Happy New Year

Once in a while, you hear an old war story that restores your faith in human*i*ty. Usu*al*ly it involves a moment of quiet in the midst of chaos; some singing or the shar*ing of a few condi*ments. But how many of them take place in mid air?
This is the remark*able story of a crip*pled Amer*i*can bomber spared by a Ger*man fight*er pilot. After the two planes' pilots had a mid-air moment of under*stand*ing, it didn't seem like*ly that they'd ever see one anoth*er again. Only they did, and became clos*er than broth*ers.

Here's how it all went down.

It was a few days before Christ*mas in 1943, and the Allied bomb*ing cam*paign in Ger*many was going at full tilt. Sec*ond Lieu*tenant Char*lie Brown was a fresh*ly mint*ed bomber pilot, and he and his crew were about to embark upon their first mis*sion — to hit an air*craft fac*to*ry in north*ern Ger*many.

Brown's B-17F Fly*ing Fortress, dubbed Ye Olde Pub, was typ*i*cal of Amer*i*can heavy bombers of the time. Along with an 8,000-pound bomb capac*i*ty, the four-engine plane was armed with 11 machine guns and strate*gi*cal*ly placed armor plat*ing. B-17s cruised at about 27,000 feet, but weren't pres*sur*ized. At that alti*tude, the air is thin and cold — 60 degrees below zero. Pilots and crew relied upon an onboard oxy*gen sys*tem and real*ly warm flight suits with heat*ed shoes.

As Ye Old Pub approached Bre*men, Ger*many, Ger*man anti-aircraft bat*ter*ies opened up on the for*ma*tion. Unfor*tu*nate*ly for the pilots and crew of Ye Olde Pub, one of the anti-aircraft rounds explod*ed right in front of their plane, destroy*ing the num*ber two engine and dam*ag*ing num*ber four. Miss*ing one engine and with anoth*er throt*tled back due to dam*age, Ye Olde Pub could no longer keep up with the for*ma*tion.

B-17s were known for being able to soak up a lot of bul*lets and anti-aircraft flak and still make it home, but that came at a cost. The armor plat*ing pro*tect*ing crew and vital areas of the plane was heavy and affect*ed cruise speed. Although armed with a num*ber of heavy machine gun tur*rets, there were still areas of the air*craft that were vul*ner*a*ble to attack by enemy fight*er planes. The U.S. Army Air Corps addressed this prob*lem by plac*ing many planes in stag*gered for*ma*tion that allowed bombs to be dropped while mul*ti*ple planes could cover the defen*sive gaps of other planes in the for*ma*tion with over*lap*ping fields of fire.
The draw*back to this arrange*ment was that indi*vid*ual planes couldn't take eva*sive maneu*vers (they'd risk dam*age from friend*ly bombs or machine gun fire), and strag*glers were com*plete*ly open to attack by enemy air*craft. Think about a small group of quick, agile cow*boys chas*ing a herd of buf*fa*lo. They're both dan*ger*ous to one anoth*er, but if one lum*ber*ing buf*fa*lo leaves the safe*ty of the group, there's not much hope for it.

Things went from bad to worse for Brown and his crew. Falling behind the for*ma*tion, Ye Olde Pub weath*ered mer*ci*less attacks from 15 Ger*man fight*ers. The bomber's machine guns got one of them, but the dam*age they sus*tained was immense. The tail gun*ner was killed and four were injured, includ*ing Brown, who caught a bul*let frag*ment in his right shoul*der. The only defen*sive guns left in ser*vice were the top tur*ret and the nose gun, and the bomber's hydraulics and oxy*gen sys*tems had also been knocked out. The plane went into a spi*ral, plum*met*ing earth*ward.

What hap*pened next is accord*ing to the mem*o*ry of Brown, who told inter*view*ers years later that his mind was a bit hazy at the time; his shoul*der was bleed*ing and he need*ed oxy*gen.

I either spi*raled or spun and came out of the spin just above the ground. My only con*science mem*o*ry was of dodg*ing trees but I had night*mares for years and years about dodg*ing build*ings and then trees. I think the Ger*mans thought that we had spun in and crashed.

Ye Olde Pub was spared fur*ther harass*ment by enemy fight*ers. Some*how, he and the co-pilot man*aged to get the plane fly*ing level again at about 1,000 feet of ele*va*tion.

On the way out to the sea, Ye Olde Pub passed a Ger*man air*field. Lt. Franz Stigler, a Luft*waffe fight*er pilot just in from shoot*ing down two B-17s, saw Ye Olde Pub limp by. Nat*u*ral*ly, he scram*bled to give chase. But what he saw arrest*ed any aggres*sion he may have had. As he told inter*view*ers in 1991, he was aghast at the amount of dam*age the bomber had sus*tained. Its nose cone was miss*ing, it had sev*er*al gap*ing holes in the fuse*lage. He could see crew mem*bers giv*ing first aid to the wound*ed, and most of the plane's guns hung limp, unmanned as they were.

I saw his gun*ner lying in the back pro*fuse*ly bleed*ing….. so, I couldn't shoot. I tried to get him to land in Ger*many and he didn't react at all. So, I fig*ured, well, turn him to Swe*den, because his air*plane was so shot up; I never saw any*thing fly*ing so shot up.

Stigler kept his dis*tance, always stay*ing out of the line of fire of the two guns still in ser*vice, but man*aged to fly with*in 20 feet of the bul*let rid*dled B-17. He tried to con*tact Brown with hand sig*nals. His mes*sage was sim*ple: Land your plane in Ger*many and sur*ren*der or fly to Swe*den. That heap will never make it back to Eng*land.

A bewil*dered Brown stared back through his side win*dow, not believ*ing what he was see*ing. He had already count*ed him*self as a casu*al*ty numer*ous times. But this strange Ger*man pilot kept ges*tur*ing at him. There was no way he was going to land the plane, but the pilot stayed with him, keep*ing other attack*ers off until they reached the North Sea. When it was clear that Brown wasn't stay*ing in Ger*many, Stigler salut*ed, peeled off, and flew out of Ye Olde Pub's night*mar*ish day.

When Franz tried to get me to sur*ren*der, my mind just wouldn't accept that. It wasn't chival*ry, it wasn't brav*ery, it was prob*a*bly stu*pid*i*ty. My mind just didn't func*tion in a clear man*ner. So his choice then was to kill us or try to get us to go to Swe*den, since we wouldn't land.

The bomber made it back to Eng*land, scarce*ly able to keep 250 feet between itself and the ground by the time it land*ed in a smok*ing pile of exhaust*ed men and shred*ded alu*minum. Years later, Brown would say that if Stigler had been able to talk to him, offer*ing the land in Ger*many or fly to Swe*den ulti*ma*tum, he prob*a*bly would have gone to Swe*den. But Ye Olde Pub did make it, and Brown got a much need*ed stiff drink hand*ed to him when he got off the plane.

The incred*u*lous debrief*ing offi*cer, wowed by Brown's story, went off to tell the brass what had hap*pened. He rec*om*mend*ed Brown's crew for cita*tion, but the glory was short-lived. Brass quick*ly decid*ed that word get*ting out about a chival*rous Ger*man fight*er pilot could endan*ger the lives of other crews if it caused them to let their guard down. All details of Ye Olde Pub's first mis*sion were clas*si*fied Secret.
Stigler was never able to speak of his actions that day, as it would have meant cer*tain court mar*tial. He flew many more mis*sions, though, becom*ing one of the world's first fight*er jet pilots. By the war's end, he was one of only about 1,300 sur*viv*ing Luft*waffe pilots. Some 28,000 had served.

After the war, Char*lie Brown returned home to West Vir*ginia and went to col*lege, return*ing to the Air Force in 1949 and serv*ing until 1965. Later, as a State Depart*ment For*eign Ser*vice Offi*cer, he made numer*ous trips to Laos and Viet*nam. But in 1972, he hung up his gov*ern*ment ser*vice hat and moved to Miami to become an inven*tor.

Stigler fin*ished the war amidst ruin. Anti-Third Reich post-war author*i*ties in Ger*many were unim*pressed with his exem*plary ser*vice record, and the econ*o*my was wrecked. He sub*sist*ed on food stamps and work as a brick*lay*er's helper for a while, but moved to Cana*da in 1953. There, he enjoyed suc*cess as a busi*ness*man.

Many years went by with*out either man ever think*ing much about what had hap*pened on that day in 1943. But in 1986, then retired Colonel Char*lie Brown was asked to speak at a big com*bat pilot reunion event called Gath*er*ing of the Eagles. Some*one asked him if he had any mem*o*rable mis*sions dur*ing World War II. Brown thought a minute, then dredged up the story of Stigler's salute which had been buried some*where in the dirty cor*ners of his mind for decades. Jaws dropped. Brown knew he would have to try to find the man who had spared his life.

After four years of search*ing vain*ly for U.S. and West Ger*man Air Force records that might shed some light on who the pilot was, Brown hadn't come up with much. So he wrote a let*ter in a com*bat pilot asso*ci*a*tion newslet*ter. A few months later, Brown received a let*ter from Cana*da. It was from Stigler. "I was the one," it said. When they spoke on the phone, Stigler described his plane, the salute; every*thing Brown need*ed to hear to know it wasn't a hoax.

From 1990 to 2008, Char*lie Brown and Franz Stigler became like broth*ers. Intro*duced by the bond of that first pow*er*ful meet*ing, their friend*ship was cement*ed over the years. The two men remained close through*out the rest of their lives, dying with*in sev*er*al months of each other in 2008.
There are so many parts of that beau*ti*ful story that could have turned out dif*fer*ent*ly. In any event, Stigler prob*a*bly wouldn't have shot Brown's crip*pled plane. He was a vet*er*an pilot with an iron sense of right and wrong; a man who would never kick anoth*er while he's down.

But what if Stigler had been exe*cut*ed for his dis*loy*al*ty? What if Brown had land*ed in Ger*many or hadn't made it across the North Sea? What if Stigler had stayed in Ger*many and never learned how to speak Eng*lish? Yes, things could have been dif*fer*ent, but that chance encounter in 1943 was des*tined to become a chance encounter again in 1990. But more impor*tant*ly, it's proof to the rest of us that some*thing great done now can change your life much, much later.

Adam Makos just wrote a book about the Brown-Stigler ren*dezvous — A High*er Call: An Incred*i*ble True Story Of Com*bat And Chival*ry In The War-Torn Skies Of World War II — which goes into much greater detail about the two men behind an amaz*ing occur*rence.

Photo cred*it: YouTube; Wikipedia


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