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Masters of The Air Epi 3 Watch Along

🕑 Added 2024-02-05 17:00:12 +0000 UTC

Comments

Clay F

11 of the 21 bombers made it. Surely worth it? Destroyed the factory. Stunning visuals in this series.

Stephen Knueppel

In November 42 American and British troops invaded North Africa. German and Italian troops surrendered in May of 43. Around 250,000 were captured. The raid in this episode was in August 43 so all of North Africa from Morroco to Egypt was in Allied hands. This raid shows why the British Air Force had switched to nighttime bombing. Losses during daylight were to heavy to maintain. At this time no fighter aircraft had the fuel to escort the bombers all the way to their targets so German fighters would wait for our fighters to go home and then would attack the bombers. 60 bombers were shot down and 95 more were heavily damaged. 129 reached Africa but only 80 would fly again. Those conducted a bombing ran in France on the way back to England. Germany generally followed the Geneva Convention on the western front so thousands of airmen were made P.O.W.s during the war. Against the Russians the Germans ignored the conventions and treated captured Russians harshly if not killing them outright. Almost 3 million Russian P.O.W.s died in German prison camps.