re: The B-17 Flying Fortress was one tough bird

Darth,

Not sure if you've come across this, but this is a great article about a German ace encountering a badly damaged B-17. The German pilot guided the B-17 to safety instead of shooting it down. Years later, the German and American pilots reunited in a tearful reunion. A longer read, but well worth it. I put part of the story here, but the rest is found via the link. Fascinating story...

Daily Mail

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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.

The rear gunner’s body hung lifeless in his shattered turret, another gunner was unconscious and bleeding heavily, the rest of the ten-man crew battered, wounded and in shock. The nose cone had been blown out and a 200mph gale hurtled through the fuselage.

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

He had already performed miracles. Returning from a daylight bombing run to Bremen, he had manoeuvred the plane magnificently through a pack of Messerschmitt fighters, taken hit after hit, then spiralled five miles down through the air, belching smoke and flames, in an apparent death dive before somehow levelling her out less than 2,000ft from the ground.

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.

In the distance, agonisingly close, Brown could see the German coastline, and ahead of that the North Sea and open skies back to England. Spirits rose — until a glance behind revealed a fast-moving speck, a lone Me109, getting bigger and bigger by the second, closing in.

In the cockpit of the German fighter, his guns primed, was Lt Franz Stigler, a Luftwaffe ace who needed one more kill to reach the 30 that would qualify him for a Knight’s Cross, the second highest of Germany’s Iron Cross awards for bravery.

Stigler, aged 28 and a veteran airman who had been flying since the start of the war, had been refueling and reloading his guns on the ground when the lone B-17 had lumbered slowly overhead.

What happened next was extraordinary in the annals of World War II — and told in a new book that offers a gleam of humanitarian light in the dark tragedy of that conflict.

As Stigler came up behind the bomber he could not believe its condition. How was it still flying? Nor, strangely, was there any gunfire from the stricken plane to try to ward him off. That was explained as, inching closer, he saw the slumped body of the rear gunner.

Veering alongside, he could see the other guns were out of action too, the radio room had been blown apart and the nose had gone. Even more startlingly, through the lattice work of bullet holes, he glimpsed members of the crew, huddled together, helping their wounded.

He could make out their ashen faces, their fear and their courage. His finger eased from the trigger. He just couldn’t do it, he realised.

He was an experienced fighter pilot. He’d fought the Allies in the skies over North Africa, Italy and now Germany. This bomber he was cruising alongside was just one plane out of the countless air armadas that had been pulverising his homeland night and day for three years, wiping out factories and cities, killing hundreds of thousands of civilians.

And yet?.?.?.

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.’

The message hardly chimed with the ruthless Nazi mentality that had gripped Germany and its armed forces under Hitler. Nor with a war being fought with such savagery on many fronts.

But it chimed with Stigler, who had never bought into Nazi philosophy or joined the party. He prided himself in fighting by this code. It never mattered more than here and now, flying side by side with a helpless enemy over northern Germany.

His Knight’s Cross could go hang. ‘I will not have this on my conscience for the rest of my life,’ he muttered to himself.

Aboard the American bomber, anxious and bewildered eyes swivelled towards the Messerschmitt, now positioned just above its right wing tip and matching its speed as if flying in formation.

They could clearly see the pilot’s face, the whites of his eyes. What was the bastard up to? He must be toying with them. Why didn’t he just get it over and done with?

To their amazement, they saw the German waving frantically, mouthing words, making gestures. What was he trying to say? In his cockpit, Stigler was struggling with a dilemma. He was not content just to ease back and let the bomber escape. He was now determined to save it and the men on board.

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Just came across these cool images of B-17's that took what looks to be catastrophic damage and yet were still able to get back home. I've always been amazed how much damage these planes could take and still keep on going.

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I believe the name of that plane was The All-American. Lot's of info can be found about it. My grandfather was a waist gunner on a B-17 from that same squadron.

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Lt Franz Stigler

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How dangerous was attacking heavy bomber formations? Stigler was shot down 17 times.

My Grandfather crash landed in Yugoslavia twice following bombing raids into Romania from their bases in Italy. He was a radio operator in a B24 Liberator, and anything I learned about it came via my grandmother.

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There's sure a lot of pollen in my office this afternoon!

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You aren't alone.

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I used to work for a guy who was stationed on Adak in the sixties

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Towards the end of my Air Force career in the '80s, I had to visit Shemya periodically. Typically Reeves Aleutian would stop at Adak to refuel. Adak was a resort compared to Shemya.

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Not sure if you've come across this, but this is a great article about a German ace encountering a badly damaged B-17. The German pilot guided the B-17 to safety instead of shooting it down. Years later, the German and American pilots reunited in a tearful reunion. A longer read, but well worth it. I put part of the story here, but the rest is found via the link. Fascinating story...

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Read the book: "A Higher Call". It is about this incident and the two men involved. It is a great read for anyone interested in WW2 aviation history or human decency in general.

A Higher Call

My next door neighbor Art, was a B-17G pilot in late 44. I was fortunate enough to read his log book and see all his photos before he died. His wife Rosemary, worked for Boeing building the Fort. I miss that couple :(

My Dad was a B17 crewman in the 8th Air Force. He was the engineer and top turret gunner, based in England. He was a member of The Lucky Bastards Club, having flown 37 combat missions.

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radio operator in a B24 Liberator

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My father was a radio operator in a B-24. Flew 20 missions over Germany from a base in North Pickingham, England. Before going overseas he was a gunnery instructor on B-17's in Panama City (Tendal Field, I believe). He had a gravy job but when he heard the report of the Normandy invasion on the radio, he put on his best uniform and went to see the Captain and demanded to be put on a crew overseas. He said he felt like the war was passing him by. The Captain sent him to see the shrink before finally approving his assignment. He wrote down a lot of his stories in a memoir, my SIL is working on transcribing it so we can all have a copy.