SHOCK, HORROR – A GOOD NEWS STORY!
Here is a wonderful true story about an
encounter between an American B-17 bomber pilot and a German pilot of a ME-109 fighter
during WWII and the heart-warming reunion between the two pilots many years
later.
I’m indebted to Traci Lawrence for this
story which appeared in her regular newsletter, Daily Musings, just before
Christmas.
Traci is an English teacher, an author
and an editor, among other things, and I heartily recommend subscribing to her
newsletter if you want regular doses of positivity. Here is a link to her
newsletter:
http://www.tracisworld.com/
Daily Musings
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Posted: 19 Dec 2015 11:37 AM PST
The 21-year old American B-17 pilot glanced outside his cockpit and froze. He blinked hard and looked again, hoping it was just a mirage. But his Co-Pilot stared at the same horrible vision. "My God, this is a nightmare," the Co-Pilot said.
"He's going to destroy us," the Pilot agreed.
The men were looking at a gray German Messerschmitt fighter
hovering just three feet off their wingtip.
It was five days before Christmas1943, and the fighter had closed in
on their crippled American B-17 bomber for the kill.
Brown's Crippled B-17 Stalked by Stigler's ME-109
The B-17 Pilot, Charles
Brown, was a 21-year-old West Virginia farm boy on his first combat
mission. His bomber had been shot to
pieces by swarming fighters, and his plane was alone, struggling to stay in
the skies above Germany. Half his crew was wounded, and the tail gunner was
dead, his blood frozen in icicles over the machine guns.
But when Brown and his Co-Pilot, Spencer "Pinky" Luke,
looked at the Fighter Pilot again, something odd happened. The German didn't
pull the trigger. He stared back at the bomber in amazement and respect.
Instead of pressing the attack, he nodded at Brown and saluted. What happened
next was one of the most remarkable acts of chivalry recorded during World
War Il.
Luftwaffe Major Franz Stigler
Stigler pressed his hand over the rosary he kept in his flight
jacket. He eased his index finger off
the trigger. He couldn't shoot. It would be murder.
Stigler wasn't just motivated by vengeance that day. He also
lived by a code. He could trace his
Family's Ancestry to Knights in 16th Century Europe. He had once studied to be a Priest. A German Pilot who spared the enemy,
though, risked death in Nazi Germany.
If someone reported him, he would be executed.
Yet, Stigler could also hear the voice of his commanding
officer, who once told him: "You
follow the rules of war for you -- not your enemy. You fight by rules to keep
your humanity."
Alone with the crippled bomber, Stigler changed his mission. He
nodded at the American Pilot and began flying in formation so German
anti-aircraft gunners on the ground wouldn't shoot down the slow-moving
bomber. (The Luftwaffe had B-17's of its own, shot down and rebuilt for
secret missions and training.) Stigler
escorted the bomber over the North Sea and took one last look at the American
Pilot. Then he saluted him, peeled his
fighter away and returned to Germany.
"Good luck," Stigler said to himself. "You're in God's hands
now..." Franz Stigler didn't
think the big B-17 could make it back to England and wondered for years what
happened to the American Pilot and crew he encountered in combat.
As he watched the German
fighter peel away that December day, 2nd Lt. Charles Brown wasn't thinking of
the philosophical connection between enemies.
He was thinking of survival. He
flew his crippled plane, filled with wounded, back to his base in England and
landed with one of four engines knocked out, one failing and barely any fuel
left. After his bomber came to a stop,
he leaned back in his chair and put a hand over a pocket Bible he kept in his
flight jacket. Then he sat in silence.
Brown flew more missions before the war ended. Life moved
on. He got married, had two Daughters,
supervised foreign aid for the U.S. State Department during the Vietnam War
and eventually retired to Florida.
Late in life, though, the encounter with the German Pilot began
to gnaw at him. He started having
nightmares, but in his dream there would be no act of mercy. He would awaken just before his bomber
crashed.
Brown took on a new mission.
He had to find that German Pilot.
Who was he? Why did he save my
life? He scoured Military Archives in
the U.S. and England. He attended a Pilots'
Reunion and shared his story. He
finally placed an ad in a German Newsletter for former Luftwaffe Pilots,
retelling the story and asking if anyone knew the Pilot.
On January 18, 1990, Brown received a letter. He opened it and
read: "Dear Charles, All these
years I wondered what happened to that B-17, did she make it home? Did her crew survive their wounds? To hear of your survival has filled me with
indescribable joy..."
It was Stigler.
He had left Germany after the war and moved to Vancouver, British
Columbia, in 1953. He became a
prosperous Businessman. Now retired,
Stigler told Brown that he would be in Florida come summer and "it sure
would be nice to talk about our encounter." Brown was so excited, though, that he
couldn't wait to see Stigler. He
called Directory Assistance for Vancouver and asked whether there was a
number for a Franz Stigler. He dialed
the number, and Stigler picked up.
"My God, it's you!"
Brown shouted as tears ran down his cheeks.
Brown had to do more. He wrote a letter to Stigler in which he
said: "To say THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU on behalf of my surviving
crew members and their families appears totally inadequate."
The two Pilots would meet again, but this time in person, in the
lobby of a Florida hotel. One of
Brown's Friends was there to record the Summer Reunion. Both men looked like retired
businessmen: they were plump, sporting
neat ties and formal shirts. They fell into each other's arms and wept and
laughed. They talked about their
encounter in a light, jovial tone.
The mood then changed.
Someone asked Stigler what he thought about Brown. Stigler sighed and his square jaw
tightened. He began to fight back
tears before he said in heavily accented English: "I love you,
Charlie."
Stigler had lost his Brother, his Friends and his Country. He was virtually exiled by his Countrymen
after the war. There were 28,000
Pilots who fought for the German
Luftwaffe. Only 1,200 survived.
The war cost him
everything. Charlie Brown was the only
good thing that came out of World War II for Franz. It was the one thing he could be proud
of. The meeting helped Brown as well,
says his oldest daughter, Dawn Warner.
They met as enemies but Franz Stigler, on left, and Charles
Brown, ended up as fishing buddies.
Brown and Stigler became pals. They would take fishing trips
together. They would fly cross-country to each other homes and take road
trips together to share their story at schools and Veterans' Reunions. Their
Wives, Jackie Brown and Hiya Stigler, became Friends.
Brown's Daughter says her Father would worry about Stigler's
health and constantly check in on him.
"It wasn't just for show," she says. "They really
did feel for each other. They talked about once a week." As his friendship with Stigler deepened, something
else happened to her father, Warner says "The nightmares went
away."
Brown had written a letter of thanks to Stigler, but one day, he
showed the extent of his gratitude. He
organized a reunion of his surviving crew members, along with their extended
families. He invited Stigler as a
Guest of Honor.
During the Reunion, a video was played showing all the faces of
the people that now lived -- Children, Grandchildren, Relatives -- because of
Stigler's act of Chivalry. Stigler
watched the film from his Seat of Honor.
"Everybody was crying, not just him," Warner says.
Stigler and Brown died within months of each other in 2008. Stigler was 92, and Brown was 87. They had started off as Enemies, became
Friends, and then something more.
After he died, Warner was searching through Brown's library when
she came across a book on German fighter jets. Stigler had given the book to
Brown. Both were country boys who loved to read about planes.
Warner opened the book and saw an inscription Stigler had
written to Brown:
In 1940, I lost my only brother as a night fighter. On the 20th
of December, 4 days beforeChristmas, I had the chance to save a B-17 from her
destruction, a plane so badly damaged it was a wonder that she was still
flying.
The Pilot, Charlie Brown, is for me as precious as my Brother
was.
Thanks Charlie.
Your Brother, Franz
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