Fighter Tales Podcast 6: Masters of the Air

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Hey all on this episode of The Fighter Tales podcast we were joined by our fellow YouTuber and Aviation historian Lord hard Thrasher as of late he’s been putting out a running series on the Eighth Air Force in World War II and I figured he would be the perfect guy to

Come on and talk about Apple Plus’s masters of the air just a heads up I did have a few audio hiccups in the recording so you’ll hear some background noise sorry about that but that being said sit back relax and Enjoy Whoa We are in hey Jord howdy howdy howdy howdy excellent the only s hitch here that I can spot so far is uh we’ve lost our host I had to add myself to Stage my bad okay so good start that’s that I think is sign of a quality podcast when the host

Isn’t actually on the line oh yes of course of course yeah we you know we we have nothing but professionalism here on the uh the fighter Tales podcast once again joined by me Falcon and Jordan and today we have a special guest of ours why don’t you go ahead and introduce

Yourself sir well hello hello uh my name is Lord har rasher 15th Earl of Ambridge and I’m delighted to be here thank you oh we’re we’re definitely happy to have you here today we’re actually going to be going over the new television series that is currently on Apple Plus masters

Of the air a minseries similar to a Band of Brothers covering the actions of the Eighth Air forest in World War II and it’s based on a pair of books um of the air of course and I think uh Wing at a Prayer by uh hold on a second I spaced

On his first name I wanted to call him Bing Crosby but uh no um his name is Harry Crosby also uh fair warning folks um there will be a lot of spoilers in this uh we’re we’re three gentlemen who were very passionate about uh military aviation history and we’re going to be

Talking a little in depth about what we think of the show and you know cover some imperfections things we thought were good good and uh you know this is only covering the first two episodes because as of now uh episode one and two are out episode 3 is coming out this

Friday so you’ll probably be seeing this after that comes out but we’ll uh we’ll go from there itur me we’re doing it totally the wrong moment because actually episode three and four released tomorrow as we record this so uh we we probably should have waited but hey I’m I’m excited about the

Show I am as well um yeah I thought they were coming out Fridays oh interesting my bad oh uh oh sorry you’re quite right I’m getting ahead of myself it’s the second they come out so we’re recording on the 31st so you’re quite right yes we

We are currently yeah the 31st the last day of January make sure you get all of your uh YouTube Affairs in order gentlemen so you can get paid out for the next month sure is that a thing for you guys oh yes oh okay well I mean theoretically

Theoretically yeah I mean Lord hard Thrasher did a very very good job this month I I would I would imagine but can I say as a as a as a proud citizen of the United Kingdom it Delights me no end to be paying tax to the US

Government it all goes full circle you know I just I assume this is just payback for the whole paper thing and for which I can only apologize hey you know what it’s all under the bridge now well strictly speaking it’s in Boston Harbor but yes [Laughter]

Fine okay so anyway um masters of the air um is based directly on U the masters of the air novel uh done by Donald Miller a few years back um like I said before it is following the uh conventions of Band of Brothers and HBO’s The Pacific done by Tom Hanks and

He’s back again for this fantastic series which is I I think it’s very good so far um whether it stays this good is yet to be seen but we’ll we’ll be soon to find out what are your general impressions of the show you guys go Jord

You answer to that um I’m enjoying it I mean I also ascribe to the very I I think like typically in the the history Enthusiast sphere most people are very critical it’s like we we watch Hollywood Productions with like pen and paper and like noting down all the inaccuracies

And discrepancies that we see um like as I’ve the more time I’ve spent um reading and studying these things and like being immersed in it with my my day job and whatnot with regards to like military Aviation and the military in general the less time I actually catch myself doing

That that makes sense sure um so like at this point you know when it comes to a lot of historical inaccuracies or or things like I’m not it’s not really what I’m looking for um so with that that being said you know I I really enjoyed M I enjoy the first two

Episodes of Masters of the year um I also enjoyed the 1990 me Memphis Bell movie which I know gets a lot of flak no pun intended by people of our see what we did see what yeah that was int you were waiting on that one Jordan you held that

Line for a long time I mean I mean it’s funny because it gets a lot of flak because because like in real life the Memphis Bell didn’t get flak on the 21th mission right right right it was a milk run yeah it was over France or

Something yeah um but I do like part of me you know I like that the dad from banded Brothers is a pilot I like that that one scene in that movie where they they play and sing Amazing Grace I can’t tell if the music is supposed to be

Dienic or not at the like the the mission preparation scene but like I love how it’s done and eight nine-year-old me would like watch that scene and then re rewind and watch watch it again you know because I was like man that was so cool um like there were like

I I kind of liked the uh this is a list of everything that could possibly go wrong in a Boeing B7 Flying Fortress aspect of that movie even though it wasn’t super accurate but like yeah yeah like it it like it felt it nailed what I

Perceived the vibe to be if that makes sense it was basically compressing every experience every bad experience of the Eighth Air Force into one mission it’s like it’s like Fury but instead of Sherman tanks it’s flying fortresses yes well yes I think I go the other way

Around I think Fury Fury is the is is the Memphis Bell of tank movies right um damn and that’s true and I I I there’s a very fine balance I think in in like you’re going to go and do something which is supposed to be mainstream entertainment right and a film like M

Memphis Bell hits all of the high notes because it does show you everything as you say they could go wrong during the course of a B7 Mission and and you get it and it’s fine and it doesn’t matter that that that didn’t happen to that crew at that time it happened to other

Crews at other times and that’s fine that’s okay if you watch something the B always slightly Ames me is pel Harbor is one of the worst movies that’s ever been committed to Cel Lloyd um and I mean it just it’s objectively terrible film but some of the most unbelievable scenes are

Actually what really happened um to particular Pilots at particular points in time and it’s a crap film it it doesn’t tell it well whereas I what I really liked about this is it’s taken real historical fact and turned it into something which is watchable in a very

Nice way that somebody that doesn’t know anything at all about b7s or the you know the the the campaign in the etto or anything at all could watch that and go that’s a great narrative and I just think they’ve done a lovely job of taking real historical fact and turning

It into a narrative that you can watch without going oh look you know now they’re loading the bomb load with a particular fuse that was appropriate at the time and just getting lost in the detail which can happen so easily and they just found that balance so

Nicely I I you know you’re bring up a good point um and that like the way that they they balance that very very beautifully um and also like for people who are very who are like lost in the sauce when it comes to World War II etto movies like the bomber movies almost

Feel formulaic right there’s the mission in the beginning and the big mission where everyone dies or [ __ ] goes down and then at the end they come back and people are safe and everyone’s relieved and kissing the ground right but like what I like what IIs of the year has the

Potential of doing is creating that almost like a psychological Thriller feeling of like every Mission you see the cast go on could very well be their last yeah every every episode is bound to have multiple missions right so like how do you know this one isn’t the big

One yeah I mean that’s the kind of vibe oh sorry go ahead okay okay well I mean that’s how it would have been for the crews too you know they they would do their 25 missions sometimes more and they didn’t know waking up at 3:00 a.m. having a flashlight shine in their face

If this would be the quote unquote one you know they didn’t know if they were going to end up coming back home they didn’t know if they were going to end up being killed or end up in a stal glft and then they would do their mission come back if they were

Lucky get back into their racks and realize they had to do it all over again the next day sometimes and and they’ve been told that you know prior to deploying that they were they were going to win the war and they’d all you know certainly the beginning and I think what

Master the air captures very nicely is this feeling that there are a bunch of guys who’ve all trained together they’ve all learned how to fly together they’ve all gone to Europe at roughly the same time some of them have gone a bit earlier and got a taste of what it’s

Really like but most of them haven’t they all know one another at this point because there’s no Replacements yet and they think they’re going to win the war with the next mission it’s just going to take one more and we’re done and it’s slowly Dawning on them actually

Not slowly Dawning on it’s Dawning on them rapidly that this is a repetitive attritional fight that they’re in and that and that might be because you know the three of us probably know the history well enough to be able to sense that dread and that breaking of

Naivity but it I think they’ve handled it really well I think they’ve handled it beautifully oh beautifully so yeah and what really is just a constant reminder in the show is these guys doing these missions are 18 19 up to 25 generally and honestly you know our core audience on YouTube if

You’re listening to this right now I guarantee you you’re you’re probably in that age range where you would have been like eligible for this kind of horrible horrible task at hand and um it just I I just wanted to convey that you know it’s it was it was awful for literal

Kids and I think what they’ve done so nicely in this is they’ve so if you watch um you know one of the best films ever made uh no not one of the best film ever made I’m just going to go on a limb here uh which is quite clearly the

Battle of Britain from 1969 yeah I mean it’s unquestionably the best film ever made but but if you look at the actors that they got in to do that although you know people like Michael Kane for example we all know him from years and years and years of making

Films thereafter but he was still at that point 10 years too old to have been a fighter pilot in the Battle of Britain he was 32 and most of the guys flying were in their early 20s at their latest you know an old man was 27 you know EXO typically

Typically 25 to 30 and if you were 30 you were right on the extreme edge of it and what I love is they’ve got either very young actors or actors that look like they’re very young to be the cruise and you’re looking at boys who clearly don’t shave you know they didn’t right

They were too young um you’re literally taking a 19-year-old and putting him in as Skipper of a crew um and giving him that responsibility you’re taking a a 22y old and saying to him right you’re you’re a squadron leader now or a wing leader now um yeah and you got to go do

It I mean as an older man and I’m going to go on a Lim here and assum more a little bit older than both of you guys uh I look look at that and go when I was 22 to there is no way in God’s green earth you should have given me control

Over my credit card never mind V7 right oh I spent years paying off my credit card debt that I Rec at the at the age of 22 right yeah yeah yeah we all done it like if we were to be thrust into a B7 crew or just you know the the

Military service in in 1942 uh Lord hard Thrasher would probably a great War veteran and me and Jordan would be old men oh wow okay dude you’re you’re curing me I’m not saying it’s not true but sugar okay actually you know what the slightly terrifying thing is I’m actually

Probably slightly too old for that as well B war or I probably would have served in the B War yeah yeah he would have would have been like like our age flying Hawker hearts in Egypt you know what I mean he got his wings over Zulu land [Laughter]

Wings my brother in Christ there were no planes when I saw I would have been [ __ ] riding into he would have been a balloon observation officer or something abely right um by the way I do apologize if I if I make the occasional swear word I

Apologize I should try to keep to an absolute minimum me and Jordan for all the [ __ ] time it’s fine okay fine yeah uh but yeah you know yeah yeah it is an insane it’s an insane concept to say you’re going to give young men this kind of responsibility and Challenge and so

Many of them Rose to it then and I love the fact that they’ve taken younger actors and put them in those key roles I think that’s great the coroller to that most like criticism and it’s a it’s absolutely a Trope of um of American films and I don’t know quite why you’ve

Got there’s uh the EXO can’t remember his name um is is is clearly being portrayed as an alcoholic they really wanted to make him like the Nixon like from B Banda Brothers is always like because yeah like Nixon was only bad like later on in

The series and it truth truth be told he he did like his drink and I don’t know I I have not read Ms of the air yet um like the book I probably will after the series is over but so good to it I can I

Can see how one would go down that path but I don’t know if it would be feasible for an EXO to do something along those lines I I don’t know I if if anybody else knows more about it please inform me but don’t give us any spoilers

Because uh you know we’re still excited about what’s to come I mean I think I think it’s worth bearing in mind obviously you’re coming into in the state in particular off the back of prohibition and drinking age being 21 um a lot of these just in case because on our end

You were kind of breaking up a little bit Lord hard Thrasher he was he was basically just saying uh you know you really didn’t have much access to alcohol because most bases were dry I mean you could get a few beers here and there um but it wasn’t like you would be

Going out drinking every night like right stuff Style he dig every night oh yeah well I mean fair enough they’d been dealing with this [ __ ] since 1939 so we doing it for a while yeah so on that note um let’s delve into episode one specifically um starts off in the United

States um they’re getting ready to fly over to uh to their bases in England and we’ve got our two main characters buck and Bucky one of one of the most interesting things about that depict of them getting over to England is the stop over in I think it was Greenland yeah

Yeah yeah and you never really see that kind of thing in most media dep picking the bombers like they had a it wasn’t just like a straight shot across the Atlantic they had to make stops along the way and they would sometimes have awful conditions getting down I I

Imagine some crews could have been lost even in just the transit across the Atlantic but they’ve actually they’ve actually made it less bad than it was in the film uh in the first episode because the particular Airbase that they’re depicting um was actually the end of fud

So you had to radio ahead and ask whether the weather was clear because if you went in to go and try and put the bomber on the ground and the weather was bad you did not have room to pull up off the Runway before you hit the mountain behind

It so these kids who are still learning their jobs albeit with unladen b7s had to fly down this fi and once you’re in you’re committed so you have to land or you hit the mountain oh I kind of I kind of I know why they didn’t do that

Because it makes it look stupid and over dramatic but that was actually the case it was that Greenland route was flipping horrible and after a while they figured out this was Dumb and they actually wound up when going south and they went Brazil to the aor

Uh um and up that way okay that’s really interesting i’ actually like to see them depict that later on but I doubt they will because they’ll already be in theater so they’ve got that bit done right they only only got one episodes yeah yeah but you know I do appreciate

Them depicting that because it was a very treacherous thing to do you know getting fresh you know Army aircore Crews into the the most trying flying conditions right before they go into hell over uh over occupied Europe and there’s a nice bit in there where they’ve got a a

Crashed B17 at the end of the runway um as kind of as as an because it did happen right know okay so watch is if you rewatch it you’ll see as they come in uh and I can’t remember it’s Buck or Bucky because I’ve got confused now too

But as he’s coming in in the background there’s a crash B7 huh that’s pretty great that’s a nice touch yeah that’s attention to detail that not a lot of shows have well it’s it’s funny because like I feel like this masters of the year does a thing where

Like there’s a lot of really minute um attention to to detail like I guess like just like little tiny tiny details that most audiences aren’t going to notice um yeah and like even then I know like uh Kyle you and I talked about this briefly on Twitter but like in the

Episode where they’re attacked by bf110 and they’re called out as a j88 like misidentification was actually a real thing right but like some viewers may see that misidentification and be like wow the show made made a mistake absolutely um there are a few um obvious things that are a little wrong

When Crosby’s giving one of his narrations about one of the ground crewmen he’s wearing master sergeant stripes and I did some research he was actually a master sergeant in real life they call him a Corporal which was very that’s a very simple thing for this kind of I don’t know

This show yeah the costume did it correct but the narration was wrong yeah yeah the narration was absolutely wrong um his name he’s an yeah yeah yeah yeah when he’s playing with the British kids you know the one what’s really actually sad is one of the British kids is

Missing a hand probably from the blitz or something but um oh what’s his Name lemons lemons Lem okay yeah yes lemons is not a corporal he is as depicted a master sergeant um he’s one of the head uh maintenance guys crew chiefs uh for the hundredth bomb uh Bomb Group and I I don’t know why they made that error um he obviously would have

Been a Corporal at one point but I do my cap to the sir uh as your level of nerd I had completely missed that so well done oh thank you thank you I mean well you you probably also know um you know British ranking con conventions over

American and whatnot I I would imagine you know I it’s it’s one of the things I fall down on really badly is uh I I I know RAF ones but you you asked me to do army ones and I and I get confused which is bad because so I really should know

What’s really interesting about American and British um stripe conventions is they’re pretty much the same but the British have theirs pointing downwards whereas Americans flipped theirs over after the American Civil War oh yeah and and you guys have have weird up and down Chevrons I mean oh yes

One I mean what the hell my brother in Christ we have like 10 [ __ ] Stripes going in each Direction guys seriously uh one two three officer well I suppose you get warrant officer but you know fine whatever put a crown on it you know yeah

Yeah oh I mean I would say put a star on it but you know yeah fine but yeah it’s it’s it’s really interesting how accurate they get in a lot of details in the show but like that Corporal thing just really stood up to

Me I was like wait a minute how did they [ __ ] that up because that’s like that’s like six ranks apart and and I think if you I’ve listened because I’m a giant nerd to some of the guys making the the the making of series bits of it and people

Talking about it and they went to such lengths to for example get the particular variations that the characters that they’re portraying actually used in real life in their uniforms um you’ll notice for example there are a couple of different colored ties that people are using because those

People had older ties or newer ties because they were old they’ve been in the Air Force for less or more time I and I was blown away that they did that I was like that’s so cool I’m disappointed with the stripes thing yeah yeah the stripes thing is

Just like it’s so weird because it’s so obvious um but the the ties I did notice in episode one um Buck he’s got I I think he’s got a a chocolate tie and that was a yeah pre- 1941 regulation tie and after 41 they switched over to the tan ties and

Um I I’m sure I’ve got some reenactors in this in this viewership who the lady that fittings for the for the costumes was asked the question how many costumes did you fit she said I I stopped counting at 3,000 holy [ __ ] wow it’s a nine episode series that’s

Insane yeah and it’s really interesting because most of the central cast is officers for the first time in this entire Trilogy of World War II sagas when they all would have had fitted uniforms because yeah en listed uniforms were not fitted you would just get like small medium large etc etc

Based on like you know your chest size officers uniforms they would get a general pattern for and then they would go get him tailored um so it’s not in master the but it’s one of my favorite facts about um the US appearance in the United Kingdom when uh

Later in the war they recognized that flat uh wounds were a serious issue um so you needed some kind of protection and they literally gave them what we would think of today as Flack jackets but actually they were made made of chain mail like well who the hell makes

Chain mail so they’re in England and they went to Wilkinson Sword who make swords for the king at the time Queen more Rec and wilon sword produced their Flack jackets at made of CH mail and all the helmets and all the rest of it literally taking patterns from you know ceremonial

Uh armor and you’d go oh God you know Jesus you know how how inept and the rest of it it re used Flack wounds by 58% and the RAF the RAF went we’re not doing that go seriously give our kids a chance and in particular of course one

Of the areas that they managed to protect quite effectively was the Ghoulies because guess what Flack comes upwards and what do young men care about it’s their goues um for all of my American viewers he’s talking about balls um there’s actually a really interesting point in episode two where uh

You know one of the bombardiers you know puts a helmet down under his crotch and it’s like you know what I’d probably do the same thing and I I didn’t know that about the chain mail thing it’s almost like if rup price glory or uh at the front started making military equipment

For a modern military crazy and and and it gave the it’s one of the saddest facts is when they were going into these box barrages which they began to so as as the Germans began to learn that the b7s wouldn’t turn during the course of of an attack

They created box barrages over an estimated height so that they wouldn’t have to fire at a particular bomber they’d fire at an area that the bombers were going to fly into and you put enough Flack up there so initially they were using about 8,000 rounds to bring a

Bomber down and by doing that they brought it down to about 1500 it’s still a lot but it’s less um so you were getting a lot of flat damage and it it is coming up and you’re a young man and like genuinely you’re a young man often

You’re stood up if you’re the nav or a gunner um and and you’re worried about what’s going to come up literally between your legs um and you don’t want to be unmanned by this stuff so you would go and find your helmet you would go and find a bit of armor plating and

You would try and stand on it or sit on it and that when I read that my honestly I teared up a bit I was like flipping out guys that’s hardcore around this time German guns weren’t just directed by Optical I mean so you you would have a pretty

Rudimentary Radar Radar guided Gun Site that would give you ranging and then from there you would um you know line your Optics up and hit the group and it was a very indiscriminate sort of barrage they would do and it would just be a cloud of flak that would detonate almost

Simultaneously and just punch holes into these bombers from below the side above every Every Which angle but the guys were wanting to protect protect the jewels you know well you know you don’t think as a young man I’m gonna lose a foot or an arm you think I want to be

Capable like even if you lose an arm youd still get a nut you know yeah trust me you know with enough enough questions you can still get la with one arm it’s not a big problem uh yeah I think it was Apocalypse Now they had a similar

Scene when they’re all riding in on the helicopters and the uh the Cavalry guys who were the door Gunners and whatnot they’re they’re putting their helmets underneath they’re you know they’re sitting down on them and stuff it it’s just a very telling thing that it’s been

Going back even to World War II you know you you’ve got guys sitting on their helmets just you know bringing up plates like you said and that that chain mail that you mentioned is just such a comfort thing for him you know sure gives him confidence him confidence yeah

And you would need it you know 30,000 feet you’re looking down through a nordon bomb site which probably isn’t going to hit [ __ ] probably cloud cover over the target which I really appreciated in episode one the first bombing R they did they had to cancel they just cut it and ran even though

They lost three three uh b7s because that happened a lot it it certainly did and it did happen at Breman the first time they went in and I sort of appreciated again it’s a minor criticism just because I’m a history nerd sure the the the Breman raid was a very small

Raid designed to go to Germany knowing that they weren’t ready to go to Germany because they had to go to Germany as quickly as possible um and then they didn’t go again basically until um I’ll get my dates wrong uh but but I mean the first

Big raid was schweinf for right that was the first big longdistance penetration raid and so you go from Breman in end of 42 to basically August 43 before they went back to Germany yeah because they got the [ __ ] shout of them when when they went over

Germany the first time back in 42 they just the attrition was so bad and they had no fighter cover it was a mess and they just didn’t have enough bombers I mean they just the insane thing with the hold of the buildup of the eighth is it

Starts so small and then it was going to progress and become bigger but because of torch so Operation Torch The Landings in North Africa and the need to go and support that campaign and then the invasion of Italy and well Sicily and then Italy um what had supposed to be

Very large scale reinforcement of the eth Air Force to go and bomb Germany actually slowed down to a trickle there were really from June 42 to November 42 they were no reinforcements at all coming into the UK it was all going to Africa so they they they just didn’t

Have the the planes to do it I think Breman was 60 I want 60 70 aircraft something like that in the show was depicted as just like three flights of like eight it felt like a very small rid compared what compared to what you see in like Memphis Bell you know it was

Sure a small package like the uh the one section that ended up getting really wrecked by Fighters which was a very good depiction of fighter threats uh it was only like five or six guys or five or six bombers five five planes per section or like six planes per section

Or something yeah and they they just got ruined immediately when the fighters went through they just ripped through them and it was a very honest and rather gory depiction of it which their depiction of sh that was really accurate yes that was really really cool because like you rely see shrapnel like ripping

Through airplanes the way that it was shown in um in matches of the year I I totally agree totally agree and and there’s a bit where there’s a bit where a ball turret Gunner the belly Gunner um gets a piece of shrapnel Landing next to his head and uh you

Might be inclined to go [ __ ] hell Hollywood you know of course it has to land next to his head no no no that genuinely happened to that crew at that time time uh and he genuinely wound up with a bit of shrapnel buried next to his head um and it makes sense too

Because that’s where the armor actually was because the armor was actually behind the crewman it was all aluminum and GL or plexiglass in front of them so behind him they had a little section of um steel armor that’s just how the SP ball turret was set up and that’s where

The strap ended up Landing sorry I I totally cut you off but absolutely I mean I I was merely going to comment that this is punishment for short people and Justified frankly well to be fair the SP ball turret was rated for gentlemen up to 6

Foot two I think yeah but okay seriously my brother in Christ I mean if you were 59 58 you were too to get the thing I mean I’ve tried believe me I um on the uh the movie Memphis Bell in a it was up in genesio for a bit and I looked into

The Balter and I was like no no I I’m I’m a I’m a guy who’s 6′ three I don’t know what that is in meters maybe like two met no no I speak I speak feet in height okay okay we’re very confused like we’re very very confused people and we all try and

I’m with your feet fine no problem okay okay fair enough yeah it just I looked into that and I’m like there’s no [ __ ] way I’m getting my knees up to my my jaw right it’s just not going to happen I’m doing that for like eight

Hours in that I mean how how the hell do you did you did the ball tur Gunner actually stay in the ball my assumpt like I always thought that they were hang on in the in the fuse Lodge and then they got into the ball turret when

They got over like the bombing zone or or the target it depended I mean like if you cross the English Channel and got over France that’s when you would get in because in episode one we see the navigation error and immediately when you’re going over the the coast of

France you would get Flack so especially in the early days you would get in the ball righties are going over the coast okay and stay in that ball until you hit your Target and came back and only then will you get out so that’s like that’s probably six

Hours well if you think yeah if if you if you think uh schweinf when the um when the fighter escort peeled off so uh in the August raid when the fighter escort peeled off they had four ass to go to the Target sorry four hours there

And back from the target two hours each oh Jesus yeah it was not a fun time like imagine being in a fetal position as an adult [Laughter] I also like psychologically I mean back to what we talk about a minute ago I don’t want to bang on about this but no

By all means if you if you if you’re if you’re in the ball turret and you’re in that position you’ve got feet roughly a shoulders width apart on on the uh turret controls left and right right and everything go up and down you’re kind of sat there with frankly your legs are

Kimbo with you and 30,000 ft to the ground and some angry man in fw190 trying to kill you who’s basically going to be aiming for your testicles first um yeah and that’s that’s not a great deal of fun I would suggest no no not at all and plus you’re you’re

On oxygen if you’re lucky you can bring your parachute with you but otherwise you just have a simple little you know canvas strap holding you in place in case the ball breaks open sure and it was just it was [ __ ] you know and I I I will say the the attrition of Balter

Gunners was was not any more than you know waist Gunner or tail Gunner but no it was just unpleasant to be in I think you know B7 generally was a quite a survivable platform compared to a lot of the other planes that were being flown so you kind of

Lived and died as a crew barring Flack broadly or Cannon shells coming through the through the through the fuselage but you you you by and large either all got out or didn’t yeah yeah I mean on once the uh the plane gets into a spin or departs and

Just loses control it starts breaking up immediately it it would be very quick which is not something you really see in Memphis Bell or previous iterations of World War II bomber combat well actually so you know how they had that craft Landing uh sequence or actually they had

Like a couple craft Landing sequences they all got into the middle of the airplane and in their bracing positions I thought that was really cool that was a nice touch yeah well if you look at Memphis they do that too actually they don’t make a big deal out of it but they

Do that too like most of them get circle around Danny the the radio operator and um you’ve got the the Navigator who is a he’s going through a midlife crisis as you do and he um he cranks the wheel down and you know everybody bounces to life and everything’s all nice and happy

But they’re all clustered in the um the area around the radio room because that’s easiest way to get out I I need to rewatch that movie but like I I did notice that that they removed the uh the window from the top of the airplane yeah I me Jordan I think you’re absolutely

Right I I thought that was a lovely touch oh yeah they showed the proper crash because in Memphis Bell they don’t but in this they show the the actual crash and Brace positions and all the guys sat down on the floor braced together uh just thought it was a lovely

Touch and how [ __ ] terrifying you know you might be coming into Landon manston or somewhere in England and it’s a friendly base at least but how terrifying that would be because these planes were not safe before any bastard decided to try and shoot you yeah yeah what was nice crash panels

Right how do you get out quick where you make sure you can egress fast if you have to it was almost like they knew the audience would have seen Memphis Bell before this and they were trying to bait him into getting really really worried so when they did the wheels up

Landing and they you know did the belly landing and whatnot um there was this like really really big amount of tension where oh the plane’s goingon to explode because it did happen quite a lot sure and um it was just a really nice I don’t know depiction of well and

And the way that they tried to crank the wheel down and fail because the mechanism had Frozen yeah yeah I’m sure that happened a lot too definitely happened I mean Frozen either because it’s temperature or frozen because there’s something in there right you know what’s really

Interesting is that um my dad was uh he didn’t often fly on c130s because he was an aeral Porter but he knew a lot about the aircraft because he you know had to the C130 still maintained that wheel crankdown system did it even yes I I think it

Still has it today if if if there are any C130 j crews here please confirm this but um on the H that he worked on they I’ll text now oh you know one beautiful um yeah on the H he was on you know they they learned you know hey if

You’re on this thing and the wheels aren’t coming down you can crank it down just like a B17 now you see this is this is the basic design problem with American aircraft what you want there’s a nice Blackburn Beverly because you didn’t have to crank the wheels down because

They never came up easy oh [ __ ] for the audience that may not just quickly Google that and you will see the joy of 1950s British design and yeah retractable undercarriage what’s that awesome so my guy responded he’s a coast guard C130 crewman and the c130j still does have the hand

Crank to lower the the wheels and the flaps so even in our the year of Our Lord 2024 80 years after the B17 was a relevant for line bomber we still have crank toown wheels so we we were chatting before we came on on on this about like

Experiences so back in the day I did I did some stuff with um uh the the thef grand crew and and various bits and pieces because I was going to go try and go fly for them which didn’t work out but by the way um the hunter Hawk sorry

Hun Hawk the the the the hawk aircraft which is what the Red Arrows use today has a yeah it has a has a a little neat thing so if you lose hydraulic pressure you can push a button that explosively drops down the undercarriage which is really cool that’s great and then into

The airflow to try and get your Hydraulics to work which is basically going to do everything else you’re all your control surfaces you get a little tiny mini propeller it looks like a thing like peew Herman would have on his head you’re talking about the turbine yeah yeah man head It’s [ __ ] amazing

It pops out into the airflow and this thing spins round and gives you well actually what it probably does is piss out your hydraulic fluid from all the holes you’ve got but um it’s kind of cool uh yeah give me give me a hand crank any day yeah absolutely

Like it’s a good backup for something like so when you’re in a single engine plane or a single crewman plane it’s not like you can crank stuff down but no a turbine is it’s a good backup you know also well I mean in in in the spit in

The spit mark one and spit Mark 2 you had a hand pump to get the undercarriage down oh You’ literally hand crank it but it wasn’t a crank it was a it was a pump to get pressure to pneumatic pneumatic system so if it didn’t go down you’d

Have a handle that you pushed up and down the 14 tat something like that actually if there was really yes it did um it wasn’t for the landing gear I can’t remember what it was for I think it was just like an auxiliary just like General hydraulic backup because I mean

A tomcat notoriously easy to land with almost really nothing to do other than just put it on the deck right aside for the swing Wings the flap controls the canopy position there you’ve only got 55 things to do it once right yeah exactly exactly you know

I I’ll show it to you in the uh the Sim sometime but yeah I I think especially the early ones I don’t know if the D still had it but um yeah like in A’s and B’s there was a there was a hydraulic hand pump because you know how the

Uh the eth Air Force when they first got like the the b-24s that were used in The pelti Raid yeah those were supposed to go to the e and they were taken from the eth and they were in P instead that goes back to the whole like Mediterranean

Theater thing yeah right so like like like like those were yeah so like what par was saying earlier about like how they didn’t have Replacements like those were like they were kind of banking on those liberators well it was it was actually slightly worse than that because the

They were the only two groups of liberators that eeka had at the time um and they were they REM liberators from the entirely and brought them to the MTO so two of them were pulled and I’m going to get this slightly wrong because it’s been a while since I loed it but there

Were the two groups of liberators that eeka had were sent south and I think I want to say the 12th which was the rest of the force was another eight um but yeah the the only two that he had B2 24s at the time were sent south yeah so when did they eventually

Get B24 back pass I don’t I I don’t know the exact date they got them back um well after pesty there weren’t many left uh so you didn’t get any of those back um but I I I I mean this kind of the point it’s making a minute ago like

The the the relatively small size if you look in August the size of the eth Air Force you’re talking about raids of maybe a 100 planes is by February of 44 you’re talking about raids of 600ish that’s a massive increase by by the time you get to post

D-Day raids let’s say four five months later you’re talking about raids of 800 aircraft maybe 900 aircraft of bombers plus 1,200 fighter escorts that is an insane rate of growth I mean oh absolutely it’s I mean if you if you’re being rude about the American contribution to the war you can make an

Argument that the ETO theater particularly the eth but let’s say the eth and the 15th together um only fight for 18 months really it’s on paper but what that misses is this exponential growth in strength so by at the point of operation gamor which was Hamburg the RAF raids on Hamburg

They put 800 aircraft over Hamburg in about 40 minutes which is at night um with no bomber formations so if you think about a stream cracking through America uh through American good Lord through German defenses that’s insane and it takes the US 12 months to get to the point where

They can do something like that but then they go from 800 to, 1600 to 2,000 by May 45 that’s incredible and they’re cranking out a a B24 every 58 M every 58 minutes at a Willow Run right so like precisely that’s it that’s it it’s Willow Run it’s the production

Capability of the United States and and at the same time the skill and the training of the pilots that are going through is still exceptionally High whereas if you look at the lota’s response to try to do the O stop which is the push to fighters in

44 where you see this big SP going up in the numbers that shar’s producing of of Fighters to go to the front line you’re getting Pilots coming through with 30 40 hours on the machine a basically trained us P-51D pilot is coming through with 350 hours

And there are 2,000 of them there are so many Pilots they don’t have enough machines to fly and they’re pulling lottery tickets to see who goes and flies on that on that raid it’s in it’s just a qualitative and quantitative difference and and that’s why essentially they destroyed the German

Ability to resist in the air yeah no I that that makes sense um I mean even in I think it was episode two no it was one um yeah you only see a handful of Fighters coming up against the bombers it’s sure very minuscule against you know what you would expect

For a proper intercepted defense even in 1942 it’s and I think we’ll see that change right I think as we go into I mean schinfield there were call it 400 ballpark 400 ler Fighters engaged against the the the boeings as the Germans would have called

It yeah um and and that was kind of a Maxima event and every now and again Gallant would pull together enough fighters to be able to really go and Hammer a raid but that’s as many as it got um and then and then you know from let’s say

October 44 no earlier than that June July 44 they were in no position to do that again except very occasionally I mean as ineffective as oh Jordan go ahead no no I was just agreeing with you yeah okay you know even as ineffective as bombers would have been

42 43 the moment we started doing the daylight bombing along with the raf’s night bombing that just taxed the uh German defenses so much yeah that I think it it was just over by that point they would have had to have a 24-hour watch yeah like that they could have not not do

Anything right they had they had to do something they had to send up their their planes they had to intercept they had to put their pilots at at risk that bleeds their bleeds them out of fuel out of personnel out of ammunition like even that alone I I

Would even go out on limb to say that might have been more effective than the daylight bombing campaign just the fact that we were up there oh no no no I mean 1,000% so if you look at forgive me I’m gonna get really nerdy on

Here for so sure so forgive me guys but so if you look at so if you look at the moment that Schwan foot 2 and in October 43 um something like half of the eth Air Force is destroyed in the preceding eight weeks and and and and and on that raid it had

To stop so they paused bad weather rolled in gave eeka some Breathing Room Hap Arnold fires him brings in dittle in January 44 and ditt immediately goes right to the Fighters and people like zamar and we goes [ __ ] trying to stay close to the bombers your job is to destroy the enemy

Fighters because if we destroy the enemy Fighters we can bomb whatever the hell we want but you’ve got to kill the fighters so don’t stay close to the bombers they’ll do what they’ll do you guys go ahead go behind go above go below whatever you need to do your job

Is to destroy the LT buffer Fighters and so from February in big week middle of Feb they get a few days of clear weather they they launch thing called operation argument and they go and absolutely nail the L buffer by going to Target places that they have to

Come up and defend so you’re forcing the luffer to fly and you’re shooting them down with far superior much more skilled fighter pilots in better kit and you destroy the ler fighter capability if you’re sat on a bomber you’re a tethered goat your job is not what you’re dropping bombs on is completely

Irrelevant and they knew it by the way which makes the fact that they went up again and again that much more amazing but they simply could not go and hit those targets the way that they thought they could Before the War what they were bombing was basically irrelevant didn’t

Matter it was just to go and make the L offer fly and for the fighters to shoot them down now if you’re a Bomber Crew that’s an awful story but if you’re a fighter Crew That’s strategically the right thing to do so weirdly the bomber War wasn’t about bombers it was about Fighters

And what’s really interesting is that despite all the [ __ ] that was thrown at the uh the eth Air Force they never broke no they got pretty low but they they never broke they still went up whenever they were asked to and they bomb their targets as accurately as they

Could within you know a click or so and well they do it all again the next day two 2% 1,000 yards on average roughly yeah okay so three clicks just about the eth Air Force Museum in Savannah Georgia um they do a really good presentation like of just how how

The whole like I guess one I love how the museum is set up and it’s one of the closer museums to where I live currently um so that’s always always a plus yeah but like so that they they have this thing where like you walk in um and you

Kind of like sit through like a briefing in in like the setup of a Quan and they kind of and like they’ll they’ll tour guide will like show you or give you like a briefing and also explain to you um what the Quan Hut like what the representation is and like what all

These little like different things do um I I remember how there was like a space heater in one I was like yeah like that that was a luxury because it got really really cold in Europe like in in England at times and there’s like a bunch of

Dudes living in here you know and then they take you out in on like a kind of like a 4D experience thing where they blow air and they they flash uh lights at you and they play like an IMAX presentation of like a bombing raid that they recorded I think they recorded it

On Texas Raider unfortunately um so it’s kind of sad but like they had a bunch of re actors like playing parts and then that’s kind of when it opens up and you go into the actual Museum but like they they definitely um like with all the exhibits showing you

Know different aspect effect of like like every Squadron every wing of the eth Air Force had like its own own exhibit and they kind of tell you it’s oh yeah like these people were doing this thing and those people were doing this thing oh look here’s RF Albury a

Giant awful explosion here happened and that’s when they realize they had to start teaching ground Crews how to load bomb safely in 1943 like there’s all these things that you realize whoa like there’s a real human element here and like but also the scary the sad thing was these humans

Were like cogs in the machine you know these kids really kids right and and like you know but like they were the Eighth Air Force like as a whole was being run as a very very very efficient machine and like this 20- yearold waste Gunner who like his job was to cover

Like the left side of of the airplane right so the airplane could you know drop four bombs and like get the L FAA to come up and shoot at them but like his job was was like so you know in the grand scheme of things inconsequential but he would go up and

Do the same thing every day yeah yeah and and and it did get better and I’ll be really interested to see if masters of the air starts to show the fighters because that progression is really interesting and there’s a whole story arc there but there’s also a piece

Where um so if you read Don Miller’s book masters of the air there’s a bit where he talks about about um a pilot that got a home run so they got shot down landed in France I think it’s France maybe Holland managed to make it

Back all the way back to their base in the UK eventually oh my God and he he he gets back to his base and he’s looking for you know his bicycle which has been nicked uh his money which has gone missing his uh bedding and clothing had

Obviously been cleared out and sent home right because he’s a Mia and they clear out his room and he turns back up on base and he did 23 something Mission something like that and by the point he gets back again they’re being asked to

Do 35 oh my God 35 44 he’s talking to ball turret Gunners and side Gunners who’ve never seen a German fighter attack them and they’re getting through their tours in 12 weeks because they’re flying every day and there’s nothing opposing them and then you go home and everything’s cool oh yeah

Oh and suddenly the rm4 rocket turns r4m rocket turns up and life becomes Jolly uncomfortable again but how common was the r4m rocket not very okay not very at all um it came in in 45 uh it was a very nasty tool prior to that I mean

You got frankly insane stuff like um 109s with a single bomb on the bottom of them flying over formation and just dropping it through the formation that worked uh you got Emy uh one Zer coming in from the side firing basically ground attack Rockets into the formations again because they weren’t dodging because

They’re trying to create the box that kind of worked but the the r4m was a was an [ __ ] it was a really nasty a toar projectile really unpleasant used and you could aim it right so so the ground attack stuff kind of went where it went um you know it

Flew all over the place and particularly high altitude to go anywhere and sometimes it hit sometimes it missed but the r4m was a [ __ ] so for anyone who doesn’t know the r4m was a radio controlled um rocket it would have a flare in the ass end of it you could

Guide it into a bomber it would blow up and it it was a late War tool but it was the first true air-to-air missile if you think about it yeah yeah um but and then you you also have the SRA kamado Elba who were the raming the

Raming guys they were they were kind of rare I you I I I’d really like to see if the series covers that later on and again they were pretty rare right I mean actually they operated for about two months yeah it was it was radio controlled oh okay I thought you were

Talking about like that weird cuz I I thought the r4m was the one that they carry like eight of them under the wings or something of like a two 262 uh I Think They Carried a few of them I don’t know how many they car oh you know what you’re right you’re right

I’m thinking of the um I think it was the fritz the fritz about Fritz Fritz X I think which is the yes the r4m was a rocket that was unguided I’m sorry yeah um know enough about it I just I it was it was certainly a thing and it

Certainly caused some concern and you could far I the 262 r4m thing is um kind of archetypal because it’s you know jet aircraft and the greatest fighters of World War II um but it was incredibly rare in reality because the 262s were incredibly rare I mean they only made

250 of them oh actually that’s not true they made, 1500 of them but they were about let’s say 300 in combat uh it was exceptionally rare and it was well pants um it exploded all the it was basically a prototype web a bit like the comet but slightly better sorry I’m

Thinking of the um the rol X4 okay it was it was wire guided sorry I I I I got things confused you know that’s one that has like the wooden Wings right yeah yeah and it’s got the little like you know knobs on the end of

It it yeah yeah looks A Buck Rogers yeah um my favorite my favorite of all these is that is not really air to air but I have to tell the story because we’re chatting about this the schle which was basically uh you got a well initially because it’s Germany and it’s

Nazi Germany they got a 500 kilogram bomb and they went a th000 kilogram bomb and they went a 2,000 kilogram bomb and they attached it to well there’s no other to describe it it’s a toe bar it’s a toe bar with a V1 wing on the back go

Look this up right so called the and go look this [ __ ] up and they put it behind a 262 with a little V1 like flying bomb Rock uh pair of wings on the top of it and flew it behind the 262 and then they wondered why it was dangerous

Uh and you know you’re you’re flying your 262 along which has been built by slave labor most of whom are not your greatest fans and weirdly your electrics regularly failed and they decided to abandon the trials after they had to land a two th000 kilogram bomb behind a

262 scrap across the runway and somehow explode and they went maybe we could find another way that’s funny that’s a mess what happens when building your bombs you know don’t want it to go off either yeah yeah you’re GNA get your you know you’re nice man who’s been trapped

In a concentration camp for three years and somehow survived and you go could you please build this really comp complicated piece of electrical kit well his response is going to be certainly M fur no problem at all oh dear I slipped with a soldering iron guess what your

Button does how’d you like that you Nazi ass bed it’s pretty funny some of the sabotage that went on in the concentration camps I mean seriously the guut my V BR diss track is going to be so awesome when I finally release it like two years from now

It’s a big project because like that man was an absolute piece of [ __ ] and you know it it it’ll he was not the father of modern American rocketry I’m just saying he was um very good at talking to Disney whereas Carol bossart who was a Belgian expat he was the one who

Actually developed the uh Atlas rocket who got us into orbit you know he was very involved in our our Saturn 5 program and everything a lot of his work is very classified though because he focused more on the military aspect of it and he envisioned a ballistic missile that could hit Germany by

1944 oh wow yeah which ended up becoming the atlas this is that’s a really interesting thing I so I wasn’t aware of that but but if you look at the general Arc of lots of conversations online about German technological advances and the m62 is the classic case in

Point if that had been in development on the Allies side there is no way that it would have ever seen combat it was an it just wouldn’t have done right it would have been yeah so the the gluster meteor was not as quick and it could not

Dive as fast and they did not put it into front line fighting because it wasn’t ready I mean it could have been made ready and it did make some kills on v1s and it was ready earlier than the 262 but it was not needed but in Germany

Of course you had to go and rely on these this vava to go and try and win the war um which he was never going to be able to do and so you get things like the idea of rocketry and it becomes a you know an important psychological

Weapon but in terms of Effectiveness they were all [ __ ] I mean even yeah yeah they R crap like we we even made sure to like hold off and releasing the p80 into the etto until 45 like we sent him over to um Italy and U we had

Two in England because weed we wanted to do some like trial overseas service in a closed environment we knew the the the 59 wasn’t you know anywhere near ready for combat right right um yeah we we [ __ ] up with that with the the Bell thing but

The p80 we I think one of them was lost in training over in England but the two in Italy actually did some combat air patrols like in the tail line of 45 but they just didn’t run into anything yeah just didn’t see any combat which real realistically if the if the

Germans suddenly turned up with thousands of 262s then both the Americans and the British would have taken the glosser meteor and just built it and that’s the joy of American production capabilities we could have said just build this bastard build as many of them as you can if we’d had to

Do it right could right didn’t have to do it if it came to it like we we like to joke about like you know L 46 and L 47 and you know say like oh yeah what what kind of cool [ __ ] would Germany have had in 46 and 47 we would have had

Literal ballistic missiles flying over into Germany from the Continental us we would have had the p80 in full production the gluster meteor would have been running train in Europe and it was it was just going to be a matter of time like I don’t care what kind of viled 262s you

Would have had with ejection seats it was over it was done it was absolutely done and I mean let’s let’s let’s let’s be really really clear right I mean if you take a 262 and you look at all of the features of the 262 and what

Made it to for example the early model mix and well take the saber right how much of a 262 is in a saber it has a swept Wing that’s it that’s about it and the reason it had a swept Wing was because the jumo engines that they

Were planning to put in were originally BMW engines so they didn’t know how heavy they were going to be so they had to sweep the wing to put weight in it so with an extra weight it had nothing at all to do with its transonic capabilities um it was entirely because

Of weight it they locked into that design and the saber had a different uh angle on its wing because that was better for high-s Speed fighting because the Americans look went that [ __ ] we can do better I mean it was even so good the British adopted it later the

Canada well I mean the Canadians let’s be clear uh well I mean you know it did have a Rollo in it they they had the um they had that one concept the Huckaby right the one that had SW wing and like a tall yeah the um ta3 183 yes that was interesting um

People like to say that became Meg 15 but I I have never seen any documentation proving that also like if you I mean this is a hole aside right but if you get into where did all these crazy designs come from a lot came out the fact that between the wars obviously

Germany wasn’t allowed to develop piston engine aircraft so they looked for Alternatives which is why they had a rocket and a jet program early because they couldn’t yeah they were they were coping the reason why Rockets exist was because they couldn’t develop artillery you know so like yeah all like loopholes

For them yeah and so so all those designs that you see appearing at the end of the war came out of the pre-war development plans and guess what by that point technology moved on six years except it hadn’t in Nazi Germany because they’re Nazis and the bellans and they

Decided to develop this stuff which made a lot of noise and looked cool but didn’t do a great deal I mean that’s fundamentally the vff and you know and frankly God bless him for doing that because it it shaved six to eight months off the war but that’s all it did

Yeah so about masters of the a sorry M sorry no no no this is all very relevant I think for later like if I know where the series is going to I think we’ll be seeing a lot of this but well so in the in the opening sequence we see p p4s

Which red tals I’m assuming have to do with the Tusk irman yep um you know so they’ll hopefully atone for the sins of red tails in an episode because you know as far as I’m concerned the eth Air Force never flew with the 3332 Fighter

Squadron right so we see in the tail end of episode two they’re going to go on a mission that’s going to end them up in North Africa which I’m pretty sure did happen I need to fact check that but rensburg which is the other half the schin missions oh okay so that

Means that would I’d love I’d love to say that it has nothing to do with Tuskegee Airmen but it didn’t uh Tuskegee air were flying out of fugia which was in southern Italy which is a little bit like so are you thinking they’ll do like

A Side Story thing I think it’ll be a Side Story yeah I kind of I forgive me guys I kind of hope from a narrative point of view that they don’t there is a really serious point which is that the and I appreciate I’m talking to my

My American friends say so please don’t get cross with me but no no not at all there is a there’s a really serious point that almost exclusively you can take the TK you can go great that’s a sign of racial equality on the rest of it the

Eth Air Force and the Air Force setup generally was fundamentally racist I mean just completely racist well yeah I mean we weren’t integrated yet we were segregated and and I kind of think if you suddenly bring the Tusk and and you sort of go I look at this you’re sort of

Missing the point historically because those guys came in and they were building air bases and they were providing Logistics but they were never given anything close to equality and the story of the Tusk is a good one because it needs to be told and it’s important but

It has to be set in the context of just how how full of tension that was the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement comes out of the war because you got a bunch of guys that were sent over to Europe they did a job for the US and

They came back home and were treated like [ __ ] yeah and it’s a very specific thing too because the etto you know flying out of England and all that that had nothing to do with where the tuskey GE men were they were yeah tell you it’s not anywhere

Near England yeah no it’s not so I’m very curious how they’re going to actually depict that which makes me feel like it’s gonna be a Side Story you know yeah yeah that’s there’s not really any crossover but otherwise no I I’m agreeing with you here because like like

I I doubt there was ever you know a racist bomber crewman who was r who was rescued by a red tailed Mustang and stopped saying the nword you know what I mean sure and and and there are there are a number of cases I say number I can

Think of a couple and I will get the dates wrong and it’s important that I don’t so I won’t name them because I’ll get it slightly wrong but there at least two occasions when actual violence broke out because of the contrast between the way that the Brits treated the Black

American troops and the way that their own forces treated them and the Brits were not free of racism far from it I don’t want to paint the UK as a as some housian land but we don’t have that same cultural approach and particularly not you know you you’re within living memory

Of the of the Civil War you know slavery the the the guys that were coming over to build the airfields their fathers not their grandfathers but their fathers might have been involved in in in in being kids as as slaves it’s not that far out it’s well actually maybe okay

Their grandads because it’s 1860s but it’s not that far out of memory right and it’s still a thing whereas it just wasn’t everything in Britain yes we had dominions in Jamaica and there were lots of slaves in the Caribbean and and there were bad situations going on in Africa

But there weren’t that many black folks living in the UK there were some quite a few but not it wasn’t a mainstream thing and so you didn’t have that institutional bit so when you know Southern officers would come into a pub and find black troops drinking in that

Pub the local Brits are like yeah fine whatever you know they’re Americans yeah they’re not black they’re just Americans and then you get a southern officer coming in going get out and it led to violence right and what’s interesting is in in World War II specifically the British army wasn’t segregated like

There were there were Asian Asian troops there were you know African troops they wouldn’t have been super common but they weren’t put into their own units like segregated from the rest of the the the white units different segreg right because British British troops were set up so that you had officers would be

White okay and and ncos and Dam would be would be to use the term from the time colored and that could mean IND not British and and so it’s racist in a different way it’s still racist but in a in a different way it’s it’s a touchy

Subject but it’s going to be covered in in the series and I I do yeah yeah I’m I’m down to see what they’re uh gonna come up with and we’ll see you know like we we didn’t actually desegregate in the US military until Korea obviously there still racism

Involved but it was a touchy thing and um it still is right I mean the three of us are white guys having a chat about black history and I think it’s it’s an important thing to acknowledge that we recognize that we don’t understand the challenges which which that still

Presents as history to people today I’d just like to kind of I know do my cap frankly to particularly black troops that came over and did the grunt work and enabled a lot of what we talk about right because it takes about roughly a thousand people on the ground to put one

Guy in the air even at this point oh yeah and a lot of them were color troops and and I think the series has done such a lovely job of touching on lots of historical stuff I think they’ve done a really really nice job of getting it

Together I hope they get that right too exactly because there is a story to be told and there is a way that they can tell it and makes have it make sense within the cannon of mattrs in the air right um yeah sure it’ll just be like

The question is whether or not they will execute it like so yeah and it’ll be I can tell you this much it’ll be better than a certain project in 2012 like there’s a whole fun thing which I would love I don’t know if they’ll cover it but in in the book they do which is about the guys that were building the Airfield because if you think about that ramping we talked about how fast do you grow

This out and how do you do it so quickly well one of the things you’ve clearly got to have is bases and initially they’re RAF built but that’s not going to be quick enough so I want to say 135,000 us AFA troops came over to build

The air bases and these guys are working 24 hours a day you know continual shifts delay concrete to flatten ground to build the quanta Huts to build the operating centers to build the radar all the stuff that needed to go on to get it done and that in and of itself it’s not

As dramatic as somebody shooting at you but by God those guys worked hard oh yes they did yes they did so we’re about an hour and 20 or so in obviously it’ll be a lot shorter after I edit this but do you guys have any final statements on

The show itself like Jordan I think it’s like it’s very much geing up to be the um the finest depiction of like bomber Crews of American bomber Crews specifically um in World War II you know that we’re going to see in a long time um I’m trying to like think of like a

Lightning round of other movies that have touched this right like obviously you have 12 O’Clock High about the TV show and the um the movie you’ve got me Memphis Bell which we talked about already you have the Harrison Ford movie that nobody watched called Handover Street which was about H 25es I’ve not

Seen that yet are you familiar with that uh Lord har rasher no never heard of it yeah so it’s about a be so he plays it’s I believe this movie came out in 78 or 79 was was a little bit after he played Han Solo in Star Wars but um he plays

American pilot who fly who flies B b2s um he’s based in in in in the UK meets a British woman and falls in love that has a romance Etc but the British but the the British lady is actually like married to this uh British intelligence guy who I guess like in the

Climax in the movie Harrison Ford is picked to like fly a secret mission to like drop this guy off in behind An Enemy Lines or something and and yeah um o over sexed and over here as we used to say yeah yeah that’s right so there’s

That right and and then and then you have Catch 22 both the original movie that has like all the b2s and you have the newer show that came out on Hulu which um if you haven’t seen that I I thought it was fun okay um and now we have you know

Masters of the Year oh sorry shoot there was that one movie that had a B24 crew that got shot down oh um yeah unbroken yeah yeah uh the the B24 sequence in that I thought was actually pretty good so the uh the guy um I forget his name

Off hand but he was originally from my hometown no way in Western New York and then he moved to LA oh wow okay California yeah yeah he’s kind of a local local guy if I’m not mistaken it’s funny because you made that same Journey uh you know what

You’re right actually I was not tortured in the Pacific but yes I’m sure we can arrange it if you want I mean yeah we can all go to Hawaii and have a meet up beat the crap out of Falcon yeah sure I’m I’m dying I’ve always wanted to get

To Hawaii absolutely but like as as for as whereas masters of the air fits in I I I believe so far the first two episodes have been really good yeah I’m excited for the next ones and like just the scale of the production you know like you mentioned earlier about how um

In the costume designer had to do what 3,000 she like she stopped counting after 3,000 costumes yeah and all these sets are fully fleshed out and it feels like were there was a sequence that they were racing bicycles like on the base yeah if you guys remember and like just like the

Scale of the actual base they had to have built like an actual fact simile of of an eth Air Force Base that the actors would spend a lot of time on you know maybe even live on and like to really feel immersed with everything and like just that scale of

Production I thought was really really cool and felt incredibly authentic how about you my Lord I mean I I guess I would say my my gripe with it was the the sequence of the RAF which will not come as any surprise where they wind up having a

Punch up in a pub and you’re like guys the the bomber crws from both the RAF and the USAF actually got on really well the surprising bit about the whole war is despite their fundamental differences on how how well they got on with one another um you know Ira AKA lived with

Harris uh with bomber Harris um for a period of time they got on really well and and the there were tensions between the two sides but but they weren’t by and large they weren’t expressed operationally and you just really did not get RAF and us afaf uh troops fighting with one another

They just didn’t do that they got on fantastically well we were incredibly grateful to have had their support and their help and there was really very little tension then in the Army was slightly different but even there it was very minimal in the air we disagreed on

The mechanics of ha but we certainly didn’t disagree with one other we wanted to beat the [ __ ] Nazis right so that was a little bit oh God guys really do we have to do this bit um and I I was a bit disappointed by that I’m just the kernel of the eth Air

Force fighter Wings was based off Eagle squadrons who were Americans who come over and volunteered um to come and fly for the RAF and so initially there were three squadrons of RAF in a typical American style they of course had to have extra numbers added to them to make them

Hundreds of things rather than 67 or whatever I can’t remember the precise numbers but I think they added at least 200 to everyone just to make sure they sounded bigger because it’s America of course it is um but they were you know us uh citizens who’d come and flown for

The RAF who then became the colonel of the RAF by col I mean the central point of the Eighth Air Force Fighter Wing there were three squadrons and they had Spitfires initially and when the US joined the war they repainted their their aircraft and put the American

Randal on them happy days and they flew those for like six months um it was an incredibly close knit community of individuals trying to fight this war they’re fighting it different way but it was really very harmonious it genuinely didn’t get to the point where they started to punch one another in

Pubs yeah that that was a little frustrating but I think they got so much stuff right I think they got so much stuff right in this and I’m just I’m excited to see what they do next well the one thing I’ll say is we both have red white and blue in our

Flags and and whilst you might have rejected the king and you you you come back in the end I’m sure well I I’m hanging out with a lord right now so you know you might not be wrong when the Donald comes to calling you come back again we’ll get

You you know me me and uh me and heli and do want to go out there eventually and a have a little Excursion maybe for for our honeymoon but um you know we’ll we’ll be sure to give you a call oh give us a shat man I’d love to see you always

You’re very welcome well thank you thank you uh I think that being said uh we’ll we’ll call it here and um we’ll probably do another one of these after episode four or five comes out just kind of recap um we did get a little off topic

That’s okay we still you know no no no no do not apologize it was all in the same theater and uh you know I feel like um this series is gonna be good uh I I really enjoy it the the direction has been very good obviously the the sound

Design and the effects are topnotch uh if you’ve not seen the first two episodes of Masters of the air yet please do yourself a favor and watch it especially if you’re an aviation or history Enthusiast you will not regret it and read the book go read the book because the book is

Fantastic I I plan on reading the book afterwards um just so I don’t spoil myself but I I do have a copy of it um on standby I I’ll give you one minor spoiler which is Buck and Bucky are not Central characters that’s not necessarily a bad

Thing you mean not characters in the book right yeah they’re not going to be Central characters of the series either 14 14% of Crews that flew before D-Day uh completed their tour so the rest did 14 one 14 one four holy [ __ ] holy [ __ ] 73% of Crews were killed or

Captured absolutely unreal so yeah don’t get your hopes up folks um buck and Bucky might have some bad times ahead I I I don’t have I don’t have strong Vibes for them my friends I think I think no no spoilers because you know we statistics have been out for you know 80

Years now yeah sorry sorry I didn’t mean to give the game away apologize our our main heroes’s chance of slipping through unscathed is apparently 14% 14% I I don’t like that’s a 14 folks not not a 4 Z well we’ll see youall next time thanks for joining us