‘If you weren’t scared, something was wrong’: the real heroes of Spielberg’s new war drama

The young American crews featured in the Apple TV series Masters of the Air have not been forgotten in Suffolk, where they were stationed 80 years ago

There’s a peaceful, almost austere beauty to the Suffolk countryside that seems a world away from the stories of war and destruction that dominate the news. But as Masters of the Air, the new Apple TV drama about American airmen in the second world war, reminds us, 80 years ago this sleepy corner of England played host to the Anglo-American aerial assault on Nazi-controlled Europe.

The show focuses on the Eighth Air Force’s 100th Bomb Group, stationed at Thorpe Abbotts. But there were more than 50 US bases in East Anglia in the second half of the war, and each had its legends and tragedies.