"Masters of the Air," the mini series

[Art]

Tom Hanks, Steven Spielberg (and others) continue their in depth look at WWII with a new mini series based on Donald Miller's excellent analysis of the European air war "Masters of the Air - The Bomber Boys Who Fought the Air War Against Nazi Germany." The book is too broad to do a mini series on so it concentrates on Maj. Robert "Rosie" Rosenthal's 100th Bomb Group, "The Bloody 100th" so named for its extremely high loss rate. It'll be the third mini series of its type after "Band of Brothers," and "The Pacific." It's supposed to be out early next year.

Hopefully it'll do justice to the book.

[dogtag]

My Library has the DVD "Bomber Boys"
Is that part of your subject or something separate ?

[Art]

My Library has the DVD "Bomber Boys"
Is that part of your subject or something separate ?

I don't know. The book was published in 2006. As I said its very comprehensive. There has been so much written about the bomber offensive in Europe in WWII, especially about the 8th Air Force. The 15th Air Force in North Africa had a little ditty that went: "Its just the same old story, the 8th gets all the glory as flak goes by."

It was incredibly dangerous work. The European bomber crews had more men KIA than the Marines lost in the Pacific. Now that is a bit misleading because the Marines had higher casualties, but over 3/4 of their casualties were wounded. I had an uncle who fought all the way across Europe with Patton's 3rd Army. He told me he didn't worry much about being killed but he was frightened of being maimed. Air crews didn't have that particular concern; a much higher percentage of Air Force casualties were guys who were killed, in fact most Air Force casualties were killed in combat or died of wounds.

[dogtag]

I doubt many got through all their missions (British was 30)
British started daylight bombing but the casualties were too high.
Night bombing was safer but not safe.

[Art]

I doubt many got through all their missions (British was 30)
British started daylight bombing but the casualties were too high.
Night bombing was safer but not safe.

When Jimmy Doolittle took command of the 8th Air Force he upped the number of missions for American bomber crews from 25 to 30 and then 35. He reasoned crews were being sent home at the peak of their combat efficiency. Obviously the crews didn't like this change and said "we fly the first 25 for America and the last 10 for Jimmy."

All bomber losses were horrific. German night defenses were sophisticated and deadly. Anti Aircraft gunfire was radar controlled and German night fighters were equipped with radar and vectored to the bombers by ground radar stations took an awful toll. One Nazi development was code named "Sharager Music." This consisted of the installation of a couple of 20mm autocannon in the back of a night fighter angled up at a 45 degree angle. The fighter simply flew under the bomber raking it from stem to stern (or more accurately stern to stem) as it passed. Bombers that were a victim of this system didn't know what hit them and it took the Brits over a year to figure out what was actually happening. Like I said, it was really bad, the Avro Lancaster was the workhorse of RAF Bomber Command. Of 7,377 built 3,249 were combat losses. Add in all the Halifax, Wellington and Sterling bombers that went down over Germany as well and one starts to realize how unsafe it really was.

[dryheat]

Radar. I remember in SPR, there was a spider web looking radar set up. Science: it's great, but it can be rough on the troops.
It must have been big fun to take on a lumbering B-17. For a good read- look up the book about the German fighter who escorted a shot up B-17 home. They later became good friends and did tours. It's a real book. Like I've noticed, after the battle some of the guys get together and talk about the fight.