I saw it started on Apple+ yesterday. Any opinions about it yet?

I watched 2 episodes this afternoon and I liked it.

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Never fly the "A" model

I suppose I expected more as I usually do, but it's good and worth watching, at least the first two episodes.

I guess I'll need to wait for the DVD.

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No baby we aint

Me too, I don't subscribe to Apple+. I saw Greyhound only because one of our kids had a subscription, which is now cancelled. It's irritating that they want everyone to spend more on their "subscriptions" to see new films. I remember a time when movies came out pretty quickly on DVD/Blu Ray because they realized that's where the money was to be made...

I loved the first two episodes and can’t wait for the next.

The only downside for me is the presence of the annoying girl from 1883, but at least she isn’t attempting a southern accent in this one.

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“What you got, ain’t new.”

First two episodes and they're off to a great start.

I was expecting raptor photos...

Haven’t seen the series yet, but am almost through listening to the audio book. Amazing. I’m sure the series won’t do the book justice, but am glad we are exposing newer generations to what World War 2 was like.

Just finished the whole 9 episodes. Best telling of the Allied bombing campaign that Hollywood is capable of. I'd pay for it if'n I didn't have it. Great flying shots/special effects, gritty reality along with wins and losses. A bit of "hokum" is to be expected, sort of "Saving Pvt Ryan" in the air. Worth the "time investment." Joe

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Wisdom chases me; I'm faster

It was OK, not riveting by any means...by contrast Greyhound was great, trust Mr. Hanks. I worked with a guy that had served on a WWII sub chaser and will never forget the way he stood and walked as if he was still rolling in heavy seas. Those guys were a special breed. My boat got busted up in heavy seas during Typhoon Kate back in Nam, we lost our engines due to a cracked hull which allowed salt water to pollute our fuel. We were basically surfing doing the best we could to avoid broaching, waves were big enough for us to hit a higher hull speed in the trough than when under full power. Long story short we were firing off Maydays, a Navy destroyer was within a few miles and got within a quarter mile but could not help us as he was having a tough time on his own. Never forget the sight of the destroyer disappearing, then watch the bow knife through the wave until the full boat was in view, then disappear again into the next trough. We finally got rescued by a Korean LST that got a line across our bow on the third attempt, then towed us to safe harbor. I've got a lot of respect for blue water sailors, you see one big storm like that and I don't care how big the boat is you got your hands full.

I have seen clips of it on You Tube. It is based an the 100th Bomb Group. For those interested in real stories you can read "A Wing and a Prayer" written by Harry H. Crosby the Group Navigator of the 100th and "Damn Lucky " by Kevin Maurer about Jack Luckadoo a pilot on the 100th.

I haven't seen it yet, waiting to hear more about how it compares to BoB and The Pacific in terms of acting and accuracy. I know it has to have a lot of CGI ( not enough B-17's left), and I worry how well that was done to promote realism and not sensationalism. I also worry about how melodramatic it gets, would rather it hold close to how Band of Brothers was done.

As for "the presence of the annoying girl from 1883", I didn't think she was annoying at all in 1883, the entire series was focused on her. Is her character in MOTA what is annoying? She deserved an Emmy for 1883, I think.

Finished watching episode 9 last night. A good series, not to the level of Band of Brothers or The Pacific, but still good.

The book is, as usual, better and more detailed. Amazing what these men were able to accomplish, and incredible sacrifices were made.

We must never forget.

We've seen some pretty good movies at the theater lately, The Iron Claw, Boys In Boats, Ordinary Angels, and Arthur the King. They were all pretty decent but for some reason now when I watch a series on TV I just don't get as much entertainment out of it? I'll get part way through a Masters of the Air episode then just start doing something else or go to bed.

I was hoping for a Falcon wiping out some random swan just for the hell of it.

I thought it was a miss. There are some great moments and solid eps (the Munster raid, the beginning of the last episode, and some others) but overall it was not what I'd hoped for after ten years or so of bouncing around for development.

It seemed like they originally planned on having more eps, or longer episodes. All of the episodes except the last were well under an hour and you can see plenty of loose ends throughout the series that I'd imagine they planned on including. The aircrew getting helped back to freedom back by the French resistance, in one episode they're beginning their journey getting hassled by the germans on a train in disguise, the next they've just teleported back to the airfield. There was absolutely more that was intended to be shown. Cros' love interest plot was clearly supposed to be more involved, then abandoned. Big Week, the D-Day raids, the destruction of german fighters (even preceded by an end of episode cliffhanger about how the bombers were to be used for bait, etc), were handled off camera with some limited discussion of the aftermath.

The most egregious example was the Tuskegee airmen subplot. I really don't know what the plan there was. They had some great actors, the story is excellent (if not related to the 100th we've been following up to that point), and they got an absolutely trash treatment that really should have been given a lot more resources, removed, or given it's own show. The writing for those characters was incredibly bad ("Nooooo..." "You're gonna pay for that!", etc), the characters were given little introduction beyond the most surface level acknowledgement that racism impacted their lack of promotions and the cliched girl/job waiting for them back home.

The group was famous for their bomber escorts, and the only time that was mentioned was in the PoW camp where one prisoner says something to the effect of "Red Tails! You guys saved our ****** so many times". Instead of getting any examples of them escorting bombers (in, yaknow, a show about bombers), we get two ground attack missions in the worst CGI of the series. You get a little more of them in the PoW camp, then just nothing.

The PoW camp liberation, beyond being fictional, was also crazy. P51s hitting the machine gun towers but sparing all of the densely packed PoWs, german guards ripping MG42s into the crowds of prisoners without doing any damage, the semi-auto KAR98K in the guard tower, the running up the tower to hoist the American flag, all of that, just bonkers.

There's the bones of something really cool there, and with so much crossover from BoB/the Pacific, and the creators marketing it as a similar product, I was pretty bummed out with what we actually got.

The USAAF had the highest casualties of US forces in WWII. Find and read “ The Fall of Fortress” and you will get the real story of 8th AAF bombers.

I watched all of it, and then the documentary “The Bloody 100th”. I thought it was pretty good. To me it was the best representation of the B-17 campaign over Europe I’ve seen to date, but I’m no subject matter expert, by any means. I learned quite a bit about the history of the 100th and the 8th Air Force. I didn’t realize they had the highest percentage of the force killed compared to many other high attrition WWII combat roles. The effects were good and depicted well what they had to endure, even though you could tell most of it was CGI. I didn’t care for some of the subplots as others also pointed out. The Tuskegee Airmen portions seemed hastily cobbled together and didn’t do justice to their role in the fight. Likewise the death camps. They should have just left that part out if they couldn’t go into greater detail and spend more time with the story line. I didn’t like the part where the married Croz takes up with the Subaltern. I guess that actually happened, or they wouldn’t have included it, but I have to admit, I didn’t look at Croz in the same light as before, despite his heroism. It was even more awkward when they interview the actual Croz in the documentary. I do like the fact that it follows the same genre as BoB and The Pacific in that it depicts actual living heroes and their historical exploits. I wonder how much was embellishment for the sake of entertainment, though. All in all, it was good, but not in the same league as BoB or The Pacific. I just rewatched BoB a few weeks ago and it set the bar pretty high. I’ll grade them in order…BoB, The Pacific, then Masters of the Air. I will say it held my interest and with each passing week, I really looked forward to Fridays and new episodes. We must never forget The Greatest Generation and their sacrifices for our freedom. I think this story will enlighten a lot of people that only have a peripheral understanding of actual events.

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USS Brewton FF1086
SWCA#3597

Movie critiquing aside, I am pleased to see the WW2 generation and their collective accomplishments revisited in our current times. Younger people who, like many of us, did not have the privilege of knowing family members and/or neighbors who served in WW2 will hopefully be awakened to important events that aren't addressed in schools.

I have a high bar for suspension of disbelief and newer movies push it beyond what I can accept. A good example was the afore mentioned "1883." It had some good parts, but the central story involving Isabel May was completely unbelievable.

Band Of Brothers set the standard, The Pacific was mediocre and they the producers seemed to focus on the negative comments of the veterans. The best episode was the one where the Marines were on leave in New Zealand. That reminds me of a similar sub story in "Battle Cry" from 1955.

I expect "Masters of The Air" to be similarly bad, much like "Pearl Harbor" and "Red Tails."

I'll watch it when I don't have to pay for it. Til them I'll stick with "12 O'clock High" from 1949 and "Command Decision " also from 1949.

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Can open, worms everywhere.

My wife and I enjoyed the whole series. Her dad was a waist-gunner and armorer for his B-24 and was shot down over Holland.
He spent 9 months as a "guest" of the Luftwaffe. He escaped and was recaptured twice, and was on a multi-month forced march that killed a lot of men. It was pretty emotional for her to watch.

Was it completely accurate—no, but if it got a younger audience to begin to understand what those men went through and accomplished, it was well worth whatever Apple spent on it.

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Alden
Guns N' Rosés

Agreed, not the denouement it should be. And the semi auto K98 would not be noticed by 99% of Americans. Joe

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Wisdom chases me; I'm faster

One thing that really grabbed me was all the cool flight gear everyone was wearing, someone spent a lot of time recreating WWII uniforms right down to the ground crew coveralls and fatigue caps. I usually pick out stuff that doesn't fit and didn't have enough time to scrutinize the Brownings to ascertain whether they were truly aircraft models which differ from models used in the field.

Just finished watching the series. Even though it was a bit hit or miss at times, I do confess that there must have been some dust in my eyes a couple of times during the last episode.

One question though, about something that seemed to be unrealistic to the point of suspending belief. At the POW camps, during the interrogation, how did the German officer know so much about some of the flyers? For example, when one of the Black Tuskegee airmen was being interrogated, the interrogator knew his address, his father's name, father's occupation, including how much he was paid, and that the airmen studied chemistry in college. How in the world could they have access to that type of info. in the pre-internet days? It wasn't as if he was someone who had been written up in the newspapers.

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Only a cold warrior

The Germans had very good spy networks. They had many silent supporters in the USA as well.

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No baby we aint

I once worked with a guy that was in the 9th AF in England. He never flew but repaired the shot up planes. He repaired the instruments. He told me the worst job was cleaning up the blood. He also told me the P-38 photo recon was the fastest plane we had at the time. This post brings back a lot of forgotten memories.

Right, and that network knew exactly how much a flyer's father was making and at which factory? Do you really believe that?

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Only a cold warrior

It’s based on fact …

Hanns Scharff - Wikipedia

The series was worth watching, but certainly not excellent. I've had the book for years, but only recently started reading it. So far, pretty good; it goes into detail (but not overboard) on many aspects just touched upon or maybe neglected altogether in the film series.