'Masters of the Air' WWII miniseries set to debut on Apple TV+ in January

"Masters of the Air" promises to be one of the great WWII miniseries we'll all remember. But it will be missing the most important element of "Band of Brothers" and "The Pacific." Those were able to end with interviews of the actual heroes who were involved in those gut-wrenching, heartbreaking battles. Many of Easy Company and the First Marine Division were still alive to tell their stories. It's too late for that now, and I'll miss that aspect. Unless of course they recorded their stories for the Pritzker Military Museum in Chicago or in some other venue. If you're ever in Chicago, this is a must. There's an overwhelming collection of material, letters, videos, audio recordings of the heroes from all our combat actions, from the Revolutionary War up to the present. There's an enormous library, recruiting posters, anything you can think of.

Can't wait to see how Apple pulls this one off, and hope we can look forward to a comparable series on Vietnam. "We Were Soldiers" was a very disappointing realization of Hal Moore's book. (The Ken Burns documentary is the best I've seen, but I had nightmares after seeing the episode featuring the story of one Tunnel Rat).

mayfly said:

"Masters of the Air" promises to be one of the great WWII miniseries we'll all remember. But it will be missing the most important element of "Band of Brothers" and "The Pacific." Those were able to end with interviews of the actual heroes who were involved in those gut-wrenching, heartbreaking battles. Many of Easy Company and the First Marine Division were still alive to tell their stories. It's too late for that now, and I'll miss that aspect. Unless of course they recorded their stories for the Pritzker Military Museum in Chicago or in some other venue. If you're ever in Chicago, this is a must. There's an overwhelming collection of material, letters, videos, audio recordings of the heroes from all our combat actions, from the Revolutionary War up to the present. There's an enormous library, recruiting posters, anything you can think of.

Can't wait to see how Apple pulls this one off, and hope we can look forward to a comparable series on Vietnam. "We Were Soldiers" was a very disappointing realization of Hal Moore's book. (The Ken Burns documentary is the best I've seen, but I had nightmares after seeing the episode featuring the story of one Tunnel Rat).

So it may be missing, not will be?

I read the book years ago and, IMO, the main focus was on how WWII was the first modern air war and that military strategists were having to make it up as they went along...which meant there were a lot of errors that resulted in  major losses of human life. Example: there was an influential group at the Pentagon that believed adding a lot of gun turrets to bombers meant that you didn't need escort fighters. So there was a period of time where bombing groups took horrific losses and some argue that the Pentagon's insistence on bombers not needing escorts delayed the production of the P-51 Mustang.

Xed said:

mayfly said:

"Masters of the Air" promises to be one of the great WWII miniseries we'll all remember. But it will be missing the most important element of "Band of Brothers" and "The Pacific." Those were able to end with interviews of the actual heroes who were involved in those gut-wrenching, heartbreaking battles. Many of Easy Company and the First Marine Division were still alive to tell their stories. It's too late for that now, and I'll miss that aspect. Unless of course they recorded their stories for the Pritzker Military Museum in Chicago or in some other venue. If you're ever in Chicago, this is a must. There's an overwhelming collection of material, letters, videos, audio recordings of the heroes from all our combat actions, from the Revolutionary War up to the present. There's an enormous library, recruiting posters, anything you can think of.

Can't wait to see how Apple pulls this one off, and hope we can look forward to a comparable series on Vietnam. "We Were Soldiers" was a very disappointing realization of Hal Moore's book. (The Ken Burns documentary is the best I've seen, but I had nightmares after seeing the episode featuring the story of one Tunnel Rat).

So it may be missing, not will be?

If a WWII pilot was 20 years old in 1945, that would make him 98 years old now. And there weren't that many 20 year old officers (required for pilots). Surviving pilots would now be over 100 years old, some way over 100. There may be one or two, but here in Chicago, the last known Tuskeegee Airman, Oscar Lawton Wilkerson Jr. (a bomber pilot) died this year. He told his story at the Pritzker Military Museum, and you can hear it if you visit.

Looks great!  BoB is a favorite of mine, and it probably was in some part due to the actors — so I hope they found comparable actors for this series.

I don’t understand why Apple doesn’t go more into dramatizations of historic events.  So much has happened in history, and picking any singular event would be more entertaining than most of the fiction that they churn out (and more educational).