War has played a key role in the history of the United States, from the nation's founding

right down to the present. War made the U.S. independent, kept it together, increased its

size, and established it as a global superpower. Understanding America's wars is essential for understanding American history.

Welcome to Key Battles of American History,

a podcast in which we discuss American history through the lens of the most important battles of America's wars.

Here is your host, James Early.

Thank you. host, James Early. Hello and welcome back to Masters of the Air, our nine-part discussion of the recent Apple TV

Plus limited series of the same name.

This is your host, James Early, as always. And as always,

I am joined by Sir Sean the Marquise of MacIber. Marky Marquess, however do you want to pronounce it?

Sean, how are you, sir? Oh, I'm here. You're here. Well, I'm glad you're here, and I know the audience is glad you're here as well.

So we are going to be discussing part five in this episode, and just to recap part four,

a lot of different things happen.

There's a lot of subplots going on, but the main thing that happened at the very end was the Bremen mission, which was

launched on October 8, 1943, and it was a brutal mission. Eight of the B-17s from the

100th bomb group did not return, including the planes of Blakely, Kid, and Crosby, as well as the plane of one of our heroes, possibly the main

character, what he really kind of is the main character, at least he shares it with Egan.

That is Gail Cleven.

Gail Cleven goes down, but we do not know what happened to him.

The writers and the producers have kept us in

suspense, unless you've read any of the books about this or anything, but if you just watch

the show, they keep you in the dark. He just flat out did not come back. And that was a big shock

...