Donald Miller was on our Masters of the Air tour in September of 2022. We toured several 8th Air Force bases during our trip and his insight was excellent. He’s also a great guy!

Reading “Masters of the Air” for the 4th time right now. An amazing book.

Desert Shield had B52 bombers, 8th Air Force. They flew from RAF Fairford. The night of the first combat mission, Colonel Conlan, sent a message to 8th Air Force Command, that once again, we were flying combat bomber missions from a base in England. 1945 to 1991.

42:22: At this part in the video was some of the most powerful info. It's why you don't ever stop if you're winning. You don't ease up until it is beyond won. Beyond. The enemy will turn back on you in a heartbeat if you leave them any degree of their leadership.

If you’re watching Masters of the Air, you need to watch this.

My parents and their siblings ALL were involved in the War. My mother built B17s, an aunt went North to D.C. where she worked in a high-security section in the Pentagon, my dad operated heavy equipment and built airfields. An uncle of my dad who was only a year older, spent the war in the Pacific repairing heavy bombers. My dad died in 67 due to what we now understand is PTSD. My mom remarried a year later to a Marine, he enlisted December 8th 41. He fought to take islands so men like my dad could built air strips for the heavy bombers my uncle worked on, that my mother helped build. I remember many stories they would tell, often among themselves, no women around. I was small and quite sitting often just out of sight, so I got to hear so many tales. Later I would, " what did....mean?" My stepdad had the most " metals" I remember looking at his WW2 Corps uniform in his closet and poking around in his Footlocker, where the actual metals were. He fought from Guadalcanal to Iwo Jima, to their last landing during the war. Another uncle who started the war on on a DD, ( ship was commissioned in 38, he was a "Plank layer" ) From 43 to early 45 he served aboard the USS Augusta, a heavy cruiser. By June of 45 he was back at Pearl Harbor working on damaged warships. He told me that 1 day he looks out and his old DD is coming in. He had been on it's commissioning crew , thus a very close bond to Her. As soon as he could he made his way to the DD. He told me he was in the Chief's galley having coffee with many of his old pals and mates when the Captain announced over the ships comms, that Japan just surrendered. So for Uncle Hal the war started and ended on the same ship. So many stories I hold on to now, because that's all I have left. Growing up I never thought that there would come a time when there would no longer be WW2 Vets, they were everywhere. The stories are fading as I enter the final decades of my own life. But the values and the traditions rest now on the shoulders of our youth. My youngest daughter enlisted in the Corps as did both my youngest and my oldest grandsons. Simper Fi

What's great is that on KZfaq you get to see and hear the similar talk by the same author in their various venues. It helps to assimilate the material.

It’s a excellent book. He is a great writer. I’ve read all his stuff.

I bought the book, Masters of the Air and also bought one for my son. It was a great read.

I would like to correct the speaker. RAF Bomber Command did not fly in formation to the target. Each aircraft took off and found its own way to the target joining a bomber stream and then went solo bombing run channelling onto the target with a never ending one minute steady run to allow for the photo flash. The speaker mentioned fighter escort, there weren’t any in that sense used with Bomber Command.

I read his book, it's iconic, and I hear it is being made into another movie series by Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg, a la "Band of Brothers" and "Pacific".

What an amazing powerful speaker very moving

Great talk by the author of Eighth Air Force and Masters of the Air. Worth a watch.

Always understood that the two most high risk jobs during WW2 were bomber or submarine crewmen. Now I have discovered the only job higher risk was German fighter pilots. They usually flew until they died. Most of the survivors were significantly injured.

There were piston engined german aircraft which were faster than the P-51. Bf-109 K versions and the Ta-152. The P-51 had more range, which was possible due to large amounts of fuel. When you have droptanks and a lot of internal fuel with you over Berlin you are no match for a Bf-109K.

I never realized there were elevators in German submarine pens!!! Does this guy really know what he is talking about?

Last tour…

Good lecture but he mixed up a lot of thing, like 8th AF workhorse was the B17, not the B29. also 4eng bombers were also available to the other partys of WW2 like the PE8 from Russia, FW200 from Germany and so on. Not only brits and US hat heavy bombers.

I'm no expert. Like where he's coming from; The back ground information. He's sounds like he's had tones of research to get to work with HBO. However I am only half way through this talk and I have flinched at some of his inaccuracies/sweeping statements that are, well, just plain wrong. It's rather dumbfounding. I'm now finding his research methods hard to contemplate when even the most basic books on WW1 air battles, or RAF Bomber Command night raids and tactics for example, would have enabled these mistakes to be avoided. I'll leave it here. Maybe someone out there can help pinpoint my disillusionment in a more concise way. Or disagree. But no insulting please as my two year old already calls me 'silly daddy'.

34:20 sure the 8th oly bombed tactical military targets, right? Wrong. maybe for 3 days and then they too bombed cities and civilians. Why would an author do so stupid comments? He should know better. its history. He makes many mistakes, he shouldnt, he wrote about it.