facts to give some perspective. All these productions are very valuable to introduce WW2 to a new generation. (Band of Brothers, The Pacific and Masters of the Air)
They fall short in the big picture of the war in my opinion.
The Luftwaffe had bombed London and other cities deliberately targeting civilians. 46,000 killed and around 139,000 injured between July 1940 thru May 1941. More would be killed with V1 buzz bombs and V2 rockets. The RAF retaliated by bombing German cities. The RAF bombed at night and practiced "area bombing."
Several "1000 plane raids" were thrown at German cities. Operation Gomorrah in July of 1943, the bombing of Hamburg resulted in 34000 to 40000 civilian deaths and countless wounded.
(Air Marshall Harris of RAF Bomber Command was called "Butcher Harris" by some for these raids.)
The morality of these raids is still debated today. This type of war was only seen briefly in WW1. Now battles were not fought by soldiers on far away battlefields but right over your head in the sky. Was the factory worker making bullets or the train engineer delivering them part of the war?
The RAF and the USAAF 8th Air Force were the only major forces attacking "Fortress Europe" till D-Day." Before then Africa, Sicily and Italy was where the land war was being fought.
From what I have read the Luftwaffe had to keep the equivalent of an Army Group in men, machines and material to face the RAF and USAAF onslaught.
Ultimately it became a war of attrition in which the Luftwaffe was ground down by the spring of 1944.
The introduction of the P-51 and belly tanks for other fighters killed off the Luftwaffe's pilots and they could not replace them.
By June 6th, 1944, they could not offer any real resistance to the invasion.
Flak was however worse at the end of the war because all the flak guns had been moved to Berlin and the big cities.
I flew in a B-17 a few years ago. It was fun. We only went to 3000 ft and it was a warm summer day for a 45-minute flight.
No one was shooting at us! I can only imagine the physical and mental stress of the missions these men flew.
We must never forget them.
That was brutal and no wonder the week of Oct 8-14, 1943 was called Black Week.
People may think that the scene with that bomber being thrown all over the sky is a Hollywood exageration . It was actually depicted almost exactly as described by the crew after the mission. The tail gunner in Rosenthal's plane was credited with 3 kills on this mission and received a medal for his efforts on that day .
The average life expectancy of an 8th airforce aircrewman was 6 weeks.
Planes named after women are interesting, a reminder of why they fight. Since ancient times the warriors who made it back from battle were deemed the most worthy of mating with women, so the driving force of soldiers were to survive to procreate their society with the strongest genes. Humans and war haven't changed over all this time, it's always been about survival of the fittest. Just a thought
They had to fly in formation both for their bomb targetting and to provide fire coverage to each other. Though I would question the sanity of that practice, apparently they thought it was best, and I don't really know anything about planes. Maybe it helps save fuel as well.
As they mention in an earlier episode, once the bombs are dropped they're allowed to manuever at all.
Next episode will be at Stalag 13. That's when the show gets interesting ;)
My adoptive grandfather fought as an airman for Germany he always said he felt uneasy going up against the gunners on American bombers
Also Rosenthal - the pilot who made it back - his grandson is an actor on this show. He plays Lt. Blakely.
The 390th that he mentioned leading the high group was the bomb group that my uncle served in.I think that my uncle was a radioman on a B17.
Also, note this Munster raid was not 16 planes and crews lost in combat. Before the raid developed mechanical problems forced several planes to abort. So, the Munster raid accounts for I think 10 (it might be 11) aircraft shot down and one survivor. Which is still truly terrible casualties, but those other aborted flight crews were not lost.
(Not really a spoiler since this can be seen in the title montage at the beginning of every episode if you watch carefully) Buck is in a Stalag with other captured airmen
this was known as black week in the 8th air force they lost something like over 120 B17s or more during this week alone.
Joseph "Bubbles" Payne didn't actually die on this mission as he wasnt actually on this mission. but i can see why they did adapt it storywise. As he did die on another later mission which was really a ridiculous decision by a later commander of the 100th
The new was really thinking out of the box to maneuver with bomber and don’t give up
harry the gunner that died his body was recovered and buried, was also eventually repatriated to the USA and reburied there.
As I said, in another response from the 1st episode. My dad being 8th Air and LaMay's Crew Chief that picture I have now tells me it was likely taken right after I am this indecent if not others just like this and that expression on his face. I warned you that it was seriously brutal. The loss in crews over 9 months 25,000.
Crosby and his creww were actually on well needed R and R when this mission went down and they had a code with base to see how it went via phone call as well.
It would have been a repeat of the Bucky scene from episode 4 so they probably just skipped it.
The pilot who made it back was Rosenthal.
If you notice in the debrief that the crew looking at the logbook had no info on what happened to the other planes. Crosby as the head Navigator made it is mission to train the other navigators in the group to keep complete logs and would read the navigators logbook after missions to make sure they were complete.
Honestly, how does one keep logs under those circumstances
If you notice in episode in 2, he wanted to get the exact time something happened (I forgot what it was) to put in the logbook and he started to scream at the bombardier to give him the time. He was just that detailed in his job and thought everyone else should be also. It was part of the reason he keeps getting promoted.@@NikkiStevenReact
Fun fact, that's me holding the stretcher at 23:40
Interesting tidbit. The actor Anthony Boyle who plays Major Harry Crosby and is one of the main focuses of next weeks episode will next play John Wilkes Booth (killed Lincoln) in an outstanding series Manhunt coming out on Apple TV. So if you like him in this you should enjoy him in Manhunt.
Before you guys watch anymore of this show, you should watch “The Memphis Belle”. It will fill you in on a lot of terminology, awareness, and information on what you need to know to understand more if this show.
Being the only aircraft left of the whole group gave them the freedom to maneuver as they did. Otherwise they would have had to stay in formation to cover the other bombers.
Rosie is real deal on this one
Black bird is another appletv show you guys should check out. And "SEE" Yellowstone/yellow jackets
Succession also
Maybe warrior
on the future watch list??
October 1943, Black Week, also known as the darkest days of the Army Air Force
11:09 those are victory markings. downed enemy planes.
This and the previous episode shows what happened during the "Black Week" that shocked the 100th group and the 8th Air Force..
It is not 160 men that they lost. It was shown that 4 bombers left the formation due engine failures (but still flyable) and flew back to base. Out of the 13 remaining bombers, only 1 bomber came back, making the bomber group lose 120 men, either KIA or MIA.