During the five grim years of World War 2, all
of the countries involved created an effective propaganda system that portrayed enemy soldiers
as monsters who deserved nothing more than death. British, American, German, Russian, and Japanese army departments were tasked with creating
a false reality where stereotypes, racism, and discrimination were used to humiliate the
enemy and increase the hatred between adversaries. However, the reality of war was often different. On the Western Front, enemies were mostly treated
with respect, according to old laws of war. Although it may seem unlikely, acts of
honor and soldier camaraderie depicting the ancient Warrior Ethos were no strange
thing to the Second World War soldiers. Especially among air force pilots, mutual
respect and acts of honor shared by aviators resembled the medieval acts of chivalry. A young 21-year-old USAF pilot, Charlie Brown, experienced first-hand the virtuous
conduct exhibited by a Luftwaffe pilot during a bombing raid when his B-17 bomber
was severely damaged and about to go down. After the German pilot, Franz Stigler, realized
the American crew was defenseless, he took the dangerous decision of escorting the aircraft
to safety across German-controlled territory. It was an almost unbelievable tale of two
pilots that met each other as enemies in the skies of WW2, survived, and died
as best friends and real kamaraden. A Perilous Mission In 1943, the bombing raids against German cities
and military factories drastically increased as the German Luftwaffe was slowly but steadily
outnumbered by American and British aircraft's continuous production. German manufacturers
could simply not keep up with production demands, and the air forces were thinly
distributed against the various war fronts. Paired with a lack of manpower and the country's
economic problems, the military knew that the war had to end soon, or the Reich would surely be
defeated. Germany had a time bomb in its hands. The Allies adopted bombing raids to
disrupt German supply networks and production depots to further slow German armament. The iconic B17 Flying Fortresses were the
frontline aircraft of all these missions. This American made bomber was heavily equipped
and could take a beating like no other warplane. Often flying in formation
and escorted by fighters, B17s dropped their payloads and then returned
safely back to bases scattered across Europe. However, many of them fell victim
to German AA guns' accurate fire. One cold night of December 1943,
just four days before Christmas, the 527th Bombardment Squadron of the USAFs
8th Air Force was conducting a perilous mission above German skies. Their target was the
Focke-Wulf 190 aircraft production facility. The squadron was expecting heavy resistance
from the defenders, and that is what they precisely got. More than 200 German flak guns and
hundreds of aircraft guarded the objective's area, waiting for the enemy to show up. One of the B-17s assigned to this mission was the
Ye Olde Pub, commanded by rookie 21-year-old 2nd Lt Charles L. "Charlie" Brown, who had lied about
his age to command more respect among his peers. Brown's Ye Olde Pub was to fly
at the edge of the formation, better known as the Purple Heart Corner, an
infamous spot commonly targeted by German AA guns. The crew's bombing run began at 27,300 ft, with a
freezing cold temperature of roughly -60 degrees. As the aircraft approached its target,
accurate enemy fire hit its nose, destroyed the second engine, and
severely damaged the fourth one. The hits dramatically slowed the Ye Olde Pub,
making it fall back into the formation as a straggler, where it was quickly attacked
again by sustained enemy surface fire. Then, more than a dozen of enemy
Messerschmitt Bf 109s and Focke-Wulf Fw 190s began harassing the rearguard of
the formation, including Brown's aircraft. Almost 10 minutes later, the
aircraft's third engine was damaged. It was now at only 40% of its power capacity.
The tail section was shot to pieces, and the entire electrical, hydraulic, and
oxygen systems were at critical levels. The fuselage was torn apart. The entrails
of the battered bomber flapped like windows left open during a storm. The tail
gunner could not do anything against the German predators' overwhelming force
and eventually received a fatal direct hit. The rest of the guns were quickly
rendered useless as they began to freeze due to the extreme temperatures above
25,000 ft. Of the 11 machine guns available, only two dorsal turrets were functional,
and they quickly ran out of ammo. Most of the crew was wounded by shrapnel
and cannon shells. To make matters worse, with the fuselage exposed, the morphine
syrettes to ease their pain froze. Lt. Brown, hurt in the shoulder, freezing
slowly, and bleeding from his wound, blacked out for a few seconds. The Ye Olde Pub
immediately started to dive down dangerously. The enemy fighters that was the end of the
B17 and made a quick turn back to base. Brown's blackout unexpectedly
saved the crew's life. When he woke up, the B17 was just a hundred
feet from hitting the ground. Brown miraculously controlled the aircraft and headed back to
England's safety, from where his formation came. But, as the Ye Olde Pub turned to go back to base, the crew heard the terrifying noise of a German
Messerschmitt Bf 109 approaching from behind… Aviator's Camaraderie Franz Stigler, a German ace pilot in
his 20's with 27 registered victories, spotted the damaged B17 as it passed his station.
He quickly hopped into his Messerschmitt Bf 109 G-6 to hunt it down, which would get him closer
to earning a precious Knight's Cross medal. Like most German soldiers and aviators stationed
in the motherland, Stigler was driven by a sense of duty to his people, who were indiscriminately
bombed by Allied bombing raids. He had seen what had happened to cities like Hamburg and
Bremen, which had been bombed to the ground. Stigler had lost his only brother, a pilot
like him, in August of that year at the hands of USAF fighters. Earning the Knight's
Cross represented the love Stigler had for his country and his people. With all that in mind, he
rose to the skies to take down the American B17. As Stigler approached the enemy bomber,
he decided to attack it from the rear. He climbed behind it and was about to pull
the trigger when he noticed something that troubled him. Despite being within its range,
no defense fire was coming from the bomber. For Lt. Brown and his crew, it
seemed like it was their end. They were defenseless against the German
fighter. They watched helplessly as it made another pass around them as if to
humiliate them before taking them down. But the opposite happened. As Stigler made
his pass, he noticed the battered state of the aircraft. He saw the fuselage was torn
apart and the injured crew members inside. When he saw Lt. Brown's face, he perceived
the fear in his eyes, and he felt pity. The pilot could not take them down. It was not a
fair fight. To the German, it was not honorable taking out the life of a beaten enemy. He
immediately remembered the words of one of his commanding officers from his campaign in
North Africa, who once told the pilots (QUOTE): "If I ever see or hear of you shooting at a
man in a parachute, I will shoot you myself." For Stigler, a man of faith who had even
studied to be a priest when he was young, it was unthinkable to shoot them or leave them
to their fate. The only way out was to help them, even if there was a risk that he could
get reported and court-martialed. Twice, Stigler tried to get Brown
to land his plane and surrender. As he got closer to the B17s nose, he signaled
Brown to land. But Brown and his crew, baffled, could not understand what Stigler
tried to tell them with his gestures. As a last resort, Stigler opted
to escort them to the sea. To prevent German AA guns from taking down the
B17, Stigler flew at its side in formation. Brown and his crew, astonished and unsure, could
not believe what the German fighter was doing. It was not until they reached open waters that the American crew realized that Stigler had
escorted them safely out of harm's way. He approached the destroyed B17s nose,
looked at Brown, saluted him, and flew away. The Ye Olde Pub arrived in terrible conditions
at Cambridgeshire with all the crew alive except the tail gunner. They were a living
miracle that proved the toughness of B17s. At the debriefing, Lt. Brown told his
officers that he was alive thanks to the German aircraft that escorted his crew.
The High Command, alarmed that word could get out about the honor and respect shown by
a German pilot, decided to keep it secret. Brown would later say (QUOTE): "Someone decided you can't be human
and be flying in a German cockpit." As for Stigler, he never told anyone about what he
did, and he kept flying until the end of the war. A Lasting Friendship After the conflict, both men continued with
their lives as usual. They carried on with their lives, and the war memories began
to slowly fade away... except for one. Brown returned to the US to study
and continue serving in the USAF, while Stigler migrated to Canada
in 1953 and became a businessman. In 1986, Brown was asked at a combat pilot reunion
about any memorable experience of his service. He recalled the time a German
pilot saved his crew's lives. After the talk, he decided that it was time to
find out what had happened to that German pilot. After 4 years of searching, he
received a letter from Stigler himself, in which he announced (QUOTE): "I was the one." After speaking to each other over
the phone, they decided to meet. Strangely enough, both men felt an
instant connection, as if they were brothers that had not seen each other in a
long time. The warrior bond had united them. Between 1990 and 2008, both pilots became close
friends, visiting each other and talking often. Stigler lived in Vancouver, and
Brown in Seattle. For a long time, they had unknowingly been
living close to each other. Their tale is an example of the honor and
respect that embodies the warrior ethos. More often than not, the hatred between
governments and officials is quite different from the respect that the common soldier,
the grunt, shares for his former enemy. In one of the many aviation books that
Stigler gave to Brown, he wrote (QUOTE): 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.
