My father was the copilot of a B24 that went down over Hungary (only 2 of 10 survived). He spent the rest of the war at Stalag Luft III. He was flying out of Italy, and the day he went down, their squadron was escorted by the Red Tails. We've visited both Stalag Luft III, and his crash site. We just got done watching "Masters of the Air", and I went back to read my father's extensive diary of the war to compare:
1) I get that Egan and Buck are in there to be "cool" (just like Steve McQueen and James Garner in "The Great Escape"). However, the great escape didn't take place in the American quadrant. My father arrived just after the escape, and they were under orders not to try again.
2) In my father's account (and others), the Luftwaffe guards are actually fairly good to them (knowing the war is a lost cause, perhaps angling for leniency after the war, partly air force camaraderie). These accounts talk about "Popeye", an old one-eyed guard of whom they are fond, perhaps the model for Sgt Schultz. During the forced march, he talks about the guards trading their Red Cross cigarettes and chocolate for bread and firewood, how some of the guards died of heart attacks during the march, and how at Moosburg, there were negotiations with the liberating 14th tank division, the SS insisting on fighting a senseless battle. In the ensuing fight, the 14th making sure to keep the Luftwaffe guards safe while killing the SS to the last man. Per my father's account, only 3 of over 100,000 prisoners were injured during this fight.
3) A P-51 did fly over Stalag VIII Moosburg before the liberation, but it didn't strafe anyone, and the guards didn't panic and start machine gunning prisoners. Truman, Eisenhower, etc knew where the prisoners were, and had negotiated for their relative safekeeping by that time. Patton arrived a few days after the liberation, and gave a speech.
4) The Hungarian guards and some civilians were brutal to my father, but the Luftwaffe guards protected them. The "Great Escape" theme of SS and Gestapo constantly telling the Luftwaffe they were "too lenient to the prisoners" was true, but the Luftwaffe guys were better educated and less fanatical.
5) On the forced march, they were under orders not to escape (there was no place to go, plus they were thought safer as a group). Late in the forced march, one guard even had a "goon" hold his rifle while he took a leak.
6) When Great Escape and Hogan's Heroes came out, my father didn't say a word about either. I guess he didn't want to glorify or make light of the experience, out of respect for the dead.
7) I always thought it would make a great story to tell what really happened, especially the friendship that developed between Air Force prisoners and Luftwaffe guards. There were reunions held into the 60s, and "Popeye" famously came to one of them.
8) Much of "Masters of the Air" was different from my father's experience, he came over in early '44 when there was better fighter support and air supremacy (note here, my father's group was more similar to the "Catch-22" bunch). I can certainly appreciate the lack of fighter support, logistical problems, high casualty rates of the '43 "Bloody 100th".
9) After liberation, many liberated prisoners stayed at German houses as protection against marauding Russians while waiting the several weeks to go home (that could be another movie topic).
10) In all, though "Band of Brothers" is the gold standard, "Masters of the Air" (like "12 O'Clock High") tells a mostly accurate story of the more dangerous early bombing missions, and the daring (some say crazy) Curtis LeMay.
My father's story: https://medium.com/p/ccfce7103ac
