THE BLOODY HUNDREDTH

THE BLOODY HUNDREDTH is an excellent documentary on Apple TV+ that reveals the historical background to the outlet’s television series, MASTERS OF THE AIR, about the American airmen in the 100th Bombing Group during World War II, which suffered a high casualty rate while it destroyed Nazi Germany’s fighter planes and bombed the industrial infrastructure supporting Hitler’s socialist occupation of Europe. THE BLOODY HUNDREDTH presents a wonderful, captivating overview of the bombing group and its people, with interviews from some of the men involved, including two of the four main characters featured in the TV series.

The movie opens by giving a background to the beginnings of World War II and how the United States formed the 40 bombing groups, including the 100th, after Japan bombed Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. The sequence about the bombing group begins with a recruitment movie filmed by none other than Hollywood actor Jimmy Stewart, who was himself a pilot in one of the other bombing groups and flew 20 combat missions. Like the other airmen, the 100th Bombing Group learned how to fly, navigate and maintain B-17 bombers in the States before traveling to the Royal Air Force base, Thorpe Abbotts, Norfolk, in rural England near England’s east coast.

The bombing missions began on June 25, 1943. At first, the 100th Bombing Group only bombed relatively easy targets along the western coast of German-occupied Europe. However, the airmen soon started bombing targets in Germany itself. It was then, during the late summer and early fall of 1943, that the 100th began taking tremendous losses.

In one bombing raid, the 100th lost one of its two leading pilots, Major Gale “Buck” Cleven. The other airmen thought he died, but, in reality, he was captured and sent to a German POW camp. Two days later, the bombing group lost its second leading pilot, Major John “Bucky” Egan, who was actually close friends with Cleven. That mission involved a bombing raid against a railroad yard over Munster, Germany. Eighteen planes flew out of England, five had to turn back, and only one of the 13 remaining B-17s competed the mission and returned. That plane was piloted by 1st Lieutenant Robert “Rosie” Rosenthal, who was new to the group but then took over for Cleven and Egan as lead pilot because of his success at Munster. After being shot down, Major Egan eventually ended up in the same POW camp as his friend, Major Cleven

THE BLOODY HUNDREDTH includes interviews with some of the men in the bombing group, including Rosenthal and the bombing group’s lead navigator, Major Harry Crosby. Rosenthal and Crosby are two of the four leading characters in MASTERS OF THE AIR, the other two being Cleven and Egan. Egan died unexpectedly in 1961, and Cleven died in 2006. Other airmen interviewed in the movie include Owen “Cowboy” Roane, Frank Murphy, Alexander Jefferson, Richard Macon, John “Lucky” Luckadoo, Tom Jeffrey, John A. Clark, Bill Couch, and Robert Wolf. Tom Hanks narrates the movie.

THE BLOODY HUNDREDTH presents a captivating overview of the bombing group and its brave fighting force. It has a strong Pro-American, patriotic, moral worldview with a strong sense of sacrifice, a commitment to freedom, and an opposition to the tyranny and mass murder that Hitler’s National Socialist forces represented. As Navigator Frank Murphy says at the end of THE BLOODY HUNDREDTH, “The freedoms we enjoy did not come about by accident. They were bought and paid for by my generation and the generations that preceded us.”