September 4, 2023

At the Republican debate nearly two weeks ago, six of eight people on the stage raised their hands to advertise that even if Trump is convicted of a felony they’d still support him if he were the Republican nominee. Three of the six, Pence, DeSantis, and Ramaswamy, are lawyers. A verdict in a court of law, for them, matters less than being loyal Republicans. That’s one notion of honor.

But honor exists, in other places and times. On December 20, 1943, an American B-17 bomber, crippled by German antiaircraft fire and fighter aircraft during a mission over Germany, tried to stay airborne en route back to England. Two of its four engines stalled. The tail gunner was killed, other crewmen were severely wounded.

The pilot, 21-year-old Lieutenant Charles Brown and his co-pilot wrestled with the controls to avoid ditching in Germany. The plane had fallen far behind other friendly aircraft. Brown and his crew were alone over hostile country. The bomber flew north to reach a westbound course across the North Sea, which would take it over a fearsome German flak battery.

As the bomber struggled, Brown and his crew spotted a single German Messerschmitt Bf-109 fighter aircraft approaching. The German pilot, Lieutenant Franz Stigler, had been at a nearby airfield and spotted the B-17 flying low overhead. He took off and closed on the bomber, finger on his trigger, watching for defensive fire from the bomber’s three gun turrets. He then saw the dead body of the tail gunner. 

Adam Makos, in A Higher Call, published in 2012 by Berkeley, tells the powerful story of Brown and Stigler, and their incredible, accidental encounter.

In December 1943 Stigler was a 28-year-old ace with 22 “kills” of allied aircraft. He was no Nazi. He and most of his fellow pilots hated the Nazis. His parents had voted against the Nazis in Germany’s 1933 election, in which twelve political parties competed, allowing the Nazis to win power with 44 percent of the vote. He was raised in a devout Catholic family and had thought of becoming a priest. He carried a rosary with him on every mission.

Stigler didn’t join the German air force, the Luftwaffe. As a flight instructor for Lufthansa, the civilian airline, he was drafted. He showed skills as a fighter pilot. His brother August became a bomber pilot. They believed they fought for the German people. Many German pilots believed they fought by a code of chivalry that dated to Germany’s medieval Teutonic Knights. They fought with restraint, respecting their enemies. As Makos reports, the Luftwaffe rescued downed allied flyers and protected them from the Nazi police force, the SS. August was killed in 1940.

As Stigler closed on Brown’s B-17 on that December day, he saw that the fuselage was shot through. The crew were caring for the wounded. The left tail stabilizer was missing. One engine was dead, another was failing. The plane had lost nearly five miles of altitude and was barely at 2,000 feet.

Stigler flew within a few feet of the bomber’s left wing. He could see Brown working to fly the plane. Stigler resolved not to fire, but to be true to his chivalric code of honor. He signaled to Brown to fly to neutral Sweden, a 30-minute flight instead of attempting the two-hour return to England. Brown stared straight ahead, expecting the German to blow his plane out of the sky. Instead Stigler waved. The Americans guessed he was out of ammunition.

As the two planes flew together, they passed over the coastline antiaircraft batteries. The ground crews, seeing the German fighter escorting the B-17, held their fire. The two aircraft flew out over the sea. Stigler, seeing that the Americans were determined to try for England, saluted, then banked and disappeared. The Americans, losing altitude all the way, made it back to base.

Stigler never reported the incident, which he knew could get him shot. When Brown told his superiors, he was ordered to keep quiet because of concern that American bomber crews might think other German pilots would hold their fire.

Brown flew a total of 29 bombing missions as the allies pulverized German cities and military sites. Stigler and his fellow pilots continued to fly, shifting to the world’s first jet fighter, the Me-262. For the entire war Stigler flew 478 missions and shot down 28 allied aircraft. In early May 1945 German forces began surrendering. Stigler escaped, first in a truck, then on foot. He surrendered to American troops near Berchtesgaden, Hitler’s hideout.

Makos’ story begins with the war’s aftermath in Germany, where civilians struggled to recover from the devastation of defeat. Hunger and suffering were everywhere. Stigler searched for menial work in mills and factories to help support his mother. Eventually he found work, got married, then moved to Vancouver, Canada. He learned English.

Charlie, back in the U.S. also got married. He made a career of the Air Force, then worked for the State Department until he retired to Florida in the early 1970s.

Both Stigler and Brown raised families. Both kept in touch with their pilot friends. But as Makos writes, Charlie still dreamed of his mysterious encounter with the German fighter pilot who didn’t attack. He talked to veteran’s groups. He searched Air Force records. He wrote to German Air Force General Adolf Galland, describing the B-17/Bf-109 incident. Galland ordered the German veterans’ newsletter to publish Brown’s letter. Stigler, at home in Canada, saw the letter.

Brown included his address in his letter. On January 18, 1990, Stigler wrote to Brown: “Dear Charlie, all these years I wondered what happened to the B-17, did she make it or not? I inquired time and again without results. … I am happy now that you made it, and that it was worth it.”

Brown wrote back, asking Stigler about the markings on his aircraft. “I have the distinct feeling that some power greater than our respective governments was looking out for most of us on Dec. 20, 1943. I am sure that your skill and daring made you an extremely successful fighter pilot; however, if you repeatedly exhibited that type of camaraderie/chivalry and daring, your chances of surviving combat would not have been too great.”

On June 21, 1990, Stigler and Brown met in Seattle. Stigler revealed he had not been out of ammunition when they met in the air. Later, he told Gen. Galland he had let the B-17 escape. Galland said only: “It would be you.”

Stigler and Brown became close friends. Two months after their first meeting, Stigler gave Brown a gift, a book. He wrote an inscription: “In 1940 I lost my only brother … on the 20th of December 1943, four days before Christmas, I had the chance to save a B-17 from destruction, a plane so badly damaged it was a wonder that it was still flying. The pilot, Charlie Brown, is for me, as precious as my brother was.”

They died within months of each other, in 2008.