September 23, 2023

Downtown Galway combines restaurants, bars, boutiques, still more bars. The attraction is Irish music in and around the Latin Quarter, and Guinness. The place is swimming in Guinness. Everyone standing in or near a bar is holding one. This was Wednesday.

The wind howled, the rain poured the afternoon we arrived, although the Irish sun beamed in a far corner of the sky. Stepping around the puddles and bending into the wind was the low point. Sandy and I had an overpriced dinner at the King’s Head in the Quarter, but didn’t stay for the music. We were looking at a long day.

The sun rose the next morning. We got a cab downtown then boarded the bus for the Cliffs of Moher ride, which includes a few other stops. The tourists, 98 percent Americans, an Indian, an Australian couple, and a half-dozen Swedes, piled on. The driver, John, pulled slowly out into city traffic then picked up speed. The city faded behind us—suburbs don’t exist in Ireland. Suddenly we were looking at deep-green pastures, lush meadows, cows, and sheep.

The first stop was Dungaire Castle, a 16th century fortress now reduced to a heavy stone tower and three walls, intended by the clan that built it for defensive purposes, but not known for a major role in local history. It’s outside Kinvarra along the two-lane highway, perched on a serene corner of Galway Bay. We walked through the gate and snapped a picture.

We plowed along through lovely country to Ballyvaughan, site of the Merriman Hotel, a fashionable place that now houses Ukrainian refugees. We made a sharp turn onto Corkscrew Hill, a sharp zigzagging climb to the Aillwee Cave, where, for nine euros, we could follow a guide on a half-mile hike through the narrow, dimly lit rock passageway. I bought the ticket and followed the guide, ducking at low points, and listened to his pitch on the geology of the place. It was discovered in 1940 by a local man who kept quiet about it for 33 years.

The guide talked about the mysterious drainage that created the cave. He pointed out the strange mineral-rich rock formations and the gushing waterfalls, and answered a few questions from science-minded tourists. Then we were done. I hurried along to the exit. It seemed an odd add-on to the Cliffs tour, but it’s there, so we did it.

The cliffs, nearly nine miles long, between 400 and 700 feet high, fronting the Atlantic, are spectacular. Five or six tour buses and dozens of private cars were parked below a steep path of a couple of hundred yards alongside a stone wall that borders the cliffs. Folks trudged slowly to the top, snapping pictures all the way. Since we got lucky on the weather we hung around, enjoying the crystal-clear sea air and staring at the breathtaking views out to the horizon, the surf crashing against the rocks far below.

We stopped for lunch a bit farther up the coast at the Fox Pub in Doolin. John pushed the local red beer, most of the group went along and ordered the beef stew or fish ‘n chips. Apart from cows and sheep, the tourism business is the only business in these parts. Our group took every seat in the place.

We tooled along winding roads in stretches barely wide enough for the bus and one compact car. A few times John careened onto the shoulder to avoid sideswipes. We stopped at the Burren, a bizarre, moonlike stretch of sharp rocks that extends to a steep drop into the steel-gray surf foaming against the shore. The wind roared. We didn’t stay long.

We were still miles from Galway. John, in his lyrical brogue, gave us history, local color, and his own political analysis. He talked about the famine walls, the miles of stone walls that crisscross fields and hills that English landlords forced their Irish tenants to build during the 1840s famine, trying to force them off their land. He blasted the government for permitting giant wind turbines to be built to sell power to Britain and France, spoiling the natural environment. We could see the turbines in the distance, a forest of spindly three-bladed sticks.

He pointed out an abandoned Catholic church, closed decades ago after revelations of abuses of children by Christian brothers. He added, though, he still takes his family to Mass.

The miles were wearing on all of us. But we couldn’t escape the mystical charm of this corner of the world. The highway for a hundred miles is a narrow two-lane road. The landscape across the meadows and hills is the rich green Ireland is famous for, homes are nestled in open space, no mindless subdivisions distort the loveliness of the exquisite blend of earth, sea, and sky. A few modest signs here and there advertise this B&B or that one, a bar, a restaurant. No billboards or traffic lights.

The rural Irish live in nature and are part of nature. We could feel it in the poignant music John played as he drove, the passion and humor in his stories, the greetings and smiles of the young women in their sharply pressed outfits who brought us lunch in Doolin.

We passed through Craggcorradane, Fanore, and Murrooghtoohy and back through Ballyvaughan. We also may have seen Liscannor, Kilshanny, Lisdoonvarna, and Ballyallaban, I’m not sure, they’re that small. John picked up speed as we closed again on Galway, we could see traffic increasing in the opposite direction, Galway’s rush hour.

He maneuvered through the city streets, still pointing out interesting things, famous hotels, ships in the harbor, then gave us the names of his favorite restaurants. He explained that Scotch whiskey became popular with American GIs stationed in Britain during World War II because the Irish government, trying to stay neutral, banned the sale of Irish whiskey to Americans. Jameson Black Barrel is the stuff to drink, he said.

We parked at the drop-off point. John asked us to do a review of the trip for the company’s website. We all shook hands, John patted us on the shoulder and waved goodbye. As we walked away, Sandy said he had mentioned, quietly, he was being laid off. The tour company owner had made a deal with friends to squeeze him out at the end of the month. He’ll be driving a school bus for the winter. I wondered: God’s will or the luck of the Irish? Maybe both.        

September 20, 2023

The sun burst from the overcast in Killarney, then faded. We rode around the 26,000-acre national park in a carriage pulled by a horse named Maggie and driven by a young guy, Damian McCarthy, who said he inherited the job from his father.

The park is wild and lovely, bounded on the north by a huge lake, Lough Leane, and inhabited by a unique species of diminutive red deer. We walked around the remains of Ross Castle, built in 1410, later site of a Catholic Irish defensive stand against Protestant British Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell’s marauding “Ironsides” troops during the Irish Confederation Wars of 1640-1650. Damian said he could trace his family’s roots back to those Irish defenders, a McCarthy was one of the Irish chieftains. We told him we were from South Carolina. He said, joking, “if you were English you’d be walking back.”

When the ride ended Damian and his mother gave us a lift to the hotel. They noticed Sandy’s cough.

She got hot soup for dinner. The cough, thanks to allergies, seven hours on a cold aircraft, and the Dublin rain and chill, got worse. Around 2 AM it was time to get help. We got dressed and trudged to the lobby. The night-desk guy gave us the number for a local clinic, SouthDoc. A nurse answered and asked a few questions. She gave my message to the on-duty doctor. Within minutes he called, advising that he couldn’t see Sandy without a negative covid test result. Oddly, we had brought one.

At 2:30 AM I administered my first covid test. It wasn’t pleasant for the patient, but it did turn out negative. A cab carried us through the deserted, rain-slicked streets to SouthDoc. The duty physician, Dr. Phillips, and his nurse were the only ones present. He did his exam, listened, and prescribed a few things. The nurse called another cab.

We already had paid for a bus tour called the “Ring of Kerry” that circles the southwestern corner of the country. Sandy said no way, since she had her meds she would stay in bed and get better. I stuck with the plan. The sky was overcast and threatening. The other riders were, like me, oldsters, all couples, the typical tourist pack. I had a seat to myself.

We pushed out, the tour narrated by a veteran guide with a local brogue, who pointed out interesting and beautiful sites and told stories, some poking fun at his accent and those of others. We stopped at a rural scenic point and filed out, joined a few minutes later by four or five other tour buses, all nearly identical. The crowd milled around. The place offered, for a charge of seven euros, an exhibit of “famine habitations,” mockups of the hovels the starving Irish lived in during the 1840s famine. I grimaced and passed.

After snapping a few photos of the hills I realized I couldn’t remember which bus was mine. I climbed aboard three before finally recognizing our driver. “Take a picture of the front of the bus so you’ll remember it,” a lady said.

We made four or five more stops and gawked at mountains, rugged pastures, and quaint little towns. We saw husky Irish sheep, many splashed with red paint markings by their owners. When we reached the coast near Dingle the gray sky closed in, fog shrouded the mountaintops and the sea. Finally we stopped at an inn overlooking a rocky beach for lunch. “It’s one-thirty, be back on the bus at two-twenty,” the guide warned.

It seemed a friendly rustic place, but the employees herded us to the cafeteria past stacks of souvenirs for sale, including green-tipped tin horns, earrings, postcards, shamrock coffee mugs, and Irish-green dog blankets. How many of those do they sell, I wondered.

The cafeteria line crawled forward as folks ordered shepherd’s pie and fish ‘n chips. I ordered a ham sandwich and checked my watch. It was one of those classic souvenir-stop/lunch/restroom/back-on-the-bus tourist routines. Folks gulped their lunches and ran for their seats.

 We passed through Annascaul, Killorglin, Sneem, Waterville, Caherdaniel, Cahersiveen, and others, tiny hamlets wedged against mountainsides above the sea, and tourist-seeking towns packed with bars and restaurants, real estate and lawyers’ offices. The bus stopped, here and there and we all jumped out to snap pictures until mid-afternoon, when the chilly rain fell in buckets.

Around 4 PM we turned north and entered the wilder south end of the National Park, where the forest is thick and jungle-like, moss-covered dead logs left where they fell in a tangle of rocky, vernal underbrush.  We passed through the Kissing Tunnel, when the guide urged couples to smooch, and along the spectacular “Ladies View” named because Queen Elizabeth’s ladies in waiting urged her to visit.

The rain spattered against the windshield, the guide finally gave up suggesting photo stops. The crowd got antsy, ready for their warm hotels. The driver picked up his speed, slowing on the narrow two-lane road for ongoing auto traffic (I wondered what are those cars doing here?)

We entered the busy main highway through Killarney, traffic whizzed by. The bus pulled over at a gas station. We piled out, thanking the driver and scattered. I guessed I was a mile from our hotel. I didn’t have the number for a taxi and started hoofing it. Halfway along, holding my jacket snug against the rain I heard a clop-clopping sound. A horse-drawn carriage ambled by, the sides protected by plastic curtains.

I looked up, it was Damian McCarthy, our yesterday’s driver, heading home. He looked around and waved, then pulled over to the left. That’s correct, the left, the way they drive over here. I ran and jumped in. It was an early day for him, what with the rain. We clopped forward. At the hotel I jumped down, he waved and cruised back into traffic.

September 18, 2023

O’Connell Street in central Dublin is the place to be. We found it a few blocks north of Parnell Square, lined with shops and restaurants and crowded, recalling the flaring streets of James Joyce’s Dublin. O’Connell crosses the sullen gray River Liffey and passes Trinity University campus, site of the library that houses the ancient Book of Kells.

That first morning the rain and chill drove us to an Insomnia coffee shop. In mid-September the Irish sky was gray and dark, cars and buses drove with headlights, pedestrians and cyclists were wrapped in parkas with hoods. We shivered in our summer jackets. By noon the rain slackened, the streets were packed with local people and tourists dodging the hop-on/hop-off buses, taxis, and trolleys.

The Ireland visit has always been waiting in the background for us, as it is for many with Irish connections. The original Walshes, I’ve heard, are of County Cork. Most of the family have made the trip, my parents finally in their later years. Daughter Marie spent a student year at University College Dublin.

Putting it off has to do with what we know. Ireland is famous for tranquil, rural countryside of lush, deep-green meadows, pretty towns and farms, spectacular seaside vistas below the rugged Cliffs of Moher, along with the magical folk yarns and mythology. All that is set off by the history, centuries of tragedy, privation, sectarian conflict, oppression, violence.

The tension between the Irish and their oppressors has ancient origins. Oxford scholar Paul Johnson, in his history of Ireland reveals that, centuries before the Protestant Reformation incited by Martin Luther in 1517, Pope Adrian IV in 1154 gave Henry II of England a papal bull to assert control over Ireland and its bishops, who tended to run their churches their own way. Henry hired Norman mercenaries who in 1167 entered Ireland. Henry then was “acknowledged as sovereign by all concerned, Norman and Irish, lay and ecclesiastical.”

In 1172 Pope Alexander III endorsed Henry’s actions, writing that, “how great are the enormities of vice with which the people of Ireland have been infected, and how they have departed from the fear of God and the established practice of the Christian faith …”

Johnson writes that the Reformation largely bypassed Ireland. Irish Catholic hatred of the English set into the deepest threads of the country’s history and culture. It simmered along with resentment of the indifference and greed of absentee Protestant English landlords towards the grotesquely poor Catholic tenants, who were bled white by taxes or thrown off their land, their homes burned if they couldn’t pay.

The primitive Irish economy exploded with the Great Famine of 1847, when blight devastated the potato crop. Starvation ravaged the country, causing the emigration of millions to Canada and the U.S. The Irish agony of the 1840s and early 1850s finally was answered by emergency relief by British churches and charities worldwide, from Europe to Russia and Latin America to the U.S. I was surprised to learn that private groups in South Carolina, along with some in Pennsylvania, were the largest American contributors.

Most of us, Irish-heritage or not, know something of the more recent nightmares centered on the conflict between Catholic republicans and Protestant unionists: the Irish Republican Army and Ulster Defense Association terrorism; the thousands of victims, men, women, children; the clumsy, brutal British interventions; the endless talks and broken truces; the Irish Civil War of 1922-1923. Then the “Troubles” of roughly the late 1960s through 1990s, and the still-fragile Good Friday Agreement of 1998.

Still, we went. The flight, helped by a 100-mile/hour tailwind, arrived early, at around 4 AM. We sat on the tarmac because the customs people didn’t start work until 5 AM. A friendly cab driver dropped us at a hotel north of O’Connell, but last night’s guests still were sleeping. We wandered up Dorset Street in wet dawn darkness and found Insomnia. A sweet Irish lady treated us to her musical brogue and made us sandwiches and poured coffee.

By noon the rest of the city had ventured out, shopping, visiting, drinking strong coffee, listening to music. Students demonstrated along O’Connell Street against Iranian government oppression. The crowd’s mood was mostly upbeat. A smiling Irish girl served us coffee and delicious “breads and spreads” at Bewley’s Cafe on fashionable Grafton Street. 

On Sunday morning the rain poured, we stepped out anyway and got to Mass at St. Theresa’s Church near Grafton. Afterward we walked through St. Stephen’s Green, the city’s largest park, a lovely place of ponds, birds, flowers, and trees, which hung heavy with rain. The air was soft and gentle. The Green offers dozens of memorials to well-known locals, including Constance Markievicz (1868-1927), daughter of Irish Arctic explorer Henry Gore Booth.

Gore Booth, fifth baronet of Sligo, provided assistance to starvation victims during the famine of 1878-1880, following the example of his father, Sir Robert Gore Booth. Markievicz helped found Na Fianna Eireann (Soldiers of Ireland) and the Irish Citizen Army. She fought in the Easter Rising of 1916, when the republicans tried to throw out the British, and St. Stephen’s became a battleground. She was sentenced to death, later commuted to life in prison.  In 1918 she was elected to Parliament while in prison and appointed Minister of Labor.

We got more coffee and sat for a while in a warm shop. To escape the dampness we browsed at Aran’s Sweater Market, piled high with heavy wool sweaters, caps, and jackets. A video showed the processing of wool from sheep to shelf. The place was packed with tourists demanding authentic Irish wool, lines at the register stretched the length of the store. Sandy bought a sweater, I got in line.

The air warmed a bit, but the rain kept coming, the tourists pulled up their hoods and tightened their scarves. We circled the block near the college and the Bank of Ireland, built without windows to avoid Britain’s “window tax,” and looked for a ride. So we missed the Little Museum of Dublin and the Museum of Literature. We missed most of the places on our list. But we felt a bit more Irish. We’ll be back.     

September 11, 2023

It was time to go back to the Massanutten Mountains, the roughneck sidekick of sleek Shenandoah National Park. The reason is the running of the Ring, the 71-mile slather of sharp rocks along two 40-mile-long ridges. The Ring, put on by the Virginia Happy Trails Running Club, is held on Labor Day weekend, when it’s hot. The Reverse Ring, the same event in the opposite direction, occurs in late February, when it’s cold.

Mountains may fill the human heart with peace and joy, awe and fear. The pale blue and ghostly white silhouettes on the horizon, nearby or at great distances, prompt thoughts and emotions with power to rip us from our everyday lives. They carry us to a vision of God’s majestic purpose, or paralyze us with foreboding and dread. Men and women struggle to climb and explore hard, unforgiving surfaces and turn them into monuments. They also die on them.  

In the East, the Appalachians is the broad label for the mountain spine that can be split north-south, with Virginia being the splitting point. Everyone has a name for their own: Maryland has the Catoctins, Pennsylvania the Alleghenies and Poconos, New Jersey, the Ramapos, New York, the Catskills and Adirondacks. Then there’s the Berkshires (Mass.), Greens (Vt.), Whites (N.H.), and Mahoosucs (Me.)

In Virginia all that becomes the near-unbroken Blue Ridge, which extends eventually into West Virginia, North and South Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama, and west into the Great Smokies in North Carolina and Tennessee.

Shenandoah National Park, the glamorous nexus of the Blue Ridge, continues from just outside Front Royal roughly to a place called Rockfish Gap, a few miles west of Charlottesville. Shenandoah, forever a setting for postcard and calendar photos, welcomes you with picturesque, manicured trails, overlooks, picnic grounds, souvenir shops, restaurants, and campgrounds. On pretty summer weekends, it can be hard to find parking.

Ten miles west are the Massanuttens, mostly within the George Washington National Forest. The Ring starts at a gravel parking lot below Signal Knob Mountain, the race finish point, a 2,000-foot rise just west of Front Royal. The Massanutten Trail crosses Fort Valley Road (U.S. 678) and Passage Creek and enters a campground called Elizabeth Furnace, the site of a 19th-century stone blast furnace.

The trail is marked by orange “blazes” on treetrunks, many faded and hard to see, the only guidance for the event is “stay on orange.” Along with the orange blazes are blue ones that mark the Tuscarora Trail, which passes east-west. Orange and blue alternate for a while, as if the folks who applied them were trying to save paint. But the point is orange. Persevere, look for it, it’s there.

Beyond Elizabeth Furnace the trail zigzags through thick woods. It curls gently, then climbs to around 2,200 feet of elevation at a spot called High Peak. The rocks build up to an intersection with the Shawl Gap trail. The morning sun gleams over the eastern ridge and lights the forest. The trail rises and falls, then swings eastward to allow a spectacular view of the Shenandoah before turning west into forest for two miles.

Along this stretch a single hiker, a young woman, approached. She smiled as she passed and said she had left Camp Roosevelt, my finish point 25 miles south, a day earlier. She moved on, the forest was silent. I was alone, the others were well ahead. My one complete Ring was in 2016, with the Reverse the next two years. Time wears on the legs and lungs.

The trail slopes for maybe a mile then passes a junction with the pink-blazed Sherman Gap trail, a northwest-inclined downhill back to Elizabeth Furnace and Signal Knob. Orange crosses a stream at a forest clearing called Veach Gap, where the Veach trail picks up and offers another escape to Fort Valley Road. A rough shelter stands just off the trail, a rusted firepit shows the remains of many campfires.

The orange twists a bit then rises up a steep eastbound mile-long straightaway. It then levels out and turns sharply south, the ultimate direction. There the trails split as Tuscarora heads southeast across the South Fork of the Shenandoah River. The blue blazes disappear. Two miles farther along orange is Milford Gap, where volunteers offer water and good words.  Jill stepped forward and waved, and offered me cool water. I sat, we talked a bit. I moved on. The trail passes an intersection with a steep, purple-blazed descent to a place called Indian Grave.

In early afternoon the September sun rises higher, the deep-green panorama of the Shenandoah valley inspires wonder. The trail narrows between long knife-like granite slabs that threaten legs. Three miles farther on Jill and fellow volunteer Michelle caught me. We visited for a few minutes. They held out the prospect of dropping from the course, then left me with gatorade and snacks.

They and others no doubt wondered what I was doing there, sixteen years older than the next-oldest entrant. I wondered myself, although there really was no point. I thought of the chemo and radiation. But it was the Ring, after all, and the orange trail, and its transcendent, mystical, wild power. One morning five years ago, training for the Reverse Ring, I started on orange at Roosevelt and ran and fast-hiked 20 miles to the Indian Grave turnoff and back. I can’t recall how I then tapdanced easily up the climbs that now seem excruciating.

The next stretch seems interminable, the forest thins, the afternoon sun blazes. It’s possible to catch glimpses of farmland and the river far below, glimmering in the mottled light. Ahead, the route is a ragged rock carpet that rises, turns, descends. 

A modest milestone appears, an intersection with an eastbound blue-blazed trail, a sharp descent to a spot along the Shenandoah called Habron Gap. Three miles of orange remain to a junction with the yellow-blazed Stephens trail, which winds down the ridge to Roosevelt, roughly equal to the distance remaining on orange. The sun moved across the sky, the shadows grew longer.

A mile north of Stephens my cell phone beeped, the aid station volunteers expected me hours earlier. After a long day waiting at Roosevelt Sandy was worried. Volunteers Rande and Travis trekked up, we met at the Stephens intersection. Rande handed me gatorade. After twelve hours on orange, we set off at an easy trot down Stephens. Soon daylight faded. We lit headlamps, and finished.

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.