Anyone watching Masters of the Air on Apple TV+? It is about the 100th Bomb group that was known as the Bloody 100th because they took so many losses. The air base at Thorpe Abbots in eastern England is now a museum, I was at a reunion of the families of the 100th in May in Savannah and the operators of the museum were there, now I really need to go. There were two airmen there at the reunion, both 102 years old.
My father was a bombardier in the 100th, shot down on October 10, 1943 and went to Stalag Luft 1. He is Hambone in the series, with gold eye teeth. He had very brief appearances in episode 1 and 3. Episode 5 last night was about the mission to Munster on Oct 10, he was the person shown who was badly injured and got caught on a door handle while bailing out. That day only one plane from his squadron made it back. The rest were all killed or captured.
Truly amazing to see what they had to go through. My father never really talked about it at all, I wish I had talked more to him about it, but of course now it is too late, he passed away in 1998
They went thru so much.
That's an incredible connection to the story, John, thanks for sharing that.
The wife and I have been watching this series, it's always awesome to see the effort put into telling the true stories, which IMO are far "better" than fiction. Obviously there's always some embellishment, but Hanks & Spielberg have done pretty well, they set the bar high with Band of Brothers. The AAC effort historically didn't get as much attention as the ground effort, so it's been really eye-opening to see a visual rendition of what I have only read about in books.
My great-uncle was in the Pacific theater and made eleven landings, so watching The Pacific was both amazing and also pretty tough at times. He lived just outside of New Orleans, and spent a lot of time helping with the excellent D-Day museum there. At one time, the very first exhibit inside the entrance featured a picture of a Higgins boat landing; apparently he was on that boat the day that picture was taken.
More airman in the US Army Air Corp were lost in action in Europe than the Marine Corp in their entire history including the Pacific theater.
What an amazing connection to history you have. During the raids on Japan my grandfather’s older brother was shot down. He evaded the enemy for 300 miles. It was the reason my grandfather joined and he was sent to the pacific then re routed to Korea. When I came home from a deployment the family said he only talked about what went on with me. All those years he never mentioned the war just that when he came home me bent down and kissed the ground and was thankful he made it home. Two weeks before he passed I sat with him and he had a picture of his unit with him . He said only 4 of us made it back. They don’t make em like them anymore. They truly loved the country and had grit beyond comprehension.
That's wild @john-hamilton. I've seen commercials for the show, but figured it was just some Hollywood pap. I'll check it out if YOU think it's good.
Here's a timely article on this subject:
There is a lot more to the story, hopefully they will show some of it in upcoming episodes.
