Masters of the Air Episode 7 recap: Prisoners of war

❘ Updated: 2024-03-01T08:00:00

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Masters of the Air Episode 7 picks up with Buck and Bucky’s frosty reunion in Stalag Luft III, while Rosie approaches a massive milestone: his 25th mission.

Calling last week’s episode a breather wouldn’t be entirely accurate; after all, we watched Bucky duck, dip, dive, and dodge his way through the gauntlet of paranoia and violence in Nazi Germany. He was pursued by shotgun-wielding farmhands, narrowly avoided execution, and survived an interrogation that nearly saw him handed over to the Gestapo.

But we also followed two other characters: Rosie was sent for a mandatory week of R&R after the calamitous Munster mission, teaching him the value of spoken grief and managing trauma rather than suppressing it with more violence; while Crosby traveled to Oxford for a conference between the allied nations, hoped to give him a few days respite after the death of Bubbles.

In its final moments, the series delivered a tear-jerking reveal: Buck is alive and well(ish) at a POW camp in Poland, and him and Bucky are back together again.

Welcome to Stalag Luft III

“Stalag Luft III was run by the German Air Force,” Crosby narrates. “And because we had their downed pilots in our camps, they treated our boys humanely enough. It was cold and miserable. Their diet consisted of potatoes and turnips year-round. But they had access to hygiene, amenities, books, music, All they really wanted was news from the front to give them hope that one day soon they’d be going home.”

We see men queuing for hot water and looking (somewhat hopelessly) and German message boards. Buck asks Bucky if he’s heard anything on the next arrival of mail, but there’s been another holdup: war. “Red Cross is having trouble getting mail into the camp,” he explains. Meanwhile, Hambone tries to convince a cat to come out from underneath one of the huts; it’s a small form of amusement, but it’s all they have.

Moments later, we see them eating the wateriest, nastiest broth you’ve ever seen with a small hunk of mysterious meat. “Rabbit?” one asks. “Yeah… sure. There’s been lots of stray rabbits running around under our combine,” another says, prompting immediate vomit. “Keep it down if you can… it’s protein,” one advises.

Soon after, they listen to the BBC. “British, Indian, and Gurkha forces continue to battle the Japanese in Burma,” the newscaster says, before the signal becomes a bit dodgy. Men diligently note down anything they hear, but as Buck says, it’s “nothing good.” The camp’s remaining colonel says he’ll pass it all on, as he wants “expectations among the men to be realistic.”

As you’d expect, they aren’t allowed to be listening to the news. So, when the Germans begin a search of all the huts, they hastily pack away their radio somewhere hidden. As they leave, a Nazi stops an American named Solomon. “That is a Jewish name, yes?” he says, chillingly. Outside, every man is counted while their dorms are ransacked – and they find the radio. “They didn’t get the headphone,” Buck whispers, to which Bucky says, “Well thank god for small miracles.”

The 100th gets a (small) win

Quinn and Bailey in Masters of the Air Episode 6

We return to Thorpe Abbotts. “It was understood in early 1944 that the invasion of Europe was imminent,” Crosby narrates. “The 100th Bomb Group would play its part. More missions into Germany meant more casualties. More casualties meant more replacements.”

We see a fresh shipment of suited-and-booted soldiers, and they look nervous; surely by this point, they know what they’re in for by being assigned to the 100th. Given the constant losses, they’re not warmly received by some of the men; why bother getting to know someone when you could lose them the next day? Rosie doesn’t think like that. He welcomes them all to the 100th and offers to take them for lunch as a safe pair of hands.

That day, something amazing happens: Quinn and Bailey, last seen rolling into Nazi-occupied Paris, make it home, an event that “electrifies” the base. They were presumed dead, but they cycle in with huge smiles on their face. “Nothing gave us more hope than the return of men we thought were lost,” Crosby says.

And it gets better: downed flyers who make it out of occupied Europe don’t need to fly any more missions, “because if a flyer got shot down again and was captured and tortured by the Gestapo, they knew too much about the escape routes, and the French and Belgian men and women who’d assisted them… the lucky b*stards got a ticket home.”

Ken and the other mechanics wave them goodbye as they return to the US. “Fly safe boys,” they shout.

That night, Crosby and Rosie have a drink together. Rosie’s 25th mission is coming up, which means he’d get to go home. He wants to train pilots in Florida if he’s lucky enough to make it back, but Crosby thinks the mere fact he could survive 25 operations would be a huge morale boost for the other men. “What I wouldn’t give to train pilots somewhere sunny after a year in this pea soup,” he says.

Over at the bar, replacements are chatting about Rosie’s miraculous return after the rest of the 100th’s bombers were downed. Jack corrects them on a few details: “It was Munster, it was 13 ships, and luck had very little to do with it… Rosie’s the best pilot I’ve ever seen fly a B-17. Ever. You pray to god you can fly half as good as him, you might make it to 25 too.”

As the other men head to bed before their mission, Rosie goes to join them, but his crew is on “stand-down” for this one.

Buck gives Bucky a mission

Back at the camp, Buck tells Bucky he made a homemade crystal radio when he was a kid. He reckons if he can get his hands on some copper wire, graphite, and a safety pin, he could make it work. “My little kriegie Marconi huh? I’ll see what I can rustle up,” Bucky says.

Seconds later, the air raid siren starts blaring, so the men run back to their huts. They initially struggle to pin down exactly where the flak is coming from, but they believe it’s Berlin. “It’s gonna be rough up there, first daylight raid on the capital of Germany,” Buck says as others around him cheer.

They hear gunshots outside. One of their men was shot by a German guard for being “outside the block”, even though that’s a complete lie. They even set a dog on one of them when they question what happened. “These goddamn goons are gonna take us out one at a time,” Bucky warns as they go back inside.

Bucky becomes pretty resourceful, managing to source all of the items Buck needs for his radio. “Good?” he asks as Buck strips the rubber off the wire. “It’s great,” Buck replies.

The next day, Buck receives a letter from Marge – but Bucky doesn’t get anything. Buck tells Bucky he popped the question in his last letter… and she said yes! “So, that’s great? Congratulations,” Bucky tells him, but Buck looks a bit unsure. “I was even thinking maybe you’d be my best man,” he tells him, and it becomes clear: he doesn’t even know if he’ll make it home to marry her. “I will be your best man,” Bucky insists.

Buck then assembles his radio… but it doesn’t work. Bucky asks him if they should consider trying to escape when the weather gets better. Despite the overwhelming odds against them, he wants to figure out a plan. “My plan is to get home to Marge in one piece,” Buck says, and Buck responds: “Well you’d die here in one piece, from sickness, from walking too close to that god damn fence.”

“We can wait here doing nothing, that what you wanna do?” he asks, but Buck is clearly frightened – and with good reason.

Black Monday

At Thorpe Abbotts, Crosby and co. anxiously await the return of the 100th from Berlin. “Every man on base held his breath as we waited to see just how dearly it would cost us,” he says, but the rumble of aircraft can soon be heard through the clouds, and their flares start lighting up the sky.

As medics and other men rush to the planes, it’s chaos. They emerge bloodied and gruesomely injured; one man is scalped, and another man’s legs are broken. “March 6th, 1944, became known as Black Monday because of how many men were lost that day. 150 of them were from the 100th,” Crosby explains.

Hours later, men who survived the mission explain that a crew on their 25th mission were downed, nosediving into a nightmarish death. “Motherf**kers went after our guys in parachutes, one after another,” they recount. “They killed them all, every last one of them.”

“As our crews got younger, our casualties climbed and the morale on base plummeted. We all needed to distract ourselves from the war,” Crosby says, before revealing that he’s been sleeping with Sandra. “I told myself all I wanted was someone to drink and laugh with, but then I called her a second time, and a third,” he explains.

We then see Crosby writing to the families of the men who died on the mission; a list that feels endless. He tells Jack he’s doing “just fine”, and Jack hands him the next mission brief: it’s the exact same route to Berlin. “They don’t care if they kill us all do they,” he says.

The men go back to Berlin

While Harding is in London, Thorpe Abbotts has a new CO: Colonel Bennett. He delivers the news: the men are heading back to Berlin to hit the Erkner ball-bearing plant. “But I am not a man to order anyone on any mission I won’t fly myself, so I will be command pilot for the entire wing,” he says. Bowman then walks them through the mission, hoping they’ll hit “the heart of Berlin.”

“We only had 15 planes left to send up. The same number the Germans shot down two days earlier. It didn’t take a mathematician to figure out the odds were pretty bad for Rosie and his crew to make it back from their 25th mission,” Crosby says.

After Rosie does his pre-flight checks, he tells his men: “You know the drill. You boys worry about the guns, I’ll worry about the plane. Let’s go to Berlin.”

They head to the skies. “Our chances of defeating the Luftwaffe were increased by the introduction of the P-51 Mustang. Hands down the best fighter plane of the war. Escorted by the Mustangs for the entire mission, the odds were starting to shift in our favor,” Crosby narrates. As German fighters arrive, the P-51s fly ahead to take them out while Rosie concentrates on reaching the target. “Our fighters are gonna punch us through,” he tells his men, and soon after, they successfully drop their bombs. It is a triumph.

They head home, met with cheers on the ground (he even gives the base the Top Gun treatment by buzzing the tower). It is a true cause for celebration. One of his crew even relays what he told his wife: “You better paint the ceilings in your favorite color because you’re gonna be seeing a hell of a lot of them once I get home.”

When Rosie goes to get another drink, he notices Jack looking rather “blue” at the bar. “Brass is upping the end-of-tour requirements from 25 to 30 missions. Only for new replacement crews coming after next week. Any crew in-between will have to make 28. You and your boys are off the hook, Rosie,” he reveals.

“Changing the rules on us mid-game, that’s bullsh*t Jack. They want us all to f**king die up there, and no one gives a sh*t,” Shoens shouts, before storming out.

Crosby goes to dinner with Sandra. “During these last two weeks, I have missed you terribly… and I just wanna know where you’ve been,” he says. “Do you want to know where I’ve been, or do you want to know where I will be… in 20 minutes,” she replies, before the scene cuts to them in bed together.

Buck finds a solution

At Stalag Luft III, Buck notices Crank using sandpaper on a model plane, which gives him an idea. “It’s conduction, maybe there’s some glue residue or oil or dirt or something getting in the way of the current,” he says as he rubs the copper wire. Suddenly, German music starts to come through, and he manages to find the BBC.

“Yesterday, Berlin took the heaviest bombing of the war. And listen to this: Uncle Joe’s Russkies [Russians] seized a bridgehead at a place called Mogilev Podolsky, splitting the Kraut army in two,” one them notes.

The 8th Air Force’s strategy starts to evolve. Instead of just bombing targets, they realize they need to destroy the Luftwaffe. This was something Rosie understood – but he’d just flown his 25th mission, left to watch injured and dead soldiers leave the base.

That night, a huge group of German soldiers are seen leaving the base. “Some news, boys. The Brits in North Compound built three tunnels,” a man reveals – this is the story of The Great Escape. They were built 30ft deep so “the goons’ seismographs wouldn’t detect them. 70, maybe 80 men made it out. Colonel believes there’ll be severe reprisals as more senior officers in the SS and Gestapo become aware of the magnitude of the escape.”

The next day, Buck says they could have made a run for it while the Germans were distracted, but Bucky thinks it may be better to play it safe. “What the hell am I rushing back home for? Other guys get letters, you get letters. To get a letter, you need someone to get it from… guess I never set that part up right,” he says.

“We’ll have plenty of time for that when we get out,” Buck tells him, but Bucky’s worried about them “only knowing this me, not the old me.” Buck says: “We’ll get out, and this you will be the one worth knowing.”

Simoleit, the camp’s senior commander, orders Buck, Bucky, the Colonel, and other men to come to his office. “Because of this great escape attempt, Kommandant von Lindeiner has been relieved of all duties. Most of the escapees have been recaptured, but I regret to inform you that 50 of the recaptured escapees have been executed,” they’re told, warned not to retaliate.

And then he drops the inevitable Nazi bombshell: he’s been ordered to take an inventory of every Jewish POW. There’s all been discussions about transferring every stalag “in the Reich” from the Luftwaffe’s jurisdiction to the SS and Gestapo. This is an outcome I think we would all like to avoid, yes? Your good behaviour would be very much appreciated.”

As Buck and Bucky walk outside, they tell each other that the odds of them making it home alive have now become “very, very long.”

Rosie isn’t leaving

Back at base, Rosie goes to Col. Bennett’s office. “You wanna re-up?” he asks, but Rosie is aware of the new 30-mission rule. “I can’t stop you, Captain. But don’t you wanna go home? And Jesus, if anyone’s earned a trip to Florida, it’s you,” the colonel says.

Rosie brings up Shoems and Helmick. “How could I sleep at night knowing I get to go home while the brass upped their numbers mid-tour? I can’t imagine some rookie coming to take my place, and getting himself and his crew killed on their first mission. Then he gets replaced by another replacement and over and over and over again. Nah, sir. I can’t go home, not yet. Not until the job is done, one way or another,” he says.

The colonel insists he makes his decision based on all of the available information, so he tells him about the “radical” shift to air strategy. “The invasion will not and cannot occur until the Luftwaffe is destroyed, and we have complete and total air superiority,” he tells him. This will be possible, thanks to the P-51s. “But to shoot them down, we need to get them in the air, with bombers as the bait… our bombers. That’s the strategy, that’s the mission: bait,” he reveals.

Rosie says he understands, so the colonel signs his form, before promoting him to commanding officer of the 350th.

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