The US Eighth Air Force flew daylight bombing raids on Germany from bases in England, and its crews have given screenwriters some of the genre’s most gripping material. We have covered six episodes on it so far, from a 1949 studio classic to the Apple TV+ series Masters of the Air, and they sit well together: each one is a different answer to the same question about what these young men were asked to do.
As ever, we are not here to tick off the aircraft. We want to know what the story sees and what it skips: the cost of command, the odds the crews faced, the prisoners and the evaders, the people who kept the bombers flying, and the morality of the bombing itself, which the series barely touches. Where the screen and the history part ways, we say so, and we check the changes against the sources.
Start with the two classics, move on to the three-part Masters of the Air series, and finish with the interview about the escape lines. Some of this history is grim, and we treat it that way.
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The Classic Films: Twelve O'Clock High and Memphis Belle
1949 · Bomber Group Drama
Henry King’s film follows the fictional 918th Bomb Group and General Frank Savage, played by Gregory Peck, who turns a hard-luck unit around and then breaks down under the strain. It is based on the 1948 novel by Sy Bartlett and Beirne Lay Jr., and the 918th was modelled mainly on the real 306th Bomb Group. Sam read the novel the day before we recorded and compares it with the film, and Maartje reports back from an Eighth Air Force on Film tour in Cambridge.
Our angle: What does command cost a man, and how honestly does a 1949 studio film let Savage pay for it?
What we thought: We score it 9 and 7.5 out of ten (sergeant stripes with zippers). We both note how little combat is shown until the end and how modern the dialogue sounds, and we think a film ending on a commander’s breakdown, made so soon after the war, mattered.
Further reading
Twelve O’Clock High by Sy Bartlett and Beirne Lay Jr. Sam’s pick: written by two bomber veterans, character-driven and focused on the human cost of war.
1990 · Bomber Crew Drama
A fictional crew flies its 25th and final mission over Germany in 1943, with real bomber-crew anecdotes packed into a single day. Sam also watched William Wyler’s 1944 documentary of the same name, and we compare both with Masters of the Air. We look at the real Belle too: named for pilot Robert Morgan’s sweetheart Margaret Polk, sent on a 31-city war bond tour, and restored at the National Museum of the US Air Force in Dayton. Both of us gave the film seven and a half Billy Zane’s 1940s moustaches out of ten.
Our angle: How much of one famous aircraft’s story survives when a fiction film squeezes it into a single mission?
What we thought: We both enjoyed it, especially the flying sequences and the exterior shots of the B-17s, and we compared its details with Masters of the Air throughout.
Masters of the Air: The Series in Three Parts
2024 · Drama Series · Part One
The first of our three episodes on the Apple TV+ series, covering series episodes 1 to 3 with our guest George, who lives near the East Anglian airbases. We compare it with Band of Brothers and The Pacific, then follow the 100th Bomb Group’s first missions and the disastrous Regensburg and Schweinfurt mission of 17 August 1943. Beirne Lay Jr., who flew on that mission, wrote about it in the Saturday Evening Post, and we pick up his thread from Ep 25 (Twelve O’Clock High).
Our angle: Does the series miss a chance to take a critical look at the morality of the bombing strategy it dramatises?
What we thought: Opinions varied. One of us says it grew on her and is best watched as a whole, another calls it the weakest of the three Spielberg and Hanks series and wanted more on the ethics of strategic bombing, and George finds it less cohesive. We held our ratings until Part Three.
2024 · Drama Series · Part Two
Series episodes 4 to 6: Quinn and Bailey with the French resistance, Black Week, Egan’s capture and arrival at Stalag Luft III, and Rosie Rosenthal’s rest at the flak house. We check the series against the real history: navigator Joseph ‘Bubbles’ Payne was killed on 28 April 1944, not in October 1943 as shown, and Rosenthal really did fly 52 missions and was shot down twice. We also look at the Rüsselsheim massacre of August 1944, in which townspeople killed six American airmen.
Our angle: Where does the series move or compress real events, and what do we lose when it does?
What we thought: We praise the scene of Ken Lemons on the B-17’s wheel and Hambone Hamilton stuck on the escape hatch. Ratings come in Part Three.
Further reading
Sweatin’ Out the Mission: The Eighth Air Force Ground Support in World War Two by Malcolm Holland. George’s pick: a slim book on the ground crews who patched the planes and counted them home.
2024 · Drama Series · Part Three
Series episodes 7 to 9: Stalag Luft III and the winter marches, Black Monday on 6 March 1944, the Tuskegee Airmen, Crosby missing D-Day, and Operation Chowhound, the American food drops over the Netherlands. Alexander Jefferson, the Tuskegee pilot in the story, was shot down on 12 August 1944, held at Stalag Luft III, and lived to be 100. Our ratings ran from 6.5 to 8 out of ten in Buck Naked Mirror Monologues, and we all prefer The Pacific.
Our angle: Do the cuts, the time jumps and the end cards do right by the real men whose stories they close?
What we thought: George rates it 7, with the other two of us at about 8 and 6.5. We all prefer The Pacific, we lament the material lost when eleven episodes became nine, and we note that Sandra’s spy plot and Bennett’s warning get no payoff.
Further reading
Red Tail Captured, Red Tail Free: Memoirs of a Tuskegee Airman and POW by Alexander Jefferson and Lewis H. Carlson. Sam’s pick: a short memoir by the pilot who was shot down and spent much of the war in a POW camp.
Behind the Scenes and the Escape Lines
2024 · Cast Interview · Escape Lines
We talk to Bailey Brook and Kai Alexander, who play the evading airmen Sergeants Charles Bailey and William Quinn in Masters of the Air. The real Bailey and Quinn were members of the crew of B-17 Alice from Dallas, lost on the Regensburg raid of 17 August 1943. The conversation turns to the Comet Line: Andrée de Jongh’s early escorts across the Pyrenees took 118 people, about 80 of them airmen, between August 1941 and December 1942, before her arrest in January 1943 and her survival of Ravensbrück.
Our angle: Why did airmen choose to evade, and what drove the civilians who hid and guided them?
Further reading
The Freedom Line by Peter Eisner. Our pick for this episode: the Comet Line and the civilians, many of them women, who guided downed airmen to freedom.
Keep Listening
The air war turns up in other episodes too, though not as the main subject. These are the ones most worth pairing with this list:
- Ep 14 – Red Tails – Tuskegee fighter pilots escorting the bombers
- Ep 37 – Stalag 17 – shot-down airmen in a German camp
- Ep 92 – Hart’s War – a US airman POW and the Tuskegee escort record
- Ep 80 – Battle of Britain – the RAF side of the air war
Looking for another themed guide? Try Women in WW2 Films: The Best Movies to Watch.
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Frequently Asked Questions About Eighth Air Force Films
Which films and series are about the US Eighth Air Force?
The main ones we have covered are Twelve O’Clock High (1949), Memphis Belle (1990) and the Apple TV+ series Masters of the Air (2024), which we reviewed across three episodes. We also spoke to Masters of the Air actors Bailey Brook and Kai Alexander about the Comet Line escape network. Each one is reviewed against the real history.
Is Twelve O'Clock High based on a true story?
It is fiction that draws on real people and units. The 1949 film is based on a 1948 novel by Sy Bartlett and Beirne Lay Jr., and Lay flew combat missions with the Eighth Air Force. The fictional 918th Bomb Group was modelled mainly on the real 306th Bomb Group.
Was the Memphis Belle the first B-17 to complete 25 missions?
No. Delta Rebel No. 2 of the 91st Bomb Group finished 25 missions on 1 May 1943 and Hell’s Angels on 13 May, before the Memphis Belle completed hers later in May. The Belle became the most famous, thanks to a 31-city war bond tour and William Wyler’s documentary.
Is Masters of the Air a true story?
Yes, it follows the real 100th Bomb Group, known as the Bloody Hundredth, and real airmen including Gale Cleven, John Egan and Robert Rosenthal. The series changes and compresses some events: for example, navigator Joseph ‘Bubbles’ Payne was killed on 28 April 1944, not in October 1943 as shown.