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

AppleInsider

The World War II drama, "Masters of the Air," produced by the same team behind "Band of Brothers" and "The Pacific," will begin airing episodes on January 26 on Apple TV+.

Image Credit: Apple

"Masters of the Air" is a nine-episode miniseries based on Donald L. Miller's book of the same name and written by John Orloff.

The story follows the 100th Bomb Group, the "Bloody Hundredth," on perilous bombing missions over Nazi Germany, depicting their challenges in extreme conditions and the emotional toll as they contributed to defeating the Third Reich.

"Masters of the Air" is produced by Apple Studios, with Steven Spielberg, Tom Hanks, and Gary Goetzman serving as executive producers. The cast features Academy Award nominee Austin Butler, Callum Turner, Anthony Boyle, Nate Mann, Rafferty Law, Academy Award nominee Barry Keoghan, Josiah Cross, Branden Cook, and Ncuti Gatwa.

"Tom and Steven have always wanted to visualize cinematically what our author Don Miller has called, this 'singular event in the history of warfare,'" Goetzman said in a statement. "We're thrilled that Apple TV+ has given us the opportunity to combine the efforts of so many talented people, on-screen and behind the camera, to tell this important story."

"Masters of the Air" is the latest in a line of WWII miniseries that also includes "Band of Brothers" and "The Pacific." Both Emmy-winning series were made for HBO. "Masters of the Air" was initially developed for HBO but later moved to Apple.

"Masters of the Air" marks the second show Apple has produced with Spielberg, the first being the episodic anthology "Amazing Stories" that launched in March of 2020.

Read on AppleInsider

mayfly

"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).

Xed

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?

foregoneconclusion

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.

mayfly

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.

Kierkegaarden

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).

buckalec

John has being releasing teasing pictures over the past year...

Spitbath

Kierkegaarden said:

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).

• WeCrashed
• Black Bird
• Five Days At Memorial
• Napoleon
• The Big Cigar
• Chief of War
• Franklin
• The New Look
• Ferrari

RonboMcHudson

I sincerely hope the new series will account for the failure strategic bombing plan promulgated by the USAAF during the 20’s and 30’s. That doesn't take anything away from the bravery of the USAAF personnel who tried to make it work. Given the realities of existing technology at the time and a lack of complete understand of the jet streams at high altitude, the concept was always doomed to failure, as the RAF found out in 1939. The series looks fantastic to this amateur aviation historian. From the period-correct clothing to the B-17F with the modified nose ‘50’s (a stop-gap to defend against the nose-attacks by the Luftwaffe — later 17’s had the Bendix chin turret installed to do the same thing. Looks like another winner!

mayfly

RonboMcHudson said:

I sincerely hope the new series will account for the failure strategic bombing plan promulgated by the USAAF during the 20’s and 30’s. That doesn't take anything away from the bravery of the USAAF personnel who tried to make it work. Given the realities of existing technology at the time and a lack of complete understand of the jet streams at high altitude, the concept was always doomed to failure, as the RAF found out in 1939. The series looks fantastic to this amateur aviation historian. From the period-correct clothing to the B-17F with the modified nose ‘50’s (a stop-gap to defend against the nose-attacks by the Luftwaffe — later 17’s had the Bendix chin turret installed to do the same thing. Looks like another winner!

Thanks for the lesson: We learn more from our failures than our successes. And it was the B-17 that led to the development of the B-29 Superfortress that ended the war in the Pacific, and the B-52 Stratofortress, and those were not failures. My father was in the AAF during WWII (and my mother was in the WACs at the Pentagon, where he met her), and then stayed with the Air Force until 1960. In his footsteps, I joined the AF in 1971 and my brother followed in 1980, and stayed 20 years.

I hope the new series will serve the US Army Airforces with the respect and merit they deserve.

mayfly

Spitbath said:

Kierkegaarden said:

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).

• WeCrashed
• Black Bird
• Five Days At Memorial
• Napoleon
• The Big Cigar
• Chief of War
• Franklin
• The New Look
• Ferrari

Five Days at Memorial was one of the most wrenching dramatizations depicting real events during my lifetime that I've seen. Seeing corporations and governments trying to find a scapegoat for their failures is so disheartening, not just because of the betrayal, but because it happens over and over. And over and over… Hell, Both US Airways and the NTSB tried to blame Chesley Sullenberger for landing his plane in the Hudson and saving the lives of everyone on board, instead of crashing it into a building and killing hundreds or maybe thousands. My own military blamed college students for losing the Vietnam War, instead of praising them for bringing about the end of our involvement in a decade of military and federal insanity.