Swarms of German fighters cross American bomber formations like deadly lightning bolts in a sky streaked with condensation trails and the murderous glare of tracers. A furious, desperate combat takes place up there, on an infinite battlefield. The B-17s fall down, plunging towards eternity or spinning around like giant burning tree leaves. The pilots of the Flying Fortresses try to maintain formation so as not to turn their planes into solitary prey. And in the midst of the storm of destruction, the gunner in the exposed ventral turret of one of the large machines explodes in a cloud of blood when hit. “Superb,” said the British James Holland, one of the fashionable military historians, of the new war series The masters of the air. Of course, air warfare, specifically that of American heavy bombers launched over Germany and occupied Europe, has never been seen with the realism and emotion with which it appears in this nine-part Apple TV + miniseries. The masters of the air It is very faithfully based on Donald L. Miller's extraordinary 2006 book of the same title, which Desperta Ferro has just published in Spanish.
With the same successful formula of blood brothers (parachute infantry) and The Pacific (marines) and Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg as producers, The masters of the air follows the campaign of an American unit in World War II throughout the war. This time the story focuses on the members (pilots, crews, mechanics and commanders) of the “bloody 100”, a long-suffering Bombardment Group of the famous 8th US Air Force that flew, from their bases in the English countryside, the famous Flying Fortresses, the impressive four-engine Boing B-17 bombers pregnant with devastation, with which they intended to subdue Nazi Germany.
We witness throughout the series, with our hearts in our fists, amazed at what human beings are capable of suffering (and inflicting) in war, sensational and chilling scenes. Like that of the Messerschmitts Bf 109 attacking the bombers from the front and spraying them with bullets that open large holes in the cabin, in the fuselage and in the flesh of the aviators. Or that of the lethal little black clouds of the Flak (the German anti-aircraft defense) covering the sky, shaking the devices with their explosions like a giant hand (laugh at the turbulence) and literally bursting the planes and their crews. At one point, from a B-17 they see a rain of debris from other disintegrated bombers falling, including a body that hits the wing. Other shocking scenes are that of the crew member caught in the bomb hatch while trying to jump with a parachute while his plane plunges into a dizzying fall and a comrade agonizingly tries to free him, or that of the aviator who, upon returning from a mission, while the paramedics They extract his destroyed companions, he synthesizes everything that has happened by falling to his knees on the landing strip and vomiting compulsively.
The series shows very well the contrast between the powerful bombers, marvels of aeronautical technology of the time that take off in impressive phalanxes, and the way in which they are destroyed. As one pilot summarized when trying to assimilate the vision of ten men and three tons of metal reduced to a cloud of black smoke, “it seems impossible that something so big could disappear so quickly.” In the scene of a forced landing of a riddled B-17, with two engines disabled and without wheels, several crew members dead or badly injured, it is impossible not to shudder when the pilot utters the so familiar (in another context) phrase: “Crew, prepare for landing”.
Most of those scenes come from the book, and from real testimonies collected by Miller. The most incredible thing about the series is that it really was like that. And that those young people from the four corners of the United States and from all social classes, were capable of, after surviving bloody and terrifying missions, getting back on their planes the next day. 26,000 8th Air Force airmen died, more fatalities than the Marine Corps. The masters of the air shows conclusively that if there was anything worse in the second war than serving in submarines, it was doing so in bombers, which added vertigo to claustrophobia (how terrifying the constricted interior of the B-17s!) and to the nightmare of fighting in an environment hostile. The lack of oxygen and the cold were – and the series shows it very well –, along with the atmospheric conditions, two of the mortal dangers that the aviators suffered. In one chapter we see how a machine gunner who tries to unjam his weapon by removing his gloves gets his hands stuck to the metal and tears his skin.
The adventures of the group are especially represented—as in Miller's book—through a set of real characters, here played by actors, such as the older Gale. Buck Cleven (Austin Butler) and John Bucky Egan (Callum Turner), Lieutenants Harry Crosby (Anthony Boyle), Glenn Graham (Darragh Cowley) and Curtis Biddick (Barry Keoghan, the very fashionable protagonist of Saltburn), or support echelon sergeant Ken Lemmons, played by Rafferty Law, son of Jude Law. The proven formula of telling a story from within a combat unit and emphasizing the human dimension of its members works again in The masters of the air (we inevitably suffer for those young people who have a really bad time on their planes), everything and the difficulty of awakening affinity and identification, precisely now, with the military who sow chaos and destruction and devastate cities, killing the civilian population with their bombs.
And if there is any weapon that is difficult to empathize with, it is bombers. The debate over the horrific destruction caused by American high-altitude strategic bombing in World War II appears in Miller's book and in the series, in which some airmen question the slaughter of civilians. In any case, both the series and the book opt for the reassuring thesis that this suffering was necessary to put an end to the Nazis, and that somehow the Germans had asked for it. Miller tries to distinguish between the American bombing, which would always have been aimed, he emphasizes, at attacking the German war effort, even considering that the bombs could be diverted; and that of the British, who did not hesitate to destroy cities deliberately. Series and book continually remember the enormous sacrifice made by the bombardment aviators, who lost 60 Flying Fortresses and almost 600 men in a single mission. Another complex issue that the book and series mention is that of racism: the democratic United States allowed some blacks to fly in fighter planes (the Tuskegee men) but in no way in bombers.
What stands out about the series is its technical and operational accuracy (the missions told are authentic, including the one that ended with the landing in North Africa after bombing Regensburg) and a production design that takes meticulous care of everything, from the planes to the smallest period element, passing through the aviators' clothing, with the iconic leather and sheepskin jackets. Also the many good historical details. Among them, the secrecy with the Norden sights, the decisive instrument of the American bombers that allowed them to hit the targets with unprecedented precision, or the scene in which a radio operator eats the sheets with the frequencies and the secret identification of the device before fall into enemy territory. Likewise, the way in which the atmosphere in the bases (and the canteens) is shown, the superstitions of the crew members, the stress of combat, the fear (“the Focke-Wulf funk”), the mystique of the 25 missions after the that you were going home (the true story of the B-17 is told Memphis Belle, to which the 1990 film of the same title was dedicated), the good relationship of American personnel with British children, or the romantic and sexual relationships during the war. The series very accurately captures, in parallel plots, how the escape networks worked for downed pilots (with them Chuck Yeager was able to return to combat), and the lives of the captured aviators and interned in concentration camps (Stalag Luft, like that of The great escape).
Among the drawbacks, the accentuated—and sometimes excessive—epic sense of the narrative, and a certain aestheticism (it is doubtful that the bomber boys They were all so handsome and posed so well). Two things that certainly contribute to making The masters of the air a great spectacle, but one that fits little with the ultimate reality of how the bombers left the world below in their wake.
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