Loved the whole series, the final episode had particular meaning for me since it covered the exact time my dad was a B-17 pilot, in the 390th Bombardment Group. At the episode's opening (4 Feb 1945) my dad has been in England a couple of weeks, has just turned 20, and is ten days from flying his first mission. The last flying shown, the food drop in the Netherlands on May 1 to Valkenburg AF Base, my dad also flew that exact mission, so those flight scenes meant something even more.

My dad's flight crew. He is second from the left, front row. By the time they arrived the Luftwaffe influence had been reduced, so they had crews of 9 (dropped one gunner).


A Stars and Stripes photo of my dad and his plane at the moment of their food drop, near Leiden, the Netherlands. Until he was in his 70's, he didn't talk much about his war experience, except for his two food drops. His plane seems higher than many of the planes shown in the episode.


My dad's missions. 20 combat, two food, and two more (not listed) ferrying French POW's from Austria to Paris. My dad's plane, named "Liquid8er", with an image of an eight ball bottle raining bombs, was 46954. You can see he only flew that plane 7 of the 24 missions.


My dad, mom, and two older brothers in the summer of 1945, when he was awaiting reassignment for the final assault on Japan. Fortunately for them, the atomic bombs ended the war, and he was mustered out of the Army Air Corp in October 1945.


Couple of other notes. My dad did buzz the control tower once. The officer in charge got on the radio, and told him the old AF chestnut: "Son, there are old pilots, and bold pilots, but there are no old and bold pilots."

I served a mission in Germany. The only time he mentioned anything about his missions while I was there was when I was in Munich. He said they flew over Munich on one of their missions repatriating French POW's from Austria to Paris. As they approached Munich they were much lower than usual (the war of course was over at this point), and the city looked normal. But as they flew over, they could see there were no roofs or insides to the buildings, they were mostly just walls.