FEW FLIGHT CREWS RETURNED

CAST UNDERSCORES THE HEROES FIGHTING IN THE SKIES OVER EUROPE

By PETER THOMAS BUSCH

The allied bombing raids inside Nazi occupied Europe took a heavy toll on the lives of the airmen operating the B-17 Flying Fortresses.

The personal sacrifices were often only balanced by the camaraderie among the crews and the relationships that would be remembered beyond a lifetime in the Apple TV+ Original streaming series, Masters of the Air (2024).

Austin Butler as Major Gale “Buck” Cleven, Callum Turner as Major John “Bucky” Egan, Anthony Boyle as Lt Harry Crosby, Barry Keoghan as Lt. Curtis Bibbick and Bel Powley as Sandra Westgate represent the cast of thousands of heroic characters defending democracy and freedom during World War II.

Directors Cary Joji Fukunaga (4 episodes) and Anna Boden (2 episodes) get the series underway with the first 6 of 9 episodes as the crews of the B-17 organize and find out just how horribly difficult the missions will be for them.

Dozens of crews join a single bombing run from England to inside Germany, but few planes return to the homebase.

Episodes vary in runtime from 48 minutes to 77 minutes, but each installment is filled with poignant moments detailing the best of humanity and the worst of what can occur during a global war.

Executive producers Gary Goetzman, Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg bring to life the 100^th Bomb Group of B-17 Flying Fortresses, based on a book by Donald L. Miller, who relied on letters and interviews of the surviving airmen.

The 100^th is the third in a series, following Band of Brothers (2001) and The Pacific (2010).

The directors gradually release the shocking casualty rate as the number of planes available and crews for repeat missions become drastically diminished.

Director Boden reverses the plot in Episode 6 when the Prisoner of War camps inside German occupied Europe are revealed to be specifically for the thousands of lost flight crew members that survived their crashing planes during bombing runs.

The narrative then follows the surviving airmen, as a few members of the100th reunite in the camps, and begin to learn to survive together all over again for a different purpose.

Austin Butler plays the senior officer in the 100^th who is presumed killed when his plane does not return from a mission. But Major John “Bucky” Egan, played by Callum Turner, reunites with “Buck” Cleven as he arrives at the Stalag Luft III during August of 1944.

The D-Day Landings are being planned by Episode 8, showing the preparation work in bombing the German airfields in France prior to the allied landings on the beaches of Normandy on June 6, 1944.

Butler and Truner show how the airmen had strong individual personalities, but that they were united in the cause to liberate Europe, and they thereby followed the military chain of command, although begrudgingly at times.

The directors develop the characters through many scenes of the first few episodes, and then begin to sparingly trigger emotional responses as the airmen struggle with the loss of their comrades, while other flight officers find joy in being reunited with lost airmen, although within dire circumstances as the long brutal war slowly draws to a conclusion.

Masters of the Air underscores the strength of character of the thousands of airmen that heroically took part in the battle of the skies over Europe.