#darr alkire

[clevervonskelli]

I'm trying to focus on what I liked about Episode 7 and my brain is just looping a few things.

-Was that Colonel Alkire at the camp heading up compound staff? I missed if he was named, but if so, I'm quite pleased to see him.

-Frank Murphy getting a letter from his mom ❤️

-The way the show approached the Great Escape. They managed to keep the focus entirely on the tragedy and incredulousness of the situation, and on how it could directly impact the American prisoners in the other compounds. It felt very balanced and very Great Escape in the context of MotA, not Great Escape eclipsing the show.

- MUSTANGS!!!!! MotA is a bomber-centric show and B-17s are incredible in how they can be beat to hell and keep flying, but fighter planes will always be my first love when it comes to WWII.

-Von Lindeiner's removal from his position as commodant being mentioned. He's someone I find very interesting, plus it's nice to have that hint of how there was a whole world of politics going on when it came to the running of the camps and the tension between the Luftwaffe and the Gestapo.

- I loved all the fountain pen shots we got to see this ep when folks were writing.

[whirlpool-blogs]

“Less than a hundred miles to the west, the main body of Darr Alkire's column had just reached Moosburg's Stalag VIIA. Gale Cleven was no longer with them. He had escaped the evening the marchers reached the Danube, after telling Alkire that he was convinced the Germans planned to fall back into the Alps and stage a desperate stand, using American airmen as negotiating pawns. His friend John Egan agreed with him, but had to stay behind; Alkire had put him in charge of security operations on the march.

That night, Cleven and two other men had crawled through an open stockade filled with manure, with Egan providing cover by priming a rusty old pump, the squealing and scraping drawing the attention of the guards.”

Masters of the Air | Chapter 17

[fleshchyme]

"On New Year's Day, the Hundredth was moved from Wendover to Sioux City, Iowa. The ground personnel, traveling on troop trains, arrived before the fliers, who had been delayed by what they called a 'tour of airfields,' most of them conveniently located in the hometowns of crewmen. Flying over his old neighborhood in Minneapolis, one gunner decided to send a note to his parents. He tied it to a monkey wrench and dropped it from 10,000 feet. Military censors returned it to [Colonel Darr] Alkire, commenting that the country would be safer when the Hundredth was in Europe."

Masters of the Air, Donald L. Miller