Posted on 11/16/2025 7:30:04 AM PST by Yardstick
In the final days of 1943, a damaged American B-17 struggled to stay in the air — its crew wounded, its engines failing. Then, out of the clouds, a German fighter appeared. What happened next became one of the most extraordinary acts of mercy in World War II.
(Excerpt) Read more at youtube.com ...
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Yes, this is indeed a well-known story, but always deserves to be posted again...thank you for doing so. A remarkable story.
There’s a similar story in Martin Caidin’s book Thunderbolt about 56th Fighter Group P-47 ace Robert Johnson.
On June 26, 1943, Johnson’s P-47 was hit by German aircraft and badly damaged during a patrol over France. Despite severe damage to his plane, including a jammed canopy and a ruptured hydraulic system, he managed to regain control of the aircraft and fly it back to base in Britain.
Johnson was escorting bombers over France when his flight was attacked by sixteen FW190’s. His P-47 was hit by multiple cannon shells and machine-gun fire resulting in a jammed shattered canopy, ruptured hydraulic system, engine fire, loss of rudder, and Injuries to his leg and partial blindness from hydraulic fluid.
Johnson managed to regain control of the falling aircraft by using rudder and stick. He could not bail out due to the jammed canopy. He decided to try to fly back to his base.
A German FW190 continued to fire at Johnson as he tried to escape. The German pilot eventually stopped firing, reportedly out of amazement at the P-47’s resilience. The pilot later saluted Johnson before flying away.
Johnson made it back to his base and was taken to the hospital. His P-47 had over 200 bullet holes. He recovered and return to flight duty 5 days later.
Johnson was credited with 27 kills.
Johnson managed to regain control of the falling aircraft by using rudder and stick.
Thought his rudder was ‘lost’??
Interesting. In “The Blue Max” George Peppard shot down the disabled/escorted enemy plane but only after the gunner recovered and started shooting at him. Othe pilots didn’t believe him.
Nice story, that’s well told.
https://realhistoryco.wordpress.com/2018/05/23/robert-s-johnson-p47-thunderbolt/
https://www.donhollway.com/wolfpack/
He was in a spin and the rudder was not responsive. He lost rudder effectiveness. He managed to pull the P-47 out of the spin. He was able to stomp and the rudder pedals to swing the aircraft left and right and slow down which caused the FW190 to fly past him.
“Johnson’s didn’t know it at the time, but that Fw 190 was piloted by Egon Mayer, a German fighter ace who would, by the time of his death in March 1944, have shot down 102 enemy aircraft.”
Spins will do that. Thanks.
It's one thing to spare an enemy parachuting onto your territory - you can then take him prisoner, and he is theoretically out of the war for good.
But sparing an enemy combatant who can then come back and flatten your cities?!
Regards,
Thank you.
It is a story that deserves retelling, again and again.
May God guide and strengthen us.
Allied air forces dropped approximately 1.4 million tons of bombs on Germany. The total amount dropped on all of Europe was around 2.7 million tons.
I have an autographed print of Stigler’s Bf-109f(in the desert tan color scheme)that I purchased from Mr. Stigler back in 1998. When talking with him I was amazed at him saying he was shot down 3 times over Italy and just kept on flying and fighting.
He said in the Luftwaffe you fought to the bitter end or died - whichever came first.
Thank you for posting this. I remember reading about that a lot of years ago. There are some amazing videos/stories at that link...especially the one plane losing the tail with the tailgunner inside and he survived - became a POW but made it home...you can get stuck there all day...better than watching football...
Do you know about honor? Charity?
Maybe he lost ailerons not the rudder?
Well said.
It wasn’t unusual for Luftwaffe to shoot Americans who had managed to bail out of their stricken B-17s in parachutes. This was widely considered bad form, but “all is fair in love and war” so the saying goes.
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