Charlie Brown and Pilot Franz Stigler
Pictured is a drawing of the incident: The English B-17 “Ye Olde Pub” in front, and the German BF-109 in back as escort. Notice the damage on the B-17: the nose is gone, one propellor is not working, the back turret is gone, the tail section is shredded and missing, holes in the hull. Artist is Ernie Boyett.
Charlie Brown (a 21-year old) was a B-17 Flying Fortress pilot with the 379th Bomber Group at Kimbolton, England. His B-17 was called “Ye Olde Pub” and was in a terrible state, having been hit by flak and fighters while on a mission to bomb a factory in Bremen, Germany. The compass was damaged and they were flying deeper over enemy territory instead of heading home to Kimbolton.
B-17 pilot Charlie Brown BF-109 pilot Franz Stigler
After flying over an enemy airfield, Charlie Brown stated that his heart sank. A pilot named Franz Stigler was ordered to take off and shoot down the B-17. When he got near the B-17, he could not believe his eyes. In his words, he “had never seen a plane in such a bad state.” The tail and rear section was severely damaged, and the tail gunner wounded. The top gunner was all over the top of the fuselage. The nose was smashed, and there were holes everywhere.
Despite having ammunition, Franz flew to the side of the B-17 and looked at Charlie Brown, the pilot. Brown was scared and struggling to control his damaged and blood-stained plane.
Brown stated that he noticed Stigler’s plane flying alongside him: It seemed amazing that the heavily damaged B-17 remained in the air. But it did, and Brown hoped to keep it flying until he reached the shores of England 250 miles away.
Drawing of the English B-17 “Ye Olde Pub” in front, and the German BF-109 in back as escort. Notice the damage on the B-17: the nose is gone, one propellor is not working, the back turret is gone, the tail section is shredded and missing, holes in the hull.
Still partially dazed, Lt. Brown began a slow climb with only one engine at full power. With three seriously injured aboard, he rejected bailing out or a crash landing. The alternative was a thin chance of reaching the UK. While nursing the battered bomber toward England, Brown looked out the right window and saw a BF-109 flying on his wing.
Aware that they had no idea where they were going, Franz waved at Charlie to turn 180 degrees. Franz escorted and guided the stricken plane to and slightly over the North Sea towards England. He then saluted Charlie Brown and turned away, back to Europe.
When Franz landed he told the commanding officer that the plane had been shot down over the sea, and never told the truth to anybody. Charlie Brown and the remains of his crew told all at their briefing, but were ordered never to talk about it.
More than 40 years later, Charlie Brown wanted to find the Luftwaffe pilot who saved the crew. Franz had never talked about the incident, not even at post-war reunions.
They met in the USA at a 379th Bomber Group reunion in 1989, together with five people who are alive now—-all because Franz never fired his guns that day.
After the war, Brown remained in the Air Force, serving in many capacities until he retired in 1972 as a Lieutenant Colonel and settled in Miami as head of a combustion research company. But the episode of the German who refused to attack a beaten foe haunted him. He was determined to find the enemy pilot who spared him and his crew.
He wrote numerous letters of inquiry to German military sources, with little success. Finally, a notice in a newsletter for former Luftwaffe pilots elicited a response from Franz Stigler, a German fighter ace credited with destroying over two dozen Allied planes. He, it turned out, was the angel of mercy in the skies over Germany on that fateful day just before Christmas 1943.
It had taken 46 years, but in 1989 Brown found the mysterious man in the ME-109. Careful questioning of Stigler about details of the incident removed any doubt.
(L-R) German Ace Franz Stigler, artist Ernie Boyett, and B-17 pilot Charlie Brown.
Stigler had emigrated to Canada and was living near Vancouver, British Columbia. After an exchange of letters, Brown flew there for a reunion. The two men visited each other frequently after that time and appeared jointly before Canadian and American military audiences. The one of their last appearances, at the annual Air Force Ball in Miami in September (1995), the former foes were honored.
In his first letter to Brown, Stigler had written: “All these years, I wondered what happened to the B-17, did she make it or not?”
She made it, just barely. But why did the German not destroy his virtually defenseless enemy?
“I didn’t have the heart to finish off those brave men,” Stigler later said. I flew beside them for a long time. They were trying desperately to get home and I was going to let them do it. I could not have shot at them. It would have been the same as shooting at a man in a parachute.”
Franz Stigler passed away on March 22, 2008.