23-10-2015, 06:02 PM
1
A nice true story
I received this via email, but I have checked it out and it is a true story, a nice one I think too........................................
"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 Messerschmidt fighter hovering just
three feet off their wingtip. It was five days before Christmas 1943, 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.
Charles Brown, with his wife, Jackie (left), with Franz Stigler, with his wife, Hiya.
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 Pilot's 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 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 others 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 Air Force. 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 Veteran's 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 before Christmas, 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
23-10-2015, 06:29 PM
6
Re: A nice true story
Tears are also in my eyes reading it clumsy.Its great to hear such stories as we hear such bad things
so often nowadays. I was born just after the war and was
the first child after my Dad was in the war for 6 years.
Not all Germans were Nazis. That's what is hard to remember
with all the hype about the ones that were.
You cant blame a whole Country for the idiots that are and were
brainwashed.
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