NY Post
“This is him! This is the one I didn’t shoot down!”
Franz had always wondered if the great risk he’d taken had been worth it, if the American had made it home. Brown had always wondered what the German had been planning to do to him, and why he had let him go.
He immediately wrote a letter to Brown.
Brown was too impatient to actually read it. He called the operator and had her look up Franz Stigler’s number, then place the call immediately.
“When I let you go over the sea,” Stigler said, “I thought you’d never make it.”
“My God,” Brown said. “It’s you.”
Tears were streaming down his face. Stigler had answered Brown’s secret question without Brown having to ask it.
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Amazing. You can still admire your foe in war.
hawkdriver on December 11, 2012 at 10:36 PM
That was a very intriguing story.
sharrukin on December 11, 2012 at 10:38 PM
Don’t read the article if you plan to read the book, it gives too much away. I’ve already got it on my Kindle pre-order, waiting for another snowy day to settle down with a scotch and do some reading.
Bishop on December 11, 2012 at 10:40 PM
Saw this linked at Ace last night. One hell of a story.
NotCoach on December 11, 2012 at 10:41 PM
My grandfather was a radio man in a B-17 bomber, flying 32 missions over Germany earning the Distinguished Flying Cross. His was the only plane of his squadron to make it through the war. Amazing story.
The Count on December 11, 2012 at 10:46 PM
Teared up readin that one!
blatantblue on December 11, 2012 at 10:47 PM
Honor – what a concept. Buried somewhere in Libya, I heard.
platypus on December 11, 2012 at 10:47 PM
Crazy odds.
My great uncle Buster was over Europe in a B-17, and he got shot down twice. He survived around 30 missions as well.
Such courage, it blows my MIND.
blatantblue on December 11, 2012 at 10:49 PM
He always told us it was because his pilot was so good was the only reason that he survived. They always put the best pilots toward the front of the formation – Germans always picked them off from behind. Glad to hear your Uncle made it through!
The Count on December 11, 2012 at 10:54 PM
that was worth reading
c4 on December 11, 2012 at 10:56 PM
“I have a bomber jacket so I’m sort of like one of those B-17 crewmen.”
-Bark
Bishop on December 11, 2012 at 10:56 PM
My Uncle landed in a field in England and when he was walking along, an old, elderly Brit was pointing a pistol at him, saying:
“You wouldn’t happen to be a Jerry now, would ya?”
blatantblue on December 11, 2012 at 11:12 PM
I had a friend whose father was police commissioner of Amsterdam when the Nazis occupied Holland, and who spent time, presumably as a hostage, in a German labor camp. I once worked in the same office as a young woman, adopted as an infant by an American couple, whose grandmother was Eva Braun’s sister and grandfather was the SS liaison between Hitler and Himmler – shot on Goebbels’ orders for having fled the Führer bunker as the Russians closed in. Sometimes you just don’t know whom you’re going to meet next in this crazy world.
Seth Halpern on December 11, 2012 at 11:26 PM
Indeed. That’s one of the pillars of western civilization. It’s seen as a feature by us, and as a bug by the muslims.
It’s why we can’t afford to lose to them. They have no honor, nor any concept of it.
TKindred on December 11, 2012 at 11:52 PM
Honorable…unless you’ve actually been in a war and under fire, then it’s kill the MF and anyone that looks like the MF.
chewydog on December 12, 2012 at 1:36 AM
Wow, just wow. Amazing story! And the fact that both were Christians, both had daughters and both died in the same year due to the same cause make them mirror images of each other.
tommy71 on December 12, 2012 at 1:55 AM
There is that, for certain. But there exists a real difference between those who have been raised in Western Civilization and those raised elsewhere.
TKindred on December 12, 2012 at 8:27 AM
Unless you’re Franz Stigler, apparently.
Akzed on December 12, 2012 at 9:01 AM
@Tkindred: Yes and no. The Brits terror-bombed everything in sight as “payback” (as Churchill called it) for the Blitz.
Conversely, although soldiers like Stigler (and Rommel) were genuinely and indisputably chivalrous, much as Robert E.Lee was genuinely and indisputably chivalrous, they served a barbarous cause in the name of an honorable patriotism.
Seth Halpern on December 12, 2012 at 10:05 AM
That is an amazingly good summary. My own father has struggled with admiring Lee as a man because he was fighting for states that wanted slavery, bull him no cr@p otherwise. It’s truly hard.
I can only imagine the pressure was like for Lee himself. He decided his duty was to defend his home…but if he was 1/10th the man I know he was, he KNEW in his heart that his home was practicing barbarity and his cause was wrong.
Seriously, can you imagine being caught between that kind of Scylla and Charybdis?
MelonCollie on December 12, 2012 at 10:28 AM