Interesting point on the disparity of firepower between British and American Bombers: My Uncle was a rear gunner in Lancasters during the war, survived 2 combat tours (60 missions), finishing the war as an Air Gunnery Instructor. Like the USAAF casualties in Bomber Command were huge, 57,000 British Bomber crew died during the war, including wounded and POW's Bomber Command suffered a 60% loss rate, despite flying at night. So, introduction over.... Uncle Bill used to tell us at family get togethers that the rear gunner was not there to shoot enemy Night Fighters down, their job was to spot them before they could shoot the bomber down. If the rear gunner spotted a Night Fighter he would inform the pilot of the fact, where it was in relation to the bomber, and its (estimated) speed. The pilot would then determine the evasive action required. Usually this consisted of the corkscrew, a violent evasive maneuver that would break contact with the night fighter *if* it was executed soon enough. According to Uncle Bill this was 'a little bit exciting'. He once recalled that in 60 combat tours he had fired his guns in anger precisely twice, but his aircraft had to enter a corkscrew on more occasions than he was comfortable recalling! In my mind that would be once! But there you go.....

The speaker notes that RAF bombers carried fewer bombs but fails to note that RAF Bombers needed significantly smaller crews and that they carried far bigger bomb loads than US bombers.

You could retract the call turret on a B24 not on a B17. The smashed ball turret in the photo was on a B17 not a B24 so that particular part of the talk was factually incorrect. Just pointing this out.

After the Dam Busters raid was successful, I wonder if anybody thought to do the same to the Sub Pens. Skip one into the massive opening!

Later in the war Britain would have some success against U-Boat pens using their massive _earthquake_ bombs: tallboy and grand slam which could initially only be launched from Lancaster bombers.

My Father was A Navigator in the Forgotten 15th AF 449th Bombardment Group. They had the distinction of actually having a greater loss % per Mission than the Bloody 100th and also flew the most Missions to Ploesti, the most heavily defended target in the European Theatre. They are always overlooked by the the size difference than the 8th AF, only about 1/2 the size, but earned more decorations per missions flown and were one of the most highly decorated bombardment Groups in the USAAF despite only operating 22 months. They also did not receive P51s until 5 months after the 8th Air Force and flew unescorted until May 44. They were also sent back to the US and trained on the B29 redesignated Very Heavy and were to be redeployed to the Pacific. They were also one of the first Groups in the formation of SAC after the creation of the USAF, but little is written about them?

For the first 2 years of the war Britain alone prosecuted the bombing campaign into occupied Europe alone. Bomber Command lost 57,000 aircrew during the course of the war. Referring to Arthur Bomber Harris as a maniac is uncalled for and offensive.

That gripped me. Great presentation

"I got a purple heart. I got shot in the foot." "I also got a purple heart. I got shot out of a bomber."

In the 1960s I hitch-hiked in France. On one occasion a car stopped and my friend and I said we were going to Reems (Reims). The Frenchman looked at us in a puzzled way as he had never heard of a place called Reems. Then he realised that we meant Raam (with the R said in a rolling way). Similarly someone living in East Anglia and being asked the way to Nor-(to rhyme with door)witch would also be a bit puzzled.

Horror, courage, and sacrifice. The war against fascism, in the air.

Very good. Donitz!

Great narration.

Simply brilliant, by far the best summary I've heard and seen. If I can add some value, feel for brevity, the effectiveness of the bombing of the U boat pens may of been under played. German quartermaster, support service records do show the bombing did impair tbe efficiency of the repair/service of the actual U Boats and moral of both support staff and crew very noticeably......hence the reason for the heavy defensive measures taken....you wouldn't bother otherwise. The mining of the waterways around the pens killed more U Boats for sure though but, this was not the initial intent of the bombing. 😎

Within the last few years, the US Navy declassified a hydrophone recording of a German U-boat breaking up after being depth charged during WW2. You could hear the bulkheads collapsing, the pressure hull imploding and the rush of the escaping oxygen. Thankfully the crew wasn't heard. I listened to it, and it is profoundly sad and horrible.

With few exceptions targets were selected by the Ministry of Economic Warfare, missions were assigned by RAF Bomber Command and approved by Bomber Harris. As I understand it.

Randall Jarrell (1914-1965) -- "The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner" "From my mother's sleep I fell into the State, And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze. Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life, I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters. When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose."

Thanks for posting this one. My father was also a USAAF pilot. He really captured the topic with an impressive array of material.

A great historian personable and informative

Dec 1, 2017 they still haven't started filming Masters of the Air, it has a new title "The Mighty Eighth".

Nick Mueller has spent more time introducing people than any man in history. Remarkable.

Starts at 7 minutes

At 10:16He says the Germany captured France in 1944? I could’ve sworn it happened in 1940?

Good point about there being no battle fields to visit related to air battles but that is also true largely for naval battles so not unique

Don Miller is the best. His book, "Masters of the Air" is the definitive work on the 8th Air Force. My understanding is that the film project got delayed and went from HBO to Apple TV because it was hard to justify the huge budget once DVD revenue became much less of an option.

Today is the 78 anniversary of D-Day. Am i right?

I visited the Valentin U-Boat pens outside Bremen but apparently they were never used for U-Boats.... too late in the war. And at they time they were flooded so you could get a close up view of the exterior. There was a sign that said they were built with slave labor.

Who's watching this because of Apple TV Masters of the Air?

This guy makes error after error in his narration. He clearly does not know his subject. When he said visible flak bursts were shrapnel, not smoke, I shut him off.

Arthur Harris a mainiac.....?

Get this guy some coffee.

This is an interesting presentation, but not a balanced assessment of the strategic bombing campaign. Miller ignores a lot of important facts. For example, the bombing forced the Germans to take countermeasures such as decentralizing industry. This made it less efficient which adversely affected the German war economy, both in quantity and quality. When U-boat production was moved away from the ports, the components when they arrived often did not fit together. Most importantly, the bombing forced the Germans to withdraw major air units from the East where the War was in large measure being decided. He also mentions but does not explain well that the bombing forced the Luftwaffe to come up and it was destroyed by the P-51s. This is why there was no German air resistance to the Normandy landings. Even more importantly, the diversion of resources from the Ostkrieg is a major reason the NAZIs lost.

Much criticism of Arthur Harris for doing in Europe what America would do (and more) to Japan, a less dangerous enemy than Germany but more hated by USA. It was his 8th Airforce man Curtis LeMay who was behind that Japan campaign. Thus this man's criticism of Harris is rich. Typical American Brit bashing and selective memory re wars.

This lecture is pretty much the standard stuff given to elderly Americans who've paid X sum of dollars and want to feel good about themselves. Basically it's the same stuff you'll see in television documentaries; so best avoided if you want real insight into the issue at hand.

Goddamn plug fest! Knock it off!

I have heard (and you know what that means) that the RAF used their 1000 lb. Tall Boy bomb against the sub pens. Was this ordinance more effective than other bombs? Were they even used? Your summary infers that no amount of bombing did ANY damage to the pens. Wherein lies the truth?

Finally! Someone (no less than Don Miller) is in agreement with me that the U-Boat crews were highly Nazified, as was the rest of the Kriegsmarine. So, despite its veracity concerning the lack of heroics that was emblematic of WW2, at the core of Das Boat we find a huge lie. I am so tired of so many fans, as well as movie critics, praising Das Boat to the heavens for its purported honesty, while ignoring the fundamental truth that these were extremely anti-Semitic, hard core Nazis. What does Tom Hanks think of that, I wonder. By the way, I admire Mr. Hanks enormously, but I think he is wrong here.

An interesting presentation, to be sure. If you'll pardon me for posing an idea, I would be grateful. The Leigh Light was not a real weapon of war. It could not possibly have been used in the way described in reports that both you and I have exhaustively reviewed. Rather than argue my objections point by point, let me ask you a question about four engine bombers in general and the B24 in specific: How long can a four engine bomber, like the B24, "glide" with its engines feathered (or turned off, as is claimed?). Answer? Zero. It drops like a stone and I bet you already know that from another context. No four engine bomber crew would EVER turn off its engines to "sneak up" on a U-Boat. So the Leigh Light tactic as we accepted based on reports, is pure and utter trash. Thanks for letting me use this comments section as a forum.

I can't believe what these brave young men went through, they must of been terrified. Imagine the snow flake generation of today trying to do this

This man is a "renown expert". Yet he cannot pronounce the names of people/places that were central to the war. The German U-boat fleet -- prior to the occupation of France -- was based in "Wilhelmshaven". It is a very simple compound German word: "Wilhems" (William's) + "haven" ("harbor, or haven"). Each of the two words is pronounced separately. Thus it is NOT pronounced "Wilhem-SHAVEN". It was a very important German naval base in BOTH world wars, and it remains an important base for the modern German navy.

So the military bigwigs sent thousands of bombers to France and Germany and hundreds were shot down. After a couple of years of this slaughter some genius decided that fighter escorts were a good idea. The P-47s were quite capable of escorting the bombers with extra fuel tanks. The bigwigs weren't ready to stop the slaughter and so would not provide fuel tanks. The Brits built paper mache' fuel tanks for the P-47s in the meantime. Finally in 43 the Mustangs were brought in to protect the bombers.

9:30 mark; The use of the Lords name in vain is always good for a good laugh, SMH . Revelation 21 v 8 All blasphemers will have their part in the lake of fire. How will you have your sins forgiven?

The P-47 cleared the sky over Western Europe. The P-51 did not surpass the P-47 in number in the 8th Air Force until May 44’. The best of the Luftwaffe was destroyed by the P-47 that could and did go to Berlin and back.

U 570/HMS Graph Initially, all the German naval high command knew of 's situation was her radio message, saying she was under air-attack and unable to submerge; they only learned of her capture from later British press reports. They were concerned for the security of their communications and Erhard Maertens, the Director of the Naval Intelligence Command, was ordered to report on this. He concluded that in the worst-case scenario-that is, the British had secured 's codebooks and Rahmlow had revealed to them his memorised, secret keyword-communications would be compromised until a new list of Enigma machine settings came into force in November. wiki