This series is sweating the details and getting them right. Want to know how real it is portrayed? Ask pilots and they will tell you. It's real enough to be visceral. You feel the situation as it's played out.
The entire episode is devoted to the most historic mission the 100th Bomb Group flew during the war, as they launched from England, flew over all of Germany, and then continued on to North Africa.
The only way the mission was deemed to have any chance of success was if it was part of three air wings coordinated to carry out three attacks simultaneously. As so often happened in the ETO air war, events conspired to ruin the plan.
This is the mission that earned the 100th their name, "The Bloody 100th." Their part of the mission is the only one that flew as planned, and they bore the brunt of the German response in a most brutal manner.
What is being done here is history played out on screen for all of us to see. Moreover, since it is more than a documentary, it opens up a look into the psyches of the men who flew it.
Exact dialog in the episode is verbatim of what the actual aviators in the war said, and how they said it. It's raw and unnerving, and this series deserves high marks for turning outstanding production values into far more than a simple mini-series.
What is being done is for the first time, our modern era is being taken back to a time where even the men who participated are challenged to try to put into words the scope of what took place, even as their inner selves would like to bury it deep so they don't have to think about it.
It takes all aspects to combine to reach the true sense of what these men experienced. This series is achieving that combination, and we would do well to carefully consider its stark reality.
The entire episode is devoted to the most historic mission the 100th Bomb Group flew during the war, as they launched from England, flew over all of Germany, and then continued on to North Africa.
The only way the mission was deemed to have any chance of success was if it was part of three air wings coordinated to carry out three attacks simultaneously. As so often happened in the ETO air war, events conspired to ruin the plan.
This is the mission that earned the 100th their name, "The Bloody 100th." Their part of the mission is the only one that flew as planned, and they bore the brunt of the German response in a most brutal manner.
What is being done here is history played out on screen for all of us to see. Moreover, since it is more than a documentary, it opens up a look into the psyches of the men who flew it.
Exact dialog in the episode is verbatim of what the actual aviators in the war said, and how they said it. It's raw and unnerving, and this series deserves high marks for turning outstanding production values into far more than a simple mini-series.
What is being done is for the first time, our modern era is being taken back to a time where even the men who participated are challenged to try to put into words the scope of what took place, even as their inner selves would like to bury it deep so they don't have to think about it.
It takes all aspects to combine to reach the true sense of what these men experienced. This series is achieving that combination, and we would do well to carefully consider its stark reality.