A couple of days before Christmas in 1943, a badly damaged American bomber struggled to fly across Germany When there was a war going on.An tyenty one year old was the piolet. Half his crew were lying or wounded or dead in the plane. It was their first mission. Suddenly, a round, dark shape object pulled up on the bomber’s tail .A German fighter. Worse, the German pilot was one of the best pilots Germany had. A man able to destroy the American bomber in the squeeze of a trigger. What happened next would defy imagination and later be called the most exciting encounter between the Germans and Americans.
This is the true story of the two pilots whose lives collided in the skies that day—the American—2nd Lieutenant Charlie Brown, a former farm boy from West Virginia who came to captain a B-17—and the German—2nd …show more content…
Stigler could have easily shot down the bomber and it's crew, but instead he escorted them past an anti-aircraft battery and flew along side them for a while out over the North Sea. Stigler knew he would be court-martialed if anyone found out what he had done. For years he wondered if the bomber had made it home safely and he wondered, "Was it worth it?". It took 46 years for Stigler to find out that the bomber did return home safely and to finally meet the American bomber pilot, Charlie Brown.The story provides all the details of battle, dog-fighting and great story as you would expect in a book of this nature but he really focuses on the human side, on the losses. Character after character are introduced only to die. The story of one young German flier is heartbreaking. In the last days of the war he told Stigler that he was going to return home, but he had to surrender only because he was caught and that he hoped to study
This is the true story of the two pilots whose lives collided in the skies that day—the American—2nd Lieutenant Charlie Brown, a former farm boy from West Virginia who came to captain a B-17—and the German—2nd …show more content…
Stigler could have easily shot down the bomber and it's crew, but instead he escorted them past an anti-aircraft battery and flew along side them for a while out over the North Sea. Stigler knew he would be court-martialed if anyone found out what he had done. For years he wondered if the bomber had made it home safely and he wondered, "Was it worth it?". It took 46 years for Stigler to find out that the bomber did return home safely and to finally meet the American bomber pilot, Charlie Brown.The story provides all the details of battle, dog-fighting and great story as you would expect in a book of this nature but he really focuses on the human side, on the losses. Character after character are introduced only to die. The story of one young German flier is heartbreaking. In the last days of the war he told Stigler that he was going to return home, but he had to surrender only because he was caught and that he hoped to study