WWII Historian Gives Steven Spielberg’s Masters of the Air Series An Almost Perfect Rating

After producing the iconic Band of Brothers miniseries over a decade ago, Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg teamed up for a new war drama, Masters of the Air. Released in 2024, Masters of the Air is a big-budget limited series from Apple TV+ that features a loaded all-star cast that includes Austin Butler, Callum Turner, Barry Keoghan, and many more. The show is based on a true story of 100th Bomb Group during World War II, and it has now received a very firm stamp of approval from a WWII historian.

Insider (via ScreenRant)had World War II expert John McManus break down scenes from Masters of the Air that take the historical battle to the skies. As one could assume, most of what is examined are the airborne sequences, whether that includes dogfights or bombing runs. “Overall, I think it’s amazing. I would give it a nine out of 10,” McManus said. There is a moment from the show that involves bombs being dropped from planes using the Norden bombsight, which McManus praises for its visual and historical accuracy.

“What he’s looking through there is called the Norden bombsight, and it was said to be the most cutting edge bombsight technology in the world at that point… So any bombardier like you see in the clip would’ve been hunched over that Norden bombsight trying to line up exactly when he was supposed to drop the bomb…

When they drop the bombs at that point, you’ll notice that the other planes are taking the same cue and they dropped the bombs at almost the same time. And I really like this clip because it really tracks with a lot of the photographic evidence that you see at the time of sticks of bombs going all the way down to the target and then exploding, almost like bubbling up as you see on the ground there. And that was this kind of suffocating effect of the bombs for a major raid like this…”

In one sequence, the fighter pilots are seen holding their fire when a defeated enemy solider is parachuted into the air. According to McManus, this was an accurate depiction of an unspoken rule of aerial battle during World War II, even though it was not always followed.

“They hold their fire, and that was the sort of unspoken etiquette of the air war, which wasn’t always adhered to, was that once a guy hit the silk, once he’s out there in a parachute, you did not shoot at him when he was vulnerable. This was seen as almost really a war crime. But believe me, plenty of times that happened either by intention or not. In this case, it’s portrayed that they’re deliberately not shooting at him”

Check out the full video below:

Another Spielberg-Hanks Miniseries Gets High Praise From Experts

Before Masters of the Air, Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks produced another war drama miniseries, and most will probably be more familiar with it. In 2001, Band of Brothers was released on HBO to mass acclaim, from critics and audiences alike, and it is generally regarded as the greatest TV show about war ever made. The historian Dan Snow broke down various on-screen depictions of D-Day, praising the sequence in Band of Brothers and calling it one of the best scenes in television history.

“This is one of the great scenes, I think, in television history. They’ve gone through enormous lengths to make sure it’s pretty accurate, they’ve put the cast through the type of tactical training these men would have gone through, the sound design, the weapons are accurate. They fired World War II weapons to create an accurate soundscape, and it shows the importance of small units of well trained, well led men, each playing their part on D-Day and it’s the sum total of all those small actions that meant that D-Day was a success and the Allies suffered less casualties than they’d feared when they hit those beaches.”

Although Masters of the Air also received major praise from critics and historians, it has not reached near the heights of cultural relevance of Band of Brothers. Of course, a part of that is the overwhelming number of war films and television, as well as Masters of the Air getting lost in the depths of the streaming wars. However, Masters of the Air is regarded as a sequel to Band of Brothers for good reason, as its breathtaking scope and historical accuracy are almost unmatched, especially on television.