Masters Of The Air

Apple TV+
4 out of 5

As Singapore film-maker Jack Neo’s Ah Boys To Men film franchise (2012 to 2017) illustrates, it is hard to stop at one military-themed show because there are stories to be found in the armed forces branches that cover the land, sea and air. 

The American miniseries Band Of Brothers (2001), following men from the 101st Airborne Division as they parachute into and fight across German-occupied Europe, won popularity and acclaim.

Almost a decade later came The Pacific (2010), revolving around three men from the 1st Marine Division as the ship-borne fighters wrest islands from Japanese control. 

Masters Of The Air is the third biographical World War II series made with help from producers Playtone and Amblin Television, companies founded with the involvement of Hollywood veterans Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg respectively. The third executive producer is Gary Goetzman.

The show, based on historian Donald L. Miller’s 2007 book of the same name, puts a focus mainly on the airmen of the 100th Bomb Group, with episodes that dwell on the experiences of the African-American pilots of the 332nd Fighter Group, also known as the Tuskegee Airmen. 

Here are the reasons Masters Of The Air, with seven episodes released and two more to come, is worthy of a binge.

1. Visual authenticity

When one makes a show featuring fleets of WWII bombers flying through clouds of bursting shells while German fighters buzz about peppering them with rockets and cannon fire, it is best to show up with a budget that will not make it all look like a cartoon. 

The Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress aircraft piloted by the key characters of Major Gale Cleven (Austin Butler) and Major John Egan (Callum Turner) and other pilots pass the credibility test – when arrayed in a sky-filling armada, the display of air power is awe-inspiring, even if it is clear that it could have been achieved only with computer graphics. 

The brutality of the air battles is well-composed and crisply edited, with each fight designed to push the story forward or illustrate some dismal aspect of service endured by each of the 10-man crew. 

For example, men in the high-altitude bombers’ interiors are shown to be exposed to the killing minus 40 deg C atmosphere, making frostbite as hazardous as enemy shells for those caught unprepared.

In one episode, the uniquely desperate plight of a ball-turret gunner – the crew member squeezed into the transparent dome on the plane’s belly – is brought home. 

2. The harrowing statistics 

The Eighth Air Force had a goal: Cripple Germany, no matter the cost.

Its 100th Bomb Group, to which Cleven and Egan belonged, was particularly beset by misfortune. In one raid, for instance, of the 13 aircraft that were sent to Germany, only one made it back. 

The top brass believed that the B-17 Flying Fortress, which bristled with the defensive guns that gave it its name, was sufficiently self-protecting – it flew high enough that ground fire became less accurate and could use its guns to hit back at attacking fighters. 

Despite overwhelming evidence showing that the faith in the invincibility of the B-17 was a grave mistake, the raids continued.  

The act of sending plane after plane into the meat-grinder would birth the phrase Catch-22, coined from the title of Joseph Heller’s 1961 novel, set in a world of bomber pilots who see that acting mad was a rational response in a world ruled by madness.  

The spectre of death hangs heavy over the series. Characters will be built up as nice guys, only for them to perish – those who remember the scene in Band Of Brothers showing bags of clothes at the laundry sitting unclaimed because their owners will never return, will get the same lump in the throat.

Despite the carnage, this is not an anti-war show. Those who prefer an unbridled take on the calamitous mathematics of the air campaign against Germany can turn to the 1970 film adaptation of Catch-22.

Like Band Of Brothers and The Pacific, Masters Of The Air’s emphasis is on courage in the face of horrifying odds, and it is not afraid to get sentimental when it needs to. 

3. Just enough artistic licence

WWII nerds might take issue with a couple of scenes. During flights, the airmen wore goggles and oxygen masks. But in the series, they are shown without goggles, because characters would be impossible to recognise otherwise. 

There is also a scene later in the series in which a downed American pilot is shown a Nazi concentration camp by his Soviet rescuers. The scene carries extra poignancy because the pilot is Jewish. It all feels a touch too convenient, but in the context of the series, the emotional impact is worth the deviation from the truth.