'Masters of the Air', Military Consultant, Captain Dale Dye

0:08Jawad MirYou're looking great.

0:09Captain Dale DyeThank you. So are you. How are you?

0:12Jawad MirI'm doing fabulous, and I love your backdrop.

0:15Captain Dale DyeOh, thanks. Here in the Imperial War Museum.

0:20Jawad MirYes, I thought so. How was your holidays? How were your holidays and new year?

0:24Captain Dale DyeExcellent. Thank you. Everything was fine.

0:27Jawad MirWonderful. Well, thank you for joining once again.

0:31Captain Dale DyeSure.

0:31Jawad MirReally, truly honored to have you, and, in the context of Masters of the Air, obviously we're not gonna talk anything about specifically... I won't, at least. I would let you figure that out.

0:45Captain Dale DyeOkay.

0:45Jawad MirI won't, I won't specifically talk about any scenes, and if I do, just obviously feel free to turn it down. I…

0:54Captain Dale DyeOkay

0:54Jawad Mir... Finished watching the series last week. Absolutely fabulous.

1:00Captain Dale DyeGood

1:00Jawad MirHats off. You know, from everything from performances to, wardrobes to locations, but for me, the pivotal thing, which I think for a lot of people would be, were the fight sequences, in the air, and the detail that you will see, you know, from a rear view m… window or somewhere where everything is just moving around to, you know, to dust or to, grass being ripped apart. Like, all those things are just so well done, and I really want to appreciate you being part of that amazing series.

1:37Captain Dale DyeWell, clearly the, special effects are the, are the star of the show. It's amazing, what they were able to do. A lot of it, we went to extraordinary lengths. There were, there was a thing called the volume unit, which was essentially, a what filmmakers think of as a, as a green screen, thing.

2:03Captain Dale DyeYou can project something in the background. Because of this volume unit, we were able to project things in th… 360 degrees around the actors and around the, sets, which essentially were parts of B-17s that they were flying in. And they literally, in my view, went to, barred no expense. We actually had two, working full-scale model B-17s that, one of which we were able to radio control and taxi along the ground. The only thing they couldn't do was fly.

2:42Jawad MirYeah.

2:42Captain Dale DyeSo everybody really g… and we had sections of the B-17 which were put on sound stages and the actors could actually get inside them, and then we could poke cameras in it and pick up the action from there. So it was, you know, as many films as I've done and some extraordinary, special effects that have gone into those films, this was, beyond all shadow of a doubt. So, I mean, I stood there constantly amazed half the time and my jaw dropping open at, because we would see it on the monitor, and I'd say, "Oh my God, look at that," you know? And it was as though you were actually in the aircraft and actually flying. And the, these, this volume projection unit would bring the, attacking German aircraft by, or be behind one of the gunners, who was cranking away with a, with a.50 caliber, machine gun. I mean, it was, it was, quite literally, jaw-dropping.

3:49Jawad MirI bet. No, and it's not just the special effects, right? Like, what happens in a lot of movies and TV series is special effects stand out, and then the story diminishes. And this one, which I was expecting it to be like this because of Band of Brothers and, The Pacific, I wasn't expecting, I was expecting it to be exactly like that, and that's how it was because it just had a p… it never, ever, I at least felt that, "Oh, that's a visual effect," because it just... The cutting and everything that went into the dialogue and the music and the sound effects, it just was such a amazing marriage of all those, that everything clicked, and you were always in the character's seat. I mean, I felt I was literally sitting in the cockpit all the time.

4:33Captain Dale DyeYeah.

4:33Jawad MirAnd it was, it was amazing.

4:34Captain Dale DyeYou could, you can credit John Orloff and then, and his, staff of writers for that.

4:39Jawad MirYeah.

4:40Captain Dale DyeI mean, they were very aware of this, and we had Don Miller's, book, as source material. So we knew what things really happened, and the challenge then was to how to, how to visually show those things because some of them, as you, as you probably know, were so extraordinary…

5:03Captain Dale Dye... That anyone could have survived what went on, and a lot of them didn't. That we felt pressed, you know, to say, "Geez, is anybody gonna believe this?" And of course, we… they will because, it's, it's a true story. The 100th Bomb Group Heavy was, one of the most, bloodied, groups in the Eighth Air Force, hence their nickname the Bloody 100th. And they flew some of the most dangerous, and difficult missions. And every mission, flown by bomber crews, B-17, B-24, B-25, in that war was really a crapshoot. I mean, it was a crapshoot from the time you cranked up the engines and took off. You know, hopefully, all the mechanics would work, and you wouldn't have to turn back. And, if you did, hopefully the weather would hold, and you wouldn't lose sight of the target and have to divert to a secondary… And hopefully, because you, e… early in the war you didn't have fighter escort, so hopefully the Germans, were gonna stay on the ground.

6:19Captain Dale DyeAnd all you'd have to deal with is flak. All you'd have to deal with. I mean, my God, the sky just turned black with flak. And then if the Germans, Luftwaffe, decided to get up and come after you, boy, your odds were... You were just stacked against you, and that's, that's why it was such a crap shoot.

6:38Jawad MirYeah. Yeah, no. And Captain, I mean, it, yeah, like you said, credit goes to for writing for John. I also spoke to Donald a couple of weeks ago, you know, b… from his book, and it's, it's just incredible. My biggest fear, I won't lie, was having seen Band of Bro… Brothers, the Pacific, is this gonna feel the same way, or is it gonna feel completely out there? But it was a balance of both. Like, it felt like a continuation story, but with something completely fresh and, you know. The visuals, of course, were phenomenal, but also the sets that were put together, along with the wardrobes, were just e… exemplary.

7:17Captain Dale DyeYeah. I don't mean to tell tales out of school, but I, one of the things that always got me, when we did Band of Brothers and, I was complaining that we needed to talk about the Marines in the Pacific, and boom, we did the Pacific. And Steven Spielberg, whose dad was a…

7:35Jawad MirYeah

7:36Captain Dale Dye... A B-25, radio operator, flying Mitchells, was always pestering Steven about, "When are you gonna do the air story? When are you gonna do the air story?"

7:47Jawad MirYeah.

7:47Captain Dale DyeSo I guess, I guess the deal is you just have to keep pestering us at that level, and eventually we'll get around to your story.

7:57Jawad MirYeah. And I mean, it was a kind of cool, aspect that Sawyer Spielberg is in this series too, considering his grandfather, you know, had a history, and obviously Spielberg making all these World War II movies and series. And it was really a nice little touch to, for me at least, I thought it was, it was necessary for him to be in there, just as a, you know, just as a tribute to the family and what they have sort of, especially his grandfather, being part of it.

8:27Captain Dale DyeAnd you know, one of the things that, got to me and has always gotten to me, throughout my studies of World War II, is the strange way that, the air crews fought. It was, it was a weird war for them. Not only was it exceedingly dangerous with odds, you know, against you any time you cranked up the aircraft, loaded with bombs and headed for occupied Europe, but it was a strange duck because, you were, you started the mission from a relatively peaceful place, relative…

9:07Captain Dale Dye... To occupied Europe, i… in UK, in Great Britain. And then you flew off, into Nazi-occupied Europe, or targets into Nazi-occupied Europe. And assuming you survived, you came home and there was a club and there was a bar and there were, British women you could meet and so on and so forth. Totally different experience, than the average infantryman, either in the European Theater of Operations or Pacific Theater of Operations faced. So I was concerned, given the track record of our success with the Band of Brothers in the Pacific. Were people gonna buy this, that it was that kind of war? It was, there was no question, in historic reality, but were audiences gonna buy that? Would it, wouldn't it seem odd to somebody that a war was fought that way from peaceful existence, with all the basic amenities of life, to absolute desperate danger for eight or 10 hours in the air, and then if you survived, back to, the relative calm of wartime England or a base where amenities were available?

10:29Captain Dale DyeThat's a weird way to fight. Not to take away in any measure, the danger involved, but audiences, you know, grew up on World War II movies where it was slam bang a… action all the time.

10:43Jawad MirYeah.

10:43Captain Dale DyeWere they gonna buy this story the way it happened? And the answer I think is yes.

10:49Jawad MirNo, 100%. And the, again, I don't wanna, say anything, and I'm gonna try to avoid saying anything by saying something, is that i… it event… I mean, you obviously you've seen the complete series, like the one that's completed hun… all the way, correct, I'm assuming?

11:06Captain Dale DyeYes. Right.

11:07Jawad MirOkay. Obviously things, there are certain things that happened the last half which was,.. Which does take the audience, you know, in a, in a different mindset, and I think that was also very important. Obviously it happened a… as it was. As you said, it's, you know, obviously the book is based on a true story and everything, but it wa… it just still keeps the audience engaged where you're not going in that cycle of same thing over and over again. And that's, again, the writing…

11:33Captain Dale DyeYes

11:33Jawad Mir... The editing and everything, right? It comes into play. And to me, I… I'll get to the boot camp in a second. I think the one thing that really stood out for me, it was a very small scene, and I'm not gonna say what it is, but it was, it was literally lasted maybe, I would say, a minute between two of the soldiers, two, of the Americans, was about collateral damage. You know, women and children. And I think I, you know what I'm talking about.

12:04Captain Dale DyeYeah. Yeah.

12:04Jawad MirThat was so sadly relevant to what's going on right now in the world, and it was just such a powerful scene for me. It stood out just like, you know, for you, the mo… emotional scene in Saving Private Ryan did, like, you know, when Tom Hanks' character, breaks down, holding the letter. So I, that, those little things really made it very relevant and very powerful.

12:30Captain Dale DyeYeah. Look, one of the things that, you realize if you, if you study the air war was that in some ways, if you disregard the flak, if you disregard the fighters coming in on you, it was relatively impersonal. That is to say…

12:51Captain Dale Dye... You didn't see the damage…

12:53Jawad MirExactly

12:53Captain Dale Dye... You were creating.

12:55Jawad MirYeah.

12:55Captain Dale DyeAnd I think in some ways, especially after, those damages, began to be reported and civilians were killed and, I think, I think at some point that got to or at least crossed the mind of all of the air crews. And it was an important aspect of the air war and the men who fought the air war, that we wanted to be sure that we made audiences aware that the air crews were aware of this collateral damage, possibility. And you had to learn, they had to learn to live with it. I think as anybody who fights, in a, in a combat situation in which civilians might be caught in the middle has to learn to live with it.

13:45Captain Dale DyeIt is collateral damage but in many cases absolutely the only way you can, you can get it done, and I think that was the case, in the air war in Europe.

13:56Jawad MirRight. Talking about your involvement, we've sort of talked about it briefly way back earlier this year, but more so now about this particular series. What was... Was there anything different for you personally working on this as opposed to, say, Pacific or Band of Brothers or both in terms of…

14:17Captain Dale DyeSure

14:17Jawad Mir... Getting the... You know, talk about that, please.

14:20Captain Dale DyeSure. My executive officer and I, Mike Stokey, were a little bit cautious going into this because neither one of us are aviators. Neither one of us are pilots. And so we were a bit out of our wheelhouse in comparison to what we had to do, in training the actors for Band of Brothers, and in, the Pacific. And then after training in helping to stage the action and so on. So we were, we were a little out of our comfort zone. Now Mike's father, Mike Stokey, my executive officer's father, was a B-29 pilot, so he had that going for him. And I had an uncle who was a reluctant tail gunner on a 17 in the 8th Air Force. So we had some familial stories that had been told and we used that sort of thing, plus Don's book, plus all the research we could find to try to bring ourselves up to speed.

15:21Captain Dale DyeAnd as we developed the curriculum for training the actors, we knew that we couldn't teach them how to fly aircraft. A, that wasn't available to us, and B, we wouldn't know how to do it anyway. So we adopted a sort of a crawl, walk, run approach, and we started by bearing in mind that e… everybody who joined the United States Army and then was assigned to the Army Air Force, because in those days it wasn't United States Air Force, it was United States Army Air Force. So everybody had to be, to some degree or another, a trained soldier before he became a trained airman or mechanic or whatever he was…

16:07Captain Dale Dye... Gonna be in the Air Forces. So that's, that's how we approached it. We said, "All right, look, let's start from the very beginning. How many here know how to tie a Windsor knot in a tie?" And then we go from there. And we started everything from, you know, the 50 mission crush on the, on the hat and how to get that done. So we started at the tiniest things and we would move on into, Air Force, United States Army Air Force organization. How are they organized? How is a squadron organized? How is a group organized? W… how many groups are in a wing and that sort of thing. So we got into infrastructure. And then as we moved on through this and as the, as the students or actors, if you will, became more and more familiar with the military as it was in nine… in the 1940s, we began to narrow it and we began to talk about B-17s and crew positions on B-17s, crew responsibilities, emergency procedures, drills, and, flight equipment and weather and all that sort of thing.

17:20Captain Dale DyeWe moved on through this until we'd completed about 12 days of what you would call ground school, essentially. And from then we shoved them on out onto the sets and turned them over to the directors. But each one of us was there during every day and every hour of filming so that we could help them and coach them and remind them, because for the most part, the directors hadn't been to that training. So they were operating from a, from a deficit position also. And we had hot and cold running experts. I mean, we had B-17 pilots, we had P-51 pilots, we had... So a lot of the technical stuff, it was easy for them to do, but our mission was kind of to keep them always in that 1940s Army Air Force mindset, and it was, it was a task.

18:15Jawad MirRight. And how long, you know, nine episodes, how... Obviously each episode being almost, like, an hour long, I would imagine it'd probably take a month of production, maybe less, maybe 20 to thir… 30 days of production. But during that production, were they always sort of in that zone of the military, aside from obviously going to the hotel and, you know, resting for the night? But were they always involved even if they were not shooting on that aspect of just being mindfully there in the 1940s?

18:47Captain Dale DyeYeah, I think so. Look, one of the, one of the things I forgot to mention when we were talking about…

18:51Jawad MirSure

18:52Captain Dale Dye... Basic training was that normally our method is to fully immerse the trainees. In other words, the actors who train under us, we own them for 24 hours a day for as long as it takes.

19:05Jawad MirOkay. Wow.

19:05Captain Dale DyeAnd they sleep in barracks with us, and they live in the mud, or they live in the holes or whatever, but we couldn't do that in this particular production. For a lot of reasons, for money and time and so on. So we adopted a mindset as trainers. We said, "All right, look, let's look at how the war was really fought by these people." they lived a relatively normal life. Then they crewed up in the aircraft, flew the mission, came back, and went back to a relatively normal life. So let's adopt that in training. So we'll spend an entire day, we'll call that the mission day, training them. And then after the mission they could go and do what they normally do. We'd turn them over to production to be fitted for uniforms and all that sort of thing. And before that, they would have a little canteen and a place where they could get tea and coffee and that sort of thing. So in our mind, that fit what we were trying to teach them about the experience of the war as, Army Air Force, crewmen in 19… in the 1940s.

20:16Captain Dale DyeAnd it worked very well. But as we began to go into the production, as you s… I mean, it, this production took an entire year out of my life. So it was a long, drawn-out thing.

20:29Jawad MirYeah.

20:30Captain Dale DyeBut, as we moved through the production, on each individual episode, we would have to be completely up to speed about the beats, the historical beats. What are we conveying in this particular episode? And we would have to constantly remind them. We were constantly there, and they knew we were watching them. And they would... You know, we would catch uniform violations. We would catch,.. There was, there was a tendency constantly because they were wearing dress uniforms to decide that, "Well, I'm casual now. I can unbutton the uniform." Just, "Let... No, you can't."

21:08Jawad MirYeah.

21:09Captain Dale Dye"That's not done." And we would go in and correct that sort of thing. That's a, that's a minor, detail, but it was part and parcel on every episode of being there to essentially keep them in that mindset.

21:25Jawad MirRight. Was it shot chronologically, the episodes, or just to kinda keep that momen… that intensity of the characters? Or was it just like sort of normal production?

21:34Captain Dale DyeThere was, there was a, an attempt to do it, chronologically, but for logistics reasons and…

21:41Jawad MirRight

21:41Captain Dale Dye... Scheduling reasons we weren't able to completely do that.

21:46Jawad MirYeah

21:46Captain Dale Dye... And we have hot and cold running directors, were coming in and they would do three or four episodes in the case of Cary Fukunaga, or a set of two episodes in the case of another director. And it was very... Our job was more to make sure the directors were up to speed, in what was required and what had already been done. Fortunately, they were all really pros. And generally had done a lot of their homework and knew what the deal was. So, it wasn't as difficult as it might have been, but, we were always having to say, "Wait a minute, what did we do last time, an hour before that or after that?" So there were some continuity nightmares.

22:35Jawad MirI bet. I bet. Was there any particular, without... I don't want any names. Was there any particular individual who probably didn't want to continue on with the training or wanted to sort of just, like, got really fed up with it or tired? Or just even in the, in a fun way, like, "I can't deal with this." Was there anything like that happened on this particular production?

22:54Captain Dale DyeNo, I don't think so. And we pressed them pretty hard. I mean, I'm notorious for my physical training sessions.

23:01Jawad MirYeah.

23:01Captain Dale DyeAnd we had some of those every day. And they knew it. They knew it was coming. So I think our reputation had preceded us. So, we didn't, I didn't once have anybody say, "Oh, I'm tired of this. Let's, let's not do this anymore." They were really very avid, and I think it had to do, largely because they were young, hungry actors.

23:22Jawad MirYeah.

23:22Captain Dale DyeAnd really wanted to do this right. They wanted to do this right for a lot of reasons. Some of them because they wanted to, forward their individual careers, but we disabused them of that notion very quickly, that, it's not about you, pal. It's about this story and the men who actually lived it and fought it.

23:45Jawad MirYeah.

23:45Captain Dale DyeAnd that's the mindset you have to be in. And we didn't, we didn't have a lot of, problem with that sort of thing.

23:53Jawad MirRight

23:54Captain Dale Dye... It was a huge amount of information to assimilate. And sometimes we had to stop, slow down, and go back over it again to make sure that everybody understood, but we were perfectly willing to do that. I mean, it was more important to me that we, they have a firm understanding of not only the motivation, but the soldiers, the air crewmen's life in…... Those days than it was to skip through a checklist of things that we had to teach. It was, it was important that we maintain that focus, and we found that, the young men that we had training, were really avid for it. And it was, it was amazing what little history they did know. So we followed we constantly were reminding them that this actually happened in history. Here it is. And sometimes you'd look at their faces and there's black, "What?

24:55Captain Dale DyeIt happened what?" They were sometimes barely aware that World War II involved, some of the things that we were trying to teach them to do. And there were some standouts. There were some great... I mean, I don't mind mentioning

25:11Jawad MirThe good names.

25:14Captain Dale DyeYou know, Callum Turner, and, Austin Butler.

25:19Jawad MirYeah.

25:21Captain Dale DyeThey were terrific. I mean, they soaked it up like a sponge. And I think used a lot of it. Y… I could see it. I could see things that I had taught them, coming through on the screen. And of course for me, that's the Oscar right there, the Emmy.

25:37Jawad MirYeah.

25:37Captain Dale DyeSo it was... I think you'd, you'd have to say overall that, it was a learning experience, and a good one. It was a school, a good school of the soldier.

25:52Jawad MirYeah. And I think, you know, one of the cool things that I, when I was watching it, I was talking to myself, well, in my head, that how many, how many movies or shows there have been or that I have seen at least that involve with Air Force, right? Because it's, it's a totally different beast as opposed to, you know, doing it on the sea or on land. And the only things that came to my mind were Top Gun films, Dunkirk. And one of the things that, you obviously haven't seen the one that I'm gonna talk about.

26:24Captain Dale DyeNo.

26:24Jawad MirI saw this way back when I was young. It's based on a true story of a young, cadet, Air Force cadet in the, in the army of Pakistan when they fought in 1971 against India. And his plane, while he was taxiing on, the runway, his instructor stopped him and took over the plane and wanted to fly to India. And the story, what happened was this young kid, 18 year old was, he wo… woke up unconscious. He took the plane down and he crashed and he killed himself so that it doesn't go into the spy's hand. And that, those are the only things that I remember. And it, I remember that story stuck with me for the longest time. And, you know, watching Top Gun, it kind of came back up, and then watching this, it came back up again because it was very much in depth about the character development and everything. Do you, do you feel that will happen more or is it still a very big challenge to…

27:15Captain Dale DyeLook, I think…

27:16Jawad Mir... To do these kind of productions?

27:17Captain Dale Dye... You mentioned as filmmakers, the most difficult element environment to be in is either the air or the water.

27:29Jawad MirYeah.

27:29Captain Dale DyeAnd it, the just the logistics of getting any of that story told are staggering, and it was certainly staggering in this one. It had been tried before. I mean, Strategic Air Command, 12 O'Clock High, that sort of thing. It had been told, but never with the availability of the technology that we have now. S… And that's why I think, while there have been attempts in the past to tell the story of the United States Army airmen, in Europe, they're, they're forgettable. Whereas I don't think this one will be. I think this one will have the kind of visual impact that young audiences today, will spark to.

28:21Jawad Mir100%. 100%. And was there any character, I know you were not in the Air Force, but just from a personal standpoint, was there any character that you just, you saw yourself in when the filming was going on that you…

28:35Captain Dale DyeWell…

28:35Jawad Mir... Kind of resonated your memory?

28:37Captain Dale DyeWell, there always is. There always is.

28:39Jawad MirI'm sure

28:39Captain Dale Dye... I'm a little long in the tooth now, because a lot of those officers, even the very senior officers, were young men, relative to me. But yeah, I had thoughts, of if there was, if Curtis LeMay had shown up, in any of the scripts, I would've gone after that like a mad dog. But he didn't, so it's, that's not a problem. I thought about Jimmy Doolittle, for a while. But I just don't look enough like him, I think to pull that off.

29:15Jawad MirYeah.

29:15Captain Dale DyeBut, I was, once we got into it, and we were about six months into it, and you know, I was living over in the UK and, with my staff, and I began to say, "You know, I missed out on being in the Pacific." I played very well in Band of Brothers, I think as Colonel Sink. But they were unwilling because I did so, I was so recognizable as Colonel Sink. They were reluctant to put me in the Pacific, and I understood that. But now we're 20 years down the road, I thought, "Well, maybe I can slip into this, Masters of the Air thing and find my role. Find or re… you know, reprise or recreate some sort of role that worked." But it was a young man's war and a young man's game. And, there just wasn't anything, in there that I, even if I could have been made up to pass for much younger, I di… I just didn't think there was anything in there.

30:19Jawad MirMaybe we should have, used the de-aging technology to make you look younger like they do with a lot of actors.

30:26Captain Dale DyeYeah. That's always… Don't even get started on AI. I mean, I don't know how to do that and I don't wanna think about it.

30:34Jawad MirYeah. No. It's a, it's not something that we wanna talk about today. But, you know, going, talking about Masters of the Air again, the look… obviously it was set in different locations, you know, the film itself in different countries. But where was the most of the filming done? Was it UK or was it other parts of Europe as well that you…

30:52Captain Dale DyeIt w… the vast majori… a… a… almost everything, was in UK. Either on a sound stage, or on location. We built, Thorpe Abbot, the complete airfield and re… recreated as much of it historically as we could. So we found ourselves going from, for exteriors, to Thorpe Abbot, where we primarily had these two, full-scale B-17 mock-ups, to sound stages where we had the volume unit, the surround screen, sets and gimbled locations and all that sort of thing. A lot of work done with, aircraft sections on gimbals so that they moved, independently. So we did everything in UK. And I think that was appropriate.

31:54Captain Dale DyeI mean, you know, the 100… the Bloody 100th was based in UK.

31:58Jawad MirYeah.

31:58Captain Dale DyeAnd why not? So we recreated Thorpe Abbotts and went for it.

32:03Jawad MirRight. What was, not necessarily challenging, but I mean, the series has, just like any other series, the series have different directors primarily, few different cinematographers, some editors just so that you can speed up the process again. But specifically about directors, you said man… earlier that they were all very well-versed in terms of doing their homework. Can you give me a specific example? It doesn't have to be specific director. It can be where that came across and how so, in what kind of way that they were very well-prepared, for communicating with you and what the story was and the details.

32:44Captain Dale DyeWell, they all had a sort of a turnover. The incoming director would arrive while we were at the end of ... The previous director's, set. And some of them, some of them were extremely detail-oriented. Cary Fukunaga, was absolutely detail-oriented, down to the minutest, switchology in the cockpit and that sort of thing, and he knew that. He had studied it in depth and was constantly on top of it. We, another example is, we brought in a, director for the final episodes

33:25Captain Dale Dye... Who we had used on, we had used on The Pacific.

33:30Jawad MirPacific, yeah.

33:30Captain Dale DyeTim Van Patten. And Tim's a kind of a military buff. He knows this sort of thing, and he was all studied up. So when you, when... What would happen is they would come in and they'd talk to me and they'd say, "Well, how's it going?" And I'd say, "Well, we're fine here. We're doing this. We're doing that. You'll pick it up as we go into here." And they would say, "Well, you know, I have, I have a question about this or that." And it was sometimes a very detailed question. And I think it, what it was is they were trying to figure out how to shoot this, how to communicate this. And, in many cases, I... It was so detailed I hadn't thought about it, and I had to go in and say, "W… wait a minute. Is this what we, what are we doing?" And then I would, I would do the research and come to them and say, "Look, I think this is what happened." and we ran into that all over the place. Well, little details that the director would say, "Well, what about this?" I'd say, "Damn, I hadn't thought about that." And, or one of the prop guys would come up and say, "This needs to be in the scene."

34:33Captain Dale DyeI'd say, "What is it?" He'd say, "Well, it's, it's the fold-up escape maps that are made out of nylon or made out of parachute nylon. Look at this." And I had heard about those things, but I had no idea that we had them.

34:46Captain Dale DyeAnd of course, I went to the director and said, "We've gotta be sure this gets on screen." And he would understand and off we would go.

34:54Jawad MirThat's cool. That's so cool. Were B-fi… B-17, were they ever, were they used in Vietnam War?

35:02Captain Dale DyeY… B-17s? No., No.

35:05Jawad MirNo.

35:05Captain Dale DyeWe were past, propeller-driven heavy bombers by that point.

35:11Jawad MirOkay. So during the production, obviously I'm sure you went inside the B-17, the replicas or, you know, the fully operational one, at least the ones that don't fly. Am I correct to assume that?

35:23Captain Dale DyeSpent way too much time inside those aircraft.

35:25Jawad MirOkay. So was there ever a feeling where you remembered something, even though they were not used in the Vietnam War or in the past, but just the idea of being inside a plane which is going to be, which, you know, which is used for war essentially, was there any kind of moments where that kind of came into play?

35:45Captain Dale DyeYeah. I think so. When you're standing outside a full-sized B-17, it looks huge. It's the biggest war course you've ever seen.

35:57Jawad MirYeah.

35:57Captain Dale DyeAnd that, when you crawl inside the fuselage, it's very constricted, very small because of all the stuff that's been jammed in there, much less the bomb bay. And I remember thinking, "Gee, this reminds me of being in a tank."

36:12Captain Dale DyeWhich is essentially what it was. And so I started thinking about, the claustrophobic nature. And there's no escaping. You can't, you can't just arbitrarily run away, you know, or dive for cover. There is no cover. You're just gonna have to put up with it. And so I began to, we began to sort of teach that sort of thing. The claustrophobic nature of being inside that aluminum tube with no place to run and no place to hide, and you just gotta take it or fight back to the extent that you aren't, you know, don't get destroyed in midair. Yeah, there were moments like that.

36:54Jawad MirAnd I actually felt the claustrophobic nature because, the, in every episode whenever they were inside the plane and there was a fight sequence and somebody got hit or something, you would... Not only you'll feel obviously their pain, but the, for the lack of better word, the great thing about the way it was filmed was that you would feel that pain where you're stuck in this spot and you can't even reach your wound, you know, to t… to heal it or to press on it, and that was really well done. I mean, I thought that was executed really brilliantly. It showed the realism of how it sh… you know, probably was most definitely back then.

37:33Captain Dale DyeYeah. And absolutely, and we talked about that, extensively, with the actors. And the effect of high altitude, you know, if you're wounded and you're up there, freezing or your electric suit shorts out, and the constant need to have your face like this and you're constantly in a, in an oxygen mask.

38:00Jawad MirYeah.

38:00Captain Dale DyeWell, that's an estimate. An actor, you know, he wants you to see his face, so on and so forth. But we had to say, "You're, you're at 10,000 feet or above, you're on oxygen. Get that thing on there." and so there were, there were moments like that you begin to realize, the tough physical nature of what they had to do. You don't think about it being physically…

38:24Jawad MirYeah

38:24Captain Dale Dye... Tough because, you know, the aircraft is taking you wherever you're going, and perhaps you're behind a machine gun or in a turret or in the cockpit or in the nose as a bombardier or navigator. And you don't think about that being physically demanding. But when you're at 10,000 feet or above and, all the flak is flying everywhere, bursting everywhere, and, holes are appearing in the aircraft, it's not pressurized, it… you're freezing to death up there. And you've got on this electric suit that's somehow plugged into the electrical system of the aircraft, and sometimes works and sometimes doesn't. It's, it is brutal. It's absolutely brutal to survive eight hours of that, just before you cross the channel and get back, to UK. So I think one of the things that surprised us, we were, we were familiar, m… my warriors guys, were familiar with the brut… brutal nature of infantry combat and the business of how the elements when you're on the ground can just, you know, mud and rain and dark and all that sort of thing, how that, how difficult that makes survival, much less success.

39:46Captain Dale DyeWe hadn't really given it that much thought in terms of what was it like flying an eight-hour mission in a, in a B-17. And the surprise was how brutally physical it was. There's a scene, you may or may not remember, where the tail gunner's weapons are jammed.

40:06Captain Dale DyeAnd he has to take off his gloves to try to clear, the jams of his two.50 calibers.

40:12Jawad MirYeah.

40:12Captain Dale DyeAnd immediately he touches that metal. Absolutely frost burns all up and down his hands, and he could no longer use his hands. That was not an odd... That wasn't a rare thing. It happened a lot. And that I think, w… as we began to watch it and study it and see, how they were gonna bring that aspect of it, alive on screen, we had a whole new appreciation for what those guys went through. It was very physical.

40:45Jawad MirYeah. And I, and that, you know, well, you mentioned rain and mud and you mentioned eight-hour flight. I was gonna say that one thing that I noticed in a lot of scenes when they're flying, you know, before any kind of sequences like, you know, fighting sequences, I would... In the beginning when the first scene came up, it felt like this scene's a little too long. It just, I just had that feeling. And I realized as the series went on, I realized that was put there intentionally because you're supposed to feel, you know, in their spot that how long these actual flights were. And on top of that, which I don't think I've ever seen, again, I may be wrong, in a sh… in a movie or a show, the weather aspect. You know, how the wind is blowing the plane, and especially that plane of that nature, like how it just maneuvers back and forth. I mean, I've, I never even thought about that. You know, one, the only thing that you think about is that how you're gonna deal with the actual, the war itself, the fight sequences, the firing and, you know, flying the plane. But the weather, the fact that you guys had a scene in there that dealt with that was really something that I had never thought about and I thought was amazing.

41:49Captain Dale DyeYeah. It, and it brought to our attention very quickly that the Germans, the Luftwaffe, was not the only enemy. Nor was anti-aircraft the only enemy. Cloud cover, winds, rain, all of this nasty weather that typically, you know, in a, in a, in the UK and over the channel was typically rotten. As anybody who's lived in UK will tell you. And that hadn't changed. That was, it was still that way when they were flying B-17s into it. And so that was another aspect of the story I think that, is underserved in the telling. Except we got it right this time. You began to see all the we… all the time, how the weather affected getting the mission off the ground, much less getting it done. So that was a great aspect.

42:51Captain Dale DyeYeah, winds and rain and cloud cover and all that sort of thing. They were, they were enemies as well as…

42:57Jawad MirYeah

42:58Captain Dale Dye... The Germans.

43:00Jawad MirYeah. How would you rank, and this is a tough question to answer, but I'm still gonna ask, your personal preference of Band of Brothers, Pacific, and Master of the Air in terms of your work involved in it that you feel proud about? Not the series itself, the story, but just yourself.

43:20Captain Dale DyeI think, I think I'm proud of all of them. But certainly I would have to say Band of Brothers was the highest bar…

43:29Jawad MirYeah

43:29Captain Dale Dye... We've ever set. And we were, we were really given the time and the, freedom to do what we needed to do. So that set the bar here. Pacific was a little different, and certainly Masters of the Air is a little different.

43:47Jawad MirYeah.

43:47Captain Dale DyeI'm proud of them both, but I'd have to say that from my aspect as the military advisor, Band of Brothers, stands head and shoulders.

43:57Jawad MirPhenomenal. What's the... I mean, now that the series is gonna be airing on January 26th and it's gonna go on for at least two months, I think, weekly episodes, what's keeping you busy? Or are you taking a time off, or what's coming up next that you're able to discuss?

44:15Captain Dale DyeWell, I'm, I'm writing. There may be another book in the offing. But, I'm, I'm writing some articles and that sort of thing, which is, which is keeping the creative, juices flowing. Now look, I'm, I'm, I'm getting pretty long in the tooth. But I hope maybe I've got, you know, one or two left in me. And we'll see. I'd, I'd like to do a second, iteration of Greyhound, the Navy story with Tom Hanks. I'd like to…

44:47Jawad MirYeah

44:47Captain Dale Dye... I'd like, if there's a second coming of that, I'd like to be involved in that. And, I still have a World War II, airborne story that I'd like to get made. So, you know, I'm, I'm kinda letting the pot spoil in the background and see what comes up. And in show business, that's about all you can do. You have to…

45:09Jawad MirOh, yeah

45:09Captain Dale Dye... You have for somebody to check and write the check, and then you, off you go.

45:16Jawad MirYeah. Not just that, and you just get hope… that you hope and pray that it gets made, because so many projects that you develop, they just never reach that finish line, you know, for whatever reason. But that's just the nature of business. I would like to know if…

45:30Captain Dale DyeWell, I just, I'll tell you what, I'll tell you what I hope.

45:33Jawad MirPlease

45:35Captain Dale Dye... Masters of the Air I think is gonna have a significant impact, just in terms of popularity because it's so well-made. So such a great jaw-dropping extravaganza of special effects. So I think it's gonna have that appeal. But I, but I'm hoping that it will also sort of regenerate, interest in World War II movies. Because i… it certainly, that certainly happened with Band of Brothers.

46:07Captain Dale DyeAnd I'm hoping that Masters of the Air will also, rekindle or kindle it initially, if you will, interest in a younger generation of viewers, who say, "Geez, you know, it'd be great to see more stories like that." And if we get to that point, if audiences demand it, then boy, do we have a bunch of them ready to go.

46:31Jawad MirYeah. And the key I think, like you mentioned earlier, the obviously because it's a true story, but nevertheless it features young people, right? And…

46:41Captain Dale DyeYes

46:42Jawad Mir... It, i… and it's something that connects to people. I mean, if I... It's, it's funny how time is, right? Like, you talk to people now who weren't even around when, September 11th happened or

46:55Captain Dale DyeYeah

46:56Jawad Mir... The Iraq invasion happened or the Gulf War and all that stuff. And to be able to ask them what happened in World War II is like, you know, like a long question that's not gonna be answered because it's…

47:09Captain Dale DyeWhat happened? Was that in the Stone Age? Yeah, I guess.

47:11Jawad MirYeah, exactly. They have, they have no clue. But again, I think that's where the art of storytelling comes into play. There's nothing more powerful and bigger than storytelling because that's what keeps us going, and history is written based on storytelling. So…

47:29Captain Dale DyeSure

47:29Jawad Mir... I hope you're right.

47:29Captain Dale DyeYeah, absolutely. I agree. Look, we're, we're, we're, humans are inveterate storytellers.

47:36Jawad MirYeah.

47:36Captain Dale DyeThe only thing that changes is the technology, the methodology with which we tell stories. But there's an inherent need within us, to tell these stories, be they imaginative, imaginary stories that project into the future, or be they, explorations of things that happened in history. Those are natural wells of storytelling. And what I'm hoping with Band, with, Masters of the Air is that will, that will kindle that spark. That'll, that'll light that campfire around which we all sit and tell these great stories. And if it does that, then we've, we've, we've served the nation, I think, in, and, or served the na… the world, as a matter of fact. Served the globe, in a, in a great way because those who don't study history, as you know, are doomed to repeat it.

48:36Jawad MirRepeat it, yeah.

48:37Captain Dale DyeTo paraphrase, and we don't want to do that. So I'd, I'd love…

48:41Jawad MirYeah

48:41Captain Dale Dye... To see us explore these, stories more in depth.

48:45Jawad MirAnd, you know, to sort of end on that, Captain, I would love to see hopefully one day sooner than later a story on your life and how you journeyed through your, you know, path of life and where you got to be, where you are and all that. I would love to see that because I think you're, I think you have a very powerful and fascinating story that obviously you probably would sit down with anybody or myself and talk to like eight, nine hours about or even longer. So I would love to see that one day.

49:14Captain Dale DyeWell, that's very kind. I don't know whether... I'm, I'm always afraid of that sort of thing because it means end of life, you know? It's, it's like getting a lifetime achievement award for something. You wonder, "Is that it? I'm through? I get this lifetime achievement award and I sit down and retire?" No. But thank you. That's, that's very kind. And who knows? Something like that may come up.

49:38Jawad MirI hope so. I hope so. And I hope, wish you well, and hopefully we'll talk soon in the near future about something else. And…

49:45Captain Dale DyeVery well

49:45Jawad Mir... You know, my, I would love to have you anytime if you ever feel like chatting about anything, would love to have you here.

49:51Captain Dale DyeAll right. Thank you very much, Ray. I sure appreciate it.

49:52Jawad MirThank you, Captain.

49:53Captain Dale DyeAll right. Bye.

49:54Jawad MirThank you so much, Captain. Take care. Bye-bye. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Thank you so much for watching and listening. Don't forget to subscribe, like, share, and comment, and do come back for another episode. Until then, have a great day.