It really is. Sitting in one it’s just a tube of aluminum. Nothing to protect you from enemy fighters or the elements. Over and over again. Wow.
So pumped for this. I was always a big fan of the movie Memphis Belle (I'm a sucker for anything B-17 related), this should be that movie on steroids.
I can't recall the actual numbers myself but the US 8th AF had more men killed than the entire USMC in the Pacific theater in WWII. Probably the biggest change in Europe was when Jimmy Doolittle took command in January 1944 and turned the fighters loose on seek and destroy (the Luftwaffe) missions throughout all of Nazi occupied territories as well as being bomber escorts. Of course that was about when we started getting all of the necessary resources to do both.
Interesting on Guam as that is on my bucket list. My dad served in a B-29 outfit in the 20th AF there during WWII, although he didn't fly. Eyesight wasnt good enough. He was a ground based radio operator who communicated with the bombers on their missions. That book Wild Blue is about the 15th AF. I think it was written by the same author of Band of Brothers.
I remember that guy surrendering in 1972. I was still in high school.
Guam was neat in the fact that I can say I have been there. Top speed limit on the island is like 45 mph and you can make it clear around the perimeter in like 2.5 hours if I remember correctly. Being that it is a US province or what have you, its just like being in the US as far as restaurants, signage, etc, but the weather was beautiful.
Another wild thing about Guam was I found out about this guy. Ate at bar on the SW Coast of the island that had some history about him on the walls because apparently he could hear the live music at nights all those years he was hiding out.
To circle back to your comment about the Japanese fanatics, this guy hid out in the jungle for 27 years until he was found in 1972....all because he feared the shame fo being captured.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/hist...-refused-to-surrender-for-27-years-180979431/
***this has been a good GIAOT Friday....why it keeps me coming back. Good dialogue and learn a few things along the way!
I think we might’ve talked before about this? - my grandfather was a B-29 mechanic in the 20th AF - started in India, then China then to Tinian. He had a ton of pics of planes and crews and other personnel and somehow they got lost in a move. Sure wish I had them back.
Maybe we did, I can't recall. It was only a couple of years ago I found out that the father of one of the kids I went to school with was a B-29 pilot. I think he might have flown from Saipan in the Mariannas.
Nothing compares to BoB spending the entire first episode introducing and establishing characters. Officers, NCOs, and other enlisted all got time to establish who was who and their unique personalities. That heavy lifting at the start made the next 9 episodes so much easier to watch. The Pacific had a much smaller core cast, but they still did something similar on a smaller scale. This show spent about 10-15 minutes doing that and then jumped into the missions, and it is hurting because of it. Like I said, good but not great.
I partially agree with your opinion. It would have been interesting to see the characters go through flight school--especially considering a lot of the young men had never flown. The flight battle scenes are incredibly tense...the director really captures being stuck in a small tin can with bullets and shrapnel shooting through the plane. I wish there was more exploration on the American decision to fly daytime missions as opposed to the Brits. But i have very much enjoyed this series...last weeks episode was a killer.
The American thinking on this was that they had the Norden bombsight which was the best of its kind at the start of the war. They thought they could bring Germany to its knees faster with "precision bombing" on key industrial and military targets as opposed to carpet bombing cities at night which is what the British practiced after they had originally failed in daylight bombing before the US entered the war. Initially the US also thought that with each bomber having 10-12 guns for defense that they could bomb without needing fighter escorts which was quickly proven to be incorrect. Strategic bombing was a new concept on the scale that they were willing to practice it and there were a lot of unknowns when it was initially tried. They soon learned their lessons.
Yep, feels like this could have been more detailed during the first or second episode before moving along to other missions mixed in with a focus on some character development. In BoB you had the guys hated Sobel, thinking Winters was a Quaker, Eugene and the nurse, Bull trapped behind in the village, Speirs being a bad ass, Dike being scared/unqualified, etc. Just did a much better job with narratives/storylines.
They could have had an entire episode in Sioux City (!?) where they trained...
This would have been great. Had no idea SC ever had a base. Could have really added to the story. In fact, my wife saw the blonde who was Elsa in 1883 and was like oh she's in this... I'll watch. I told her she was in for like 10 seconds.They could have had an entire episode in Sioux City (!?) where they trained...
Masters of the air found love in Sioux City during World War II
Before they were masters of the air, Everett Blakely, Howard Hamilton and hundreds of other Army airmen were young guys spending downtime between training flights looking for fun in Sioux City. A chunk of the history of the 100th Bomb Group is front and center in "Masters of the Air," a...siouxcityjournal.com
A lot of history (both good and bad) related to Sioux City's airfield. The range of aircraft from the B-17's and B-24's to P-47's, F-100's, then A-7, and F-16, now 135's is pretty fascinating. Add in the Sioux City "bar scene" and it makes for some interesting stories through the years.
I agree. This would have been a nice touch. The other things about BoB that just sets it apart from anything else and makes it so good and powerful is the interviews of the actual people at the start or end of each episode. Seeing them tell their stories and the emotions they still have all those years later is so powerful.
Agreed. Also, the physical locations greatly help differentiate the episodes in BoB. In the Pacific, a lot of the geography looks similar to us lay-folk (other than the Australia scenes). Obviously the sorties look similar in MoA. In BoB you have quite the range of locations/geography/etc. Hard to replicate in the air.
I was hoping to get that too. Also...
