A stricken Allied bomber-German ace sent to shoot it down+truly-inspiring story of wartime chivalry

Daily Mail ^ | July 19, 2013

[nuconvert]

*Luftwaffe pilot Lt Franz Stigler refused to shoot down near-destroyed Allied bomber

*Instead he guided stricken pilot Lt Charlie Brown to safety

*A phone call led to a tearful reunion of the two World War II veterans

The lone Allied bomber was a sitting duck. Holed all over by flak and bullets and down to a single good engine, it struggled simply to stay in the air over Germany, let alone make it the 300 miles back to England.

[BCW]

i always feel embarrassed around those guys - the ones in WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam...they had nothign but themselves - when we entered Iraq for the 2nd time - we had everything - so many conveniences it was awesome...we had 31 Favors Ice Cream in the middle of the Kuwaiti dessert! Sat TV, Sat commo, Blue force tracker, laptops - high speed internet,,etc...the dangers were real - -but it seemed these guys fought not knowing what was going on in the world because they din’t have instant commo - that’s a lot of stress!

[Joe Boucher]

Nice humane story, thanks for a good positive story.
NOw back to death taxes and bad gub mint.

[Gay State Conservative]

There *was* decency to be found among enemy soldiers.Perhaps not a lot,but some.I remember seeing a documentary about Australian POWs of the Japanese in which several Aussies told of how brutal most of their captors were but that there was an occasional guard who gave them extra food,etc.They said that by doing that those guards were placing themselves at enormous personal risk if they had been discovered by their commanders.

[Pontiac]

Somehow the pilot, 20-year-old Lt Charlie Brown, still clung to the controls — and the last vestiges of hope.

If common sense prevailed, he would order everyone to bail out and leave the B-17 Flying Fortress to its fate. He and the crew would parachute to safety, prisoners of war but alive. But that would mean leaving an unconscious man behind to die alone, and Brown refused to do that.

It is hard for me to imagine the 20 year olds of today having the courage and the selflessness to stick it out and pilot a plane full of wounded back to England under such circumstances.

Most of the young ones today simply think of themselves first last and always.

[Pontiac]

Stigler saw himself as an honourable man, a knight of the skies — not an assassin. The first time he flew in combat was with a much admired officer of the old school, who told him, ‘You shoot at a machine, not a man. You score “victories”, not “kills”.

‘A man may be tempted to fight dirty to survive, but honour is everything. You follow the rules of war for you, not for your enemy. You fight by rules to keep your humanity. So you never shoot your enemy if he is floating down on a parachute. If I ever see you doing that, I will shoot you down myself.’

Good words. Good sentiments. And a nearly forgotten word; honor.

This is today it seems an archaic idea this notion of ‘honor’. I know I see precious little evidence of it in our country’s leadership. I certainly see no mention of it in most of the products of the entertainment industry. The cheap imitations of the concept you do see is typically of the Leftist variety where some evil industrialist is stopped from polluting the environment by a green warrior.

I am often tempted to despair for the survival of the Republic.

[Bshaw]

“Most of the young ones today simply think of themselves first last and always.”

Disgustingly true!

The pre 1960s generations were products of their upbringing. Sadly, the generation you describe today is also a product of their upbringing.

Prior generations studied real history, civics and the humanities. Today they study Kim Kardashian, Dancing with the Stars and Facebook.

We will all suffer their ignorance in myriad ways.

[al_c]

I’ve read of this story before. I hope they do it justice if the movie is ever completed.

[Romulus]

I see precious little evidence of it in those who piss on the corpses of enemy dead. And in those who condone it.

[Pontiac]

Well I certainly did not intend to impugn the honor of our men in uniform. These men are volunteers that defend our country against savages.

I directed my post against the young people I see around me who waste their lives away playing video games and watching TV soft porn while living in their parents houses well in to their thirties.

The very young men chronicled in this book bare no resemblance to the young men I see around be on a daily bases. I do know young men who served in Iraq and Afghanistan and I respect them greatly. One I know will never be the same because of repeated head injuries he received in Afghanistan. I grieve for his family and him for their lives can never be what they should have been.

But the youths that I speak of see these men and remark that they were stupid to go and that these heroes have wasted their lives. What I find most damning of all is that they consider themselves patriots.

[virgil283]

thanks for posting this...I got the book this morninig and have been reading it...there's a video about this crew here... On this day in history: A Higher Call