The Buck Cleven reveal pretty much happened that way in real life. I think it was great they gave us the viewpoint of uncertainty Bucky was going through until they reunited at the Stalag.

I don’t know if you’ve ever seen it but, Stalag 17 (1954) is a great movie about POW’s in World War 2

I actually wished that the team of Boden/Fleck/Fitzgerald continued for the rest of the series. 5 & 6 were incredibly well-done! The intro to Ep 9 is another fav - but that’s about it. I thought the show fell off the cliff after 6.

The townspeople attacking the POW's and killing 6 airmen did occur and was called The Rüsselsheim massacre. Bucky was not there, at least not for that event depicted.

ELIE, I agree, every time I watch someone react to this series, when they get to that reveal of Buck, I just break down in happy tears of joy!!! 😂 I know it's coming every time and it's STILL just hits me SO great!! I don't know if you've ever seen the film from the 60s with Steve McQueen called The Great Escape!?? Well, the prisoner of war camp that they are in, Stalag Luft 3, was the site of where the actual Great Escape took place!! Pay attention next episode and they will talk about it briefly!! If you haven't seen the Great Escape you should!! Excellent World War II prisoner of war movie!!!!

Other than Nate Mann's moustache he did a great job getting the likeness and cadence of Rosie's voice. He sounds exactly like him. Rosie was a classy aristocratic gentleman from Brooklynn, he knew and loved music and the arts and he was one helluva pilot. I feel like Mann was the only actor who actually did a deep study on the Man he was portraying.

Young man, I wondered recently how you found time for sleep. Now I’m starting to become concerned about your studies. Time for another Dad Cameo to discuss this. 🤪

That is the prison camp that was in the great escape. That was from a book by Paul Brickhill who also wrote the Dam Busters and other books. The show made some historical changes. It is an entertainment program and not a documentary. Bubbles died months after they had him die. That does not change the result. Remember the author of the book Donald Miller is a historian. He met one of these men giving a talk at the eighth air force museum many years ago. Next episode you will have planes in the air.

'What took you so long?'

In real life, Rosie Rosenthal’s crew was not interrogated after Munster. Due to there not being two more navigators to corroborate what his navigator had recorded. Everyone on that mission was just instantly declared MIA, and their trunks were sent home to their families. It was such a disaster, the 8th Air Force pulled all the replacement crews (that arrived in England with Rosie) from other groups and reassigned them to the 100th. Since there was not enough time to wait for new recruits from the States. The Russelsheim massacre did happen, but in 1944, with B-24 crew. It was deemed a war crime and the perpetrators (including the civilians) were all convicted at the Nuremberg trials. However it being included in “Masters of the Air” was incredibly controversial. As the families of the victims were not consulted, and were horrified when it was revealed to have been included in this episode. They felt the tragedy was exploited for the sake of entertainment. Honestly, I side with the families of the real-life victims. Not only is it historically inaccurate for Egan to be there, it broke the immersion because it became clear he was a composite character for the experiences of American airmen. Meaning from that moment forward, it was obvious everything he was doing was dramatized. Egan would be in the correct general-vicinity but what the audience saw were other airmen’s experiences.

In Masters of the Air, we unlearn the lesson from Band of Brothers, that war is all cool and sheet ;-0

I read the book this series is based on. There’s a story where American prisoners were shot by civilians. When a group of German soldiers found out about this, they rounded up the civilians and hanged them.