Steven Spielberg, Tom Hanks, and Gary Goetzman, the producers of the acclaimed WWII miniseries Band of Brothers and The Pacific, are teaming up once again to bring audiences a new series about the brave airmen of the 100th Bomb Group. The Mighty Eighth will take viewers on a journey through the highs and lows of WWII as these men risked their lives during some of the most dangerous missions of the war. This series promises to be another powerful exploration of the brotherhood forged by courage, loss, and triumph that is so often seen in times of war. Stay tuned for more updates on this exciting project.

The bomber crews were an elite group of warriors who were a microcosm of America — white America, anyway. (African-Americans could not serve in the Eighth Air Force except in a support capacity.) The actor Jimmy Stewart was a bomber boy, and so was the “King of Hollywood,” Clark Gable. And the air war was filmed by Oscar-winning director William Wyler and covered by reporters like Andy Rooney and Walter Cronkite, all of whom flew combat missions with the men.

The Anglo-American bombing campaign against Nazi Germany was the longest military campaign of World War II, a war within a war. Until Allied soldiers crossed into Germany in the final months of the war, it was the only battle fought inside the German homeland.

Masters of the Air is a story, as well, of life in wartime England and in the German prison camps, where tens of thousands of airmen spent part of the war. It ends with a vivid description of the grisly hunger marches captured airmen were forced to make near the end of the war through the country their bombs destroyed.