New Apple TV+ show tells the heroic story of an Eagle woman’s father in World War II
‘Masters of the Air’ centers on the role the 100th Bomb Group played in the war
Annie Egan/Courtesy Photo
For longtime Eagle resident Annie Egan, watching the first episode of “Masters of the Air” at the show’s premiere in Los Angeles, California, on Jan. 10 was exhilarating, frightening and, frankly, upsetting to witness the conditions the characters were in.
The Apple TV+ show — which premieres Friday — not only tells the story of the 100th Bomb Group in World War II but of Egan’s father, Major John Clarence “Bucky” Egan, who was a pilot in the 418th Bomb Squadron of the 100th Bomb Group.
The nine-episode show, which Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks produced, is based on a book of the same title, written by Donald Miller. In the show, Egan’s father is played by Callum Turner who stars alongside Austin Butler playing Major Gale “Buck” Cleven, John Egan’s best friend.
Flying B-17s in the war, Eighth Air Force’s 100th Bomb Group was also known as the “Bloody Hundredth” for the staggering losses it faced. During the war, 77% of the Eighth were killed, injured or captured.
According to a description of the show in a press release, “Masters of the Air” follows the men as “they conduct perilous bombing raids over Nazi Germany and grapple with the frigid conditions, lack of oxygen and sheer terror of combat conducted at 25,000 feet in the air,” and depicts “the psychological and emotional price paid by these young men as they helped destroy the horror of Hitler’s Third Reich.”
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John Egan met Cleven in March 1940 when they were assigned as roommates at Randolph Field in Texas. There, they received the nicknames Bucky and Buck, respectively, and “the two Buckys” together. Both men were assigned to the 100th Bomb Group, which departed in May 1943 to England to fight in the war.
During a week known as the “Black Week,” both men were shot down and captured by the Germans. John Egan and Cleven spent the remainder of the war as prisoners of war. Both men returned home after the war and remained close friends. Cleven also served as John Egan’s best man in his wedding.
Unpacking history
Annie Egan has lived in Eagle County for 30 years, but for the first years of her life, she had a typical military child upbringing. Egan was born in Virginia, but her family also lived in Japan and Hawaii during her childhood. Ultimately, they settled back home in Virginia when her father was stationed at the Pentagon.
However, Egan never really got to know her father. John Egan died suddenly in 1961 from a heart attack at age 45 — she was 11 at the time.
“I loved and adored him,” Egan said. “My fondest memory about my dad was when he would come home from the Pentagon, we would go downstairs to the dry bar, he would fix himself a whiskey and we would play gin rummy.”
Egan’s mother also served in the war as a pilot with WASP (Women’s Air Force Service Pilot), “ferrying planes from the manufacturers to the East Coast where the men took them overseas for battle,” she said. The couple met in their hometown of Manitowoc, Wisconsin after the war and married in 1945.
Both before and after her father’s passing, Egan never knew and heard much about her father’s service in the war: “Those men didn’t talk about what they went through; it was so awful,” she remarked.
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Then, about 10 years ago, Egan and her sister, Katy Park, were contacted by historians from the 100th Bomb Group Foundation, who got in touch about the “Masters of the Air” show.
“We were contacted by Mike Faley, one of the historians (with the foundation), who left a message on my phone saying, ‘I’m looking for the daughters of Major John Egan from the war’ — he was a colonel when he passed away, but back in the 40s he was a major,” Egan said. “They wanted to know what we had.”
The sisters shared what artifacts they had — including medals, his fez hat and other items — with the foundation, but it also started Egan on a journey of learning about her father’s involvement in the war.
“That’s when I took interest in the war,” she said.
It hasn’t been easy. Even today, Egan has a hard time hearing about the conditions that her father and the other men endured.
“What these men went through is incomprehensible. They were in these airplanes that were just a shell, they didn’t have any insulation at all, and they’re flying up at 20,000 feet so frostbite was rampant … it was really horrendous what they went through,” she said.
However, there are some silver linings. Through this experience, Egan has learned a bit more about her father.
“I learned that I got my personality from my dad because he was a little wild and crazy,” she said. “He had that fun personality. People were drawn to him not only because of his sense of humor but because he demanded respect. He was very good at what he did.”
One of the stories Egan learned is that her father took a demotion at one point “because he wanted to be closer to the guys, he didn’t want to be sitting on the ground, he wanted to fly.”
And, among the stories that made it into the show, Egan recalled one in particular that shows the bond, loyalty and sense of humor between her father and Cleven.
“(Cleven) was shot down two days before my dad was. And my dad was so pissed off. He was like, ‘I’m flying in the next raid (an Oct. 10 raid on Münster),’ which was two days later,” Egan said. “That was where my dad was shot down, two days later. When they took him to the prison camp, Buck was at the fence and said, ‘What the hell took you so long?'”
Sharing the story
At the beginning of January, Egan and her sister were flown out to the show’s premiere, which Egan described as a “whirlwind.”
While there, the sisters got to meet Callum and Butler — but not, to Egan’s disappointment, Hanks — and watch the first episode of the show. The experience of the show, and learning about her father, has been bittersweet for Egan.
“It was exciting because it’s about my dad,” she said.
At the same time, “It’s upsetting for me because I didn’t get to know my daddy, and it makes me sad that I didn’t get to know him better,” she added, with tears in her eyes.
One of Egan’s friends from high school recently reached out and shared that the show is “an incredible tale of heroism in the face of utterly daunting odds — your dad was one brave SOB (that term meant as the highest possible compliment, I assure you).”
Egan agrees and ultimately, believes that the show is going to speak for itself.
“People, including myself, didn’t realize the conditions that these men were under, going out to fly, knowing that you probably won’t come back, that your chances of not coming are more than those of coming back,” she said. “It’s going to be an eye-opener.”
