Astronaut Jan Davis talks about her life in aviation and the legacy of service in her family. Her memoir Air Born, tells the story of her and her father.

Her father was Ben Smotherman, a B-17 pilot in World War II, vwho aliantly fought in the European Theater of Operations before being shot down over Holland in July 1943. After enduring twenty-one months as a prisoner of war, he was finally reunited with his loved ones and was able to start a family. Years later, after perusing his Wartime Log, his daughter Jan made discoveries about her father’s experiences that shed light on her own life path. As a Space Shuttle astronaut, Jan Davis went through intensive training, flew NASA jets, and completed three spaceflights, spending over 673 hours on orbit. Her experiences and emotions during her launches and space travel echoed those of her father during his combat missions, highlighting the unshakable bond between father and daughter.

With Air Born, you can join in on a flight through history as Jan Davis relates her father’s heroic service and draws connections between his combat missions and her own spaceflights. Discover the ins and outs of pilot training in the 1940s alongside Ben Smotherman and bear witness to his harrowing capture, interrogation, and imprisonment at Stalag Luft III. Rejoice with the POWs as World War II finally ends and the prisoners are returned home to continue pursuing their life’s goals. Shadow Jan Davis as she expertly navigates a career characterized by space exploration, scientific experimentation, and phenomenal feats of engineering. And draw inspiration from the intersection of two completely different yet uniquely connected worlds brought together by a common link of family and flying.

We’re grateful to UPMC for Life and Tobacco Free Adagio Health for sponsoring this event!

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We welcome writer and Executive Producer of Inside Edition Charles Lachman to talk about his new book, Codename Nemo: The Hunt for a Nazi U-Boat and The Elusive Enigma Machine.

The book is a white-knuckled saga of a maverick captain, nine courageous sailors, and a US Navy task force who achieved the impossible on June 4, 1944–capturing Nazi submarine U-505, its crew, technology, encryption codes, and an Enigma cipher machine.

Two days before D-Day–the course of World War II was forever changed. The hunters of the Atlantic Ocean had become the hunted, and US antisubmarine Task Group 22.3 seized a Nazi U-boat, its crew, and all its secrets. Led by a nine-man boarding party and Captain Daniel Gallery, “Operation Nemo” was the first seizure of an enemy warship in battle since the War of 1812, a victory that shortened the duration of the war. But at any moment, the mission could have ended in disaster.

Charles Lachman tells this thrilling cat-and-mouse game through the eyes of the men on both sides of Operation Nemo–German U-boaters and American heroes like Lieutenant Albert David (“Mustang”), who led the boarding party that took control of U-505 and became the only sailor to be awarded the Medal of Honor in the Battle of the Atlantic.

Three thousand American sailors participated in this extraordinary adventure; nine ordinary American men channeling extraordinary skill and bravery finished the job; and then–like everyone involved–breathed not a word of it until the war was over.

In Berlin, the German Kriegsmarine assumed that U-505 had been blown to bits by depth charges, with all hands lost at sea. They were unaware that the U-boat, its Enigma machine, and its Nazi coded messages were now in American hands. They were also unaware that the 59 German sailors captured on the high seas were imprisoned in a POW camp in Ruston, Louisiana, until their release in 1946.

A deeply researched, fast-paced World War II narrative for the ages, Charles Lachman’s Codename Nemo traces every step of this historic pursuit on the deadly seas.

We’re grateful to UPMC for Life and Tobacco Free Adagio Health for sponsoring this event!

For the 80th anniversary we talk about D-Day veteran Yogi Berra and the 38 other Major League Baseball Hall of Famers who served in World War II.

That’s right: 39 members of the Baseball Hall of Fame at Cooperstown served in the military during World War II.

It’s a sign of how the war effort took precedence over everything in American life between 1941-1945, including the national pastime. ,

One of the most notable players who joined the military was Ted Williams, a star outfielder for the Boston Red Sox. Williams enlisted in the Navy and became a fighter pilot. His absence from baseball lasted nearly three years, from 1943 to 1945. He served with distinction, earning several commendations.

Joe DiMaggio, the celebrated center fielder for the New York Yankees, also left MLB to serve in the Army Air Forces. DiMaggio’s enlistment came in 1943, and he spent three years in the military, where he primarily took on a role in physical education and morale-boosting duties, playing on military baseball teams.

Hank Greenberg, a powerful hitter for the Detroit Tigers, was another significant player who served during the war. Greenberg was among the first major leaguers to enlist, joining the Army Air Forces in 1941, just after the attack on Pearl Harbor. He was discharged in 1944 but was called back to service, ultimately spending nearly four years in the military.

Stan Musial, an outfielder and first baseman for the St. Louis Cardinals, enlisted in the Navy in early 1945. Although he joined later in the war, Musial still missed the entire season.

The departure of these stars, along with many others, led to a noticeable decline in the overall quality of play in MLB. Teams had to fill their rosters with older players, young prospects, and those classified as 4-F, meaning they were deemed unfit for military service due to physical, mental, or moral reasons.

Despite these challenges, baseball continued throughout the war, providing a source of entertainment and morale for both the public and the troops. The league also made adjustments to accommodate the war effort, such as implementing “victory games” to raise money for the military and other war-related causes.

The war’s end in 1945 saw the gradual return of players from military service, rejuvenating the league. Their service and sacrifice added a layer of respect and admiration from fans, highlighting the deep connection between baseball and American society during this tumultuous period.

We’re grateful to UPMC for Life and Tobacco Free Adagio Health for sponsoring this event!

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Playtone’s Kirk Saduski talks about creating “Masters of the Air,” as well as working on Band of Brothers, The Pacific, and many other historical features, series, and documentaries.

Kirk Saduski has a B.A. in history from UCLA and an M.A. in history from S.F. State. He has been a producer and executive at Playtone since 1998. He was Executive-in-charge of the HBOmini-series Band of Brothers as well as a Co-Producer of the HBO mini-series John Adams and The Pacific and the HBO movie Game Change. Mr. Saduski was Co-Producer of the HBO documentary David McCullough: Painting with Words and Producer of the HBO documentary He Has Seen War. He is a Co-Executive Producer of the CNN documentary series The Sixties, The Seventies, The Eighties, The Nineties, 1968, and The 2000s. He is currently in production on American Movies Through the Decades for CNN. A member of the Presidential Council at the National World War Two Museum and a Narrative Advisor to the National World War Two Museum in Washington D.C., Mr. Saduski has been an instructor at UCLA since 2010.

We’re grateful to UPMC for Life and Tobacco Free Adagio Health for sponsoring this event!

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WWII P-51 Pilot and Tuskegee Airman Harry Stewart shares his story with us on Greatest Generation Live.

Stewart successfully completed 43 missions during World War II and is one of only four Tuskegee Airmen to have earned three aerial victories in a single day of combat. When the war in Europe ended, Stewart and his comrades expected to go to the Pacific. But after the Japanese surrender in August 1945, Stewart returned to the U.S. In 1949, he served as part of the team from the 332nd Fighter Group that won the first ever “Top Gun” fighter gunnery competition.

Also joining is is historian David Snead, author of Flying with the Fifteenth Air Force: A B-24 Pilot’s Missions from Italy during World War II. The subject of the book, Tom Faulkner, was a B-24 pilot flying out of San Giovanni airfield in Italy . Only 19 years old when he completed his 28th and last mission, Tom was one of the youngest bomber pilots to serve in the U.S. Army Air Forces during World War II.

Harry Stewart, also with the 15th Air Force, grew up near LaGuardia Airport in Queens, which got him curious about airplanes. After Pearl Harbor, he joined the Army Air Corps to qualify as a pilot. He went to Tuskegee, Alabama, where the famous African American pilots called Tuskegee Airmen trained. He received his wings in June 1944. Stewart then commissioned as a second lieutenant and learned to fly P-40 and P-47 fighter aircraft at Walterboro Army Air Field in South Carolina. After combat training, Stewart served with the 301st Fighter Squadron as part of the 332nd Fighter Group, known as “The Red Tails.” He then went to Italy with 15th Air Force. Stewart escorted B-17 and B-24 bombers over Italy, Germany and Austria.

We’re grateful to UPMC for Life and Tobacco Free Adagio Health for sponsoring this event!

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Guest John Homan was a B-24 pilot in World War II. He recently published his memoirs, "Into the Cold Blue: My World War II Journeys with the Mighty Eighth Air Force" with Professor Jared Frederick, who also joins us.

Into the Cold Blue is a riveting account of the air war over Europe, when hell was four miles above the earth.

A born daredevil, John Homan joined the Army Air Forces after the attack on Pearl Harbor. By 1944, he was co-piloting a B-24 Liberator over Nazi Germany, raining death and destruction on the enemy. This first-person account of his harrowing missions chronicles deadly flights through skies of red-hot flak bursts and airmen bailing out with parachutes aflame. The tale will leave readers staggered by the determination and grit of World War II aviators.

Fighting a fierce enemy in the air seemed the perfect way for Homan to demonstrate his boldness, but he never could have imagined the horrors that awaited him. During a vast operation over Nazi-occupied Holland in September 1944, his plane was punched full of holes, its left tail shot away, and a tire blown to bits. Homan wondered how he could possibly survive. The young lieutenant and his exhausted crewmates braced for a nearly hopeless emergency landing. Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, waited the sweetheart he thought he’d never see again.

With wit, warmth, and astonishing clarity, John Homan conveys the skill and heroism of the “Mighty Eighth” Air Force in the most perilous theater of history’s greatest air war.

We’re grateful to UPMC for Life and Tobacco Free Adagio Health for sponsoring this event!

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Glenn Flickinger leads another conversation about Masters of the Air, this time with children and grandchildren of the Apple TV+ series’ main characters. Each is an expert on the 100th Bomb Group, and each will share their family members’ stories and their thoughts on the series.

Rebecca Crosby Hutchinson, daughter of Navigator Harry Crosby, Sam Rosenthal, grandson of Pilot Rosie Rosenthal, and Nancy Putnam, daughter of Pilot and POW Gerald Putnam give an inside look at the making of Masters of the Air from viewpoints of three 100th Bomb Group families. Rebecca was the primary Crosby family source for script writer John Orloff and Executive Producer Kirk Saduski. Along with her siblings, Rebecca visited the set in England, and speaks with knowledge and humor about seeing her father “come to life” years before she was born. The Crosby family coordinated with Apple and hosted the official January 26 premiere of Masters of the Air in Boston at the historic Coolidge Corner Theater, followed by a terrific entertaining discussion with Kirk, John and actor Anthony Boyle. Sam’s experiences are equally compelling, and not just as the grandson of Rosie. Sam is a trained actor and had a small role as an airman in Masters – this placed him inside the production at a time, during Covid, where it was a restricted access campus. If you’ve listened to any of the actor interviews about their roles in Masters, they speak of the true bond that formed among the acting corps, very much like the bonds of 100th BG airmen. Filming ended 2+years ago, and many remain in close touch. Sam was there on set to watch Nate Mann portray his beloved grandfather. While Nancy’s father is not portrayed in Masters, she was involved behind the scenes from early on. Her father was a 100th BG/349th Sq command pilot and operations officer, shot down leading the 13th CW on March 3, 1944, and a POW at Stalag Luft I. Rosie served in the 100th BG 418th Sq which was the primary squadron focus of Masters. Gerald Putnam was Rosie’s roommate and close friend all through pilot training (Dec ’41 to Sept ’43). While assigned to four months of gunnery training in Sebring FL, they engaged in the aerial dogfights that Rosie credits with saving him on the Munster mission: when not pulling targets, they could sign out planes and fly. And fly they did! Think of young men with fast cars, only in the sky. Compare this to Lucky Luckadoo who went from 2-engine training to B-17 combat with no 4-engine phase training whatsoever. The skeptics who say a B-17 cannot perform maneuvers that Rosie did escaping the German fighters are wrong. Those aerial combat scenes depicted in Masters are accurate. Thank you to Tobacco Free Adagio Health and UPMC for Life for sponsoring this event!

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