Masters of the Air Episodes 1 & 2 with Sarah Myers and Luke Truxal

It's here! After years in development, we finally have Masters of the Air as a follow-up to Band of Brothers and the Pacific. Guests Dr. Sarah Myers and Dr. Luke Truxal join in to talk about the first two episodes, where the United States is in 1943, our first impressions, how what we see onscreen compares to historical reality, and where we think the show is going. This episode starts with a spoiler-free introduction and then moves into a recap with spoilers. We note this in the episode so you can stop if you haven't seen the episode yet. This series has a lot of promise, and we are excited to bring it to you.

About our guests:
Dr. Sarah Myers is a historian of public history, gender history, and war and society. As a public historian, she has conducted numerous oral history interviews for her own research on female pilots in World War II and with Pennsylvanian veterans of various wars and conflicts. In her previous role as director of The Keirn Family World War II Museum, a museum she created and opened, she hosted living history events and museum exhibition openings. She has also conducted interviews with documentaries and local and national media outlets on women in aviation, the U.S. military, and the anniversary of historic events. She recently received a National Endowment of the Humanities (NEH) grant to generate dialogue with female veterans at five institutions around the U.S. You can find her new book here: https://a.co/d/hbdy3uV

Dr. Luke Truxal is an American military historian who focuses on the application of American air power during the Second World War. He received his M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of North Texas in 2011 and 2018.  His teaching fields include Europe in the twentieth century, United States history, United States military history, and United States political history in the twentieth century. Truxal’s main research interest is the air war in Europe from 1942 to 1945. He is the author of the forthcoming book Uniting against the Reich: The American Air War in Europe, which comes out in fall 2023. He is also an assistant editor for the scholarly web journal Balloons to Drones. He previously published “Bombing the Romanian Rail Network,” in the Spring 2018 issue of Air Power History.  He is currently researching the air war over Romania from 1942 to 1944 with a particular emphasis on American and Soviet coordination and joint operations.