Donald L. Miller\u2019s massive book <\/em>Masters of the Air: America\u2019s Bomber Boys Who Fought the Air War Against Nazi Germany came out in 2007 and provided the basis for the new series on AppleTV+. In 2019 <\/em>Aviation History had contributing editor Stephan Wilkinson look back at the then 12-year-old book in light of the announcement that HBO was going to turn it into a series. Now that the series has begun (but not on HBO), we thought it would be interesting to revisit a review of a book we had already agreed was a classic.<\/em><\/p>\n The epic of the Eighth Air Force during World War II is fertile ground thoroughly plowed by aviation historians. A search of Amazon\u2019s e-shelves elicits nearly 200 such books, and several writers have made entire careers of covering the Mighty Eighth.<\/p>\n The best of them all is Donald Miller\u2019s Masters of the Air. Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg apparently agree, as they are basing their proposed 10-part HBO project, \u201cThe Mighty Eighth,\u201d on this book. If\u2014and that\u2019s a big if\u2014the miniseries comes to fruition, it will be the third in the trio that includes \u201cBand of Brothers\u201d and \u201cThe Pacific.\u201d No release date has been specified, and filming has not begun.<\/p>\n The Eighth\u2019s bombing campaign has been called the Children\u2019s Crusade, for the crews were made up of young men in their early 20s, even teenagers. The horrors they suffered are incomprehensible to anybody (like me) who hasn\u2019t gone to war.<\/p>\n Some of the most gripping chapters of Miller\u2019s book are those that describe the conditions into which bomber crews were thrust in 1943 and \u201944, when B-17s and B-24s were sent into stratospheric winds and temperatures minimally understood by the aeromedical professionals of the time\u2014ill-equipped flight surgeons whose resources dated back to the 1920s. Nor did the vaunted Norden bombsight come anywhere near living up to its PR-stoked reputation, and the minimally trained gunners who supposedly made their aircraft \u201cflying fortresses\u201d might just as well have been firing .50-caliber garden hoses.<\/p>\n Miller\u2019s book is not without minor faults. He believes that contrails are created by an aircraft\u2019s propellers and repeats the myth of the crushed ball-turret gunner who died when his B-17 had to land gear up\u2014a tale traced back to famously creative reporter Andy Rooney. Most are irrelevant except to rivet-counters. The comprehensiveness and well-written grace of this book vastly outweigh them and simply make it plain that nobody knows everything.<\/p>\n \n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.historynet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/Apple_TV_MotA_key_art_16_9-2048x1152-1-1024x576.png\")
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