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Royal Canadian Legion
Joe O'Loughlin Home Page / An excellent resource
Juno Beach Center
RCAF
422 Squadron
U-Boat.Net
ubootwaffe.net Kriegsmarine and U-Boat history
ShearWater Aviation Museum
World War 2 Talk
The Second World War in Northern Ireland
Coastal Command RAF 95 Squadron in The Gambia
Robert Quirk's Home Page
SS City Of Cairo
A Truly Amazing Story
Look carefully at the B-17 and note how
shot up it is - one engine dead, tail, horizontal stabilizer and nose shot up.. It was ready to fall out of the sky. (This
is a painting done by an artist from the description of both pilots many years later.) Then realize that there is a German
ME-109 fighter flying next to it. Now read the story below. I think you'll be surprised.....
Charlie Brown was a B-17 Flying Fortress pilot with the 379th Bomber Group at
Kimbolton , England . His B-17 was called 'Ye Old Pub' and was in a terrible state, having been hit by flak and fighters.
The compass was damaged and they were flying deeper over enemy territory instead of heading home to Kimbolton.
After flying over an enemy airfield, a German pilot named Franz Steigler 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.
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 C/O 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.
After years of research, Franz was found. He had never talked about the incident, not even at post-war reunions.
They met in the USA at a 379th. Bomber Group reunion, together with 25 people who are alive now -
all because Franz never fired his guns that day.
(L-R)
B-17 pilot Charlie Brown and German Ace Franz Stigler
When asked why he didn t shoot them down, Stigler later said, I didn t have the heart to finish those brave men. I flew
beside them for a long time. They were trying desperately to get home and I was going to let them do that. I could not have
shot at them. It would have been the same as shooting at a man in a parachute.
Research shows that Charlie Brown lived in Seattle and Franz Steigler had moved to Vancouver, BC after
the war. When they finally met, they discovered they had lived less than 200 miles apart for the past 50 years!
Brown and Stigler did finally find each other in 1989 (and eventually met) after Brown placed an advertisement in a newsletter
and discovered that Stigler was living in Canada near Vancouver. However, every news article we've found describing the reunion
mentioned that since his retirement from the Air Force in 1972, Brown had been living in Miami, not Seattle (which would have
put him about 3,500 miles away from Stigler's home):
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 more than
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.
Stigler, now 80, had emigrated to Canada and was living near Vancouver. After an exchange of letters, Brown flew there
for a reunion. The two men have visited each other frequently since that time and have appeared jointly before Canadian and
American military audiences. The most recent appearance was at the annual Air Force Ball in Miami in September [1995], where
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 22 March 2008. Charlie Brown passed away on 24 November 2008
(L-R) German Ace Franz Stigler, artist Ernie Boyett, and
B-17 pilot Charlie Brown.
Canada's Snowbirds 2009
Here are some photos and videos taken by me at Simcoe Airport in Ontario, June 2009 of the Snowbirds
click here to play video
click here to play video
click here to play video
click here to play video
click here to play video
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