A Higher Call: An Incredible True Story of Combat and Chivalry in the War-Torn Skies of World War II

by Adam Makos

  “Is this Mr. Franz Stigler?” Charlie asked.

  “Ja,” Franz replied. “This is he.”

  “The Franz Stigler who flew in World War Two?” Charlie asked.

  “Ja,” Franz replied, sounding confused.

  “Franz, I think we go way back. This is Charlie Brown.”

  The conversation was strange and awkward at first. Charlie asked Franz a series of questions to figure out if he was really the one. Franz described the bomber’s battle damage. He mentioned the missing stabilizer. He said the rudder was nearly gone. He told Charlie the tail gunner’s position was shattered. Charlie’s heart skipped a beat. He had never mentioned the stabilizer, rudder, or tail gun position in his Jagerblatt letter—but Franz knew everything. Then Franz told Charlie, “When I let you go over the sea, I thought you’d never make it across.”

  “My God, it is you!” Charlie said. Tears ran down his cheeks and onto the phone’s handset. Charlie had purposely never mentioned anything in the letter about flying over the water. That was his secret test. All Charlie had mentioned was that the encounter had happened over land. Yet Franz knew they had flown together out and over the sea. His emotions flowing, Charlie asked Franz the first thing that came to mind. “What were you pointing for? You kept pointing and trying to tell us something?”

  “To get you to land in Sweden!” Franz told Charlie, choking up himself.

  “I had no idea!” Charlie replied, “Otherwise I would have flown there and would still be speaking Swedish today!”

  THE DAY AFTER their conversation, Charlie wrote:

  Receiving your letter was one of the greatest thrills of my life. I had to know for sure and obtained your telephone number from the Vancouver operator. My conversation with you totally dispelled any doubt, when you mentioned going over the water with us. That has never been advertised in any of the letters seeking the 109 pilot.

  In his letter, Charlie asked Franz about the markings on his fighter, so his friend Robert Harper could complete his painting. He also asked Franz to keep him informed if he was indeed coming to Florida to the American Fighter Aces convention, where he hoped they could meet. Charlie closed the letter by writing:

  I have the distinct feeling that some power greater than that of our respective governments was looking out for most of us on Dec. 20, 1943. To say THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU on behalf of my surviving crewmembers and their families appears totally inadequate.

  Even though we still had one functional gun left in the top turret we were effectively out of the war. I am not only thankful that you did not bring about our demise… but also grateful you did not pull out a Walther P-38 [pistol] or slingshot and finish us off, while you were flying close formation with our right wing.

  I am sure that your skill and daring made you an extremely successful fighter pilot; however, if you repeatedly exhibited that type of camaraderie/chivalry, and daring, your chance of surviving combat would not have been too great. I join you in being most grateful that you were not court marshaled for your chivalry on Dec. 20, 1943.

  With warmest

  regards,

  [Signed] Charlie

  Charles L. Brown

  Charlie wrote to Franz unaware that Franz was an ace or where he had served. He just knew that Franz was a good man. But Charlie still needed to know why Franz had spared him. That spring, Franz suffered lung ailments and had to cancel his trip to Florida. Charlie offered to travel to Seattle, instead, if Franz would meet him there. Franz agreed and the men set a date.

  SEVERAL WEEKS LATER, JUNE 21, 1990, SEATTLE

  On the day of their planned reunion, Charlie paced within the Embassy Suites hotel wearing one of his baggy gray suits and bolo ties. He knew Franz and Hiya were due to arrive at 11:30 A.M. and that emotions would run high, so he planned a good-spirited joke. Charlie had recently received prints from Harper of his finished painting that showed Franz’s 109 flying with Charlie’s B-17. Harper entitled the work, The Ultimate Honor. Harper’s talents had come a long way. Charlie gave one of the prints to the lady at the front desk and asked her, “When Mr. and Mrs. Stigler check in, can you please give this to Mr. Stigler and ask him if he is the famous German fighter ace?” The girl agreed to play along.

  Charlie watched and waited from a raised balcony overlooking the hotel’s atrium. At noon, Franz and Hiya appeared in the lobby and approached the desk. Charlie recognized Franz from photos they had exchanged. The lady at the front desk handed Franz the print and played along. Franz looked around frantically, knowing Charlie had to be behind such a joke. “That’s enough,” Charlie chuckled to himself. He took the elevator down to the lobby and stepped out. Franz saw Charlie and ran to him. The two former enemies hugged and cried.

  Charlie’s wife had been unable to travel with him to meet Franz, so he had brought a friend—Joe Jackson, the Medal of Honor recipient who had first suggested he look for Franz. The following morning, Jackson joined Franz and Charlie as they sat in Charlie’s hotel room and talked. Jackson had brought his video camera and filmed their discussion. He knew he was watching history in the making.* “The odds against this happening are millions to one,” Charlie told the camera. “First, of either of us surviving for forty-six-plus years, and then being able to get in contact.” Jackson interjected and asked Franz what he was feeling, having finally met Charlie. Franz struggled with his words. “It wasn’t easy,” Franz said as he fought tears and began to sniffle. “I hugged him.” Wiping his eyes with one hand, he slapped Charlie on the shoulder to keep from crying and said, “I love you, Charlie.”

  OVER THE NEXT two days, Charlie and Franz revived old memories as they toured Seattle. Franz told Charlie about his brother, the reason he became a fighter pilot. Charlie told Franz about growing up on a farm and losing his mother. Charlie learned that Franz had not been out of ammo when he flew alongside The Pub, as Charlie had assumed. Franz revealed quite the opposite. His guns had been full. Charlie also discovered that the man who spared him was not just any pilot. He was one of Germany’s great aces, a man who had served in the “Squadron of Experts.” Charlie wanted to learn more about JV-44. Franz said many of the stories were too painful—but he promised to give Charlie a book about the unit. In parting, Charlie told both Franz and Hiya, “You’ll be pleased to know that our B-17, Ye Olde Pub, never dropped bombs on Germany again.” Back at his home in Miami, Charlie told Jackie, “It was like meeting a family member, a brother you haven’t seen in forty years.”

  “Did you find out why he spared you?” she had asked.

  Charlie nodded.

  “I was too stupid to surrender,” Charlie said. “And Franz Stigler was too much of a gentleman to destroy us.”

  Charlie never had his nightmares of “the spin” again after meeting Franz.

  AFTER HAVING MET Charlie, Franz talked with Galland by phone. Franz admitted to Galland that he had let the B-17 escape. All Galland had to say was “It would be you.” Galland revealed that he had ordered Jagerblatt to publish Charlie’s letter. Franz could sense that Galland was neither thrilled nor angry that he had let the bomber escape. Instead, Galland had mixed feelings, having lost his younger brothers in the war. Even forty-six years later, he considered Franz’s act to be dereliction of duty—and yet the right thing to do. Franz and Galland would continue to talk week after week until Galland’s death in 1996.

  As news of Charlie and Franz’s reunion circulated, it made the headlines. Jagerblatt ran a story about Franz’s reunion with Charlie under the title “An Act of Chivalry in the Skies over Europe.” Franz began receiving phone calls from Germany that delivered the same message.

  “Is this Franz Stigler?”

  “Ja.”

  “You pigheaded asshole.” Click.

  Others began, “Are you Franz Stigler, who didn’t shoot the B-17 down?”

  “Ja.”

  “Traitor!” Click.

  The calls disturbed Hiya until Franz told her, “You have to understand that people were being k
illed by the B-17s, and this person who called may have lost his family to a bombing raid.” As the story of Franz and Charlie’s reunion circulated in North America, Canadian and American TV stations ran the story with teasers like “Why did this Luftwaffe ace spare an American bomber crew and risk a date with Hitler’s firing squad?” and “A change of heart, a mystery that would remain unsolved for decades… a Remembrance Day story you won’t soon forget.” Despite being widely well received, the stories were not appreciated by everybody. Franz received a few calls from his Canadian neighbors who were surprised to discover that “the enemy” lived among them.

  “Is this Franz Stigler?”

  “Ja.”

  “Go home, you Nazi bastard.” Click.

  “They’ll never understand,” Franz would say to calm Hiya.

  TWO MONTHS LATER, SEPTEMBER 13, 1990, MASSACHUSETTS

  The cameraman, producer, and sound technician with his boom microphone backpedaled as they led Charlie and Franz in a walk-around inspection of the olive-colored B-17 that sat on the sunlit tarmac. Charlie walked slowly to keep pace with Franz, who hobbled with his cane. The two talked as the camera recorded every nuance.

  Charlie wore a blue vinyl jacket covered with Air Force patches. A smattering of pewter pins of B-17s covered his matching blue ball cap, with an 8th Air Force patch in its center. At Charlie’s side, Franz wore a navy blazer over khaki pants, free of pins or patches. But on his head he wore a blue ball cap with a square patch that surrounded a yellow embroidered B-17 and the title THE 379TH BOMB GROUP.

  Old veterans and their families milled around and through the bomber, posing for photos in the waist windows and under the open bomb bay. A reunion of the 379th Bomb Group was under way. Charlie and the veterans of the 379th Bomb Group had invited Franz to attend as their guest. They had given him the hat he wore. They would one day make him an honorary member of the 379th Bomb Group.

  The cameramen were filming for the CBS News This Morning show. At a time when the world was focused on a pending war in the Persian Gulf, anchor/reporter Wayne Freedman had gotten wind of another big story—a human interest tale of redemption that he would later bill as “The story of a war reunion that only took place because of the compassion of an enemy.”

  Around the bomber, the 379th veterans and their families grew respectfully silent as Charlie, Franz, and the camera crew circled the plane. “This one looks nice compared to yours,” Franz said offhandedly to Charlie, who chuckled in agreement. Under the bomber’s wing, Hiya and Charlie’s wife, Jackie, watched from the shade, having just met.

  After the CBS crew lowered their cameras and departed, Charlie and Franz remained with their wives, chatting. Charlie looked over his shoulder periodically, toward a shadowy hangar, as if expecting someone. Finally, two old veterans emerged from the hangar and hobbled toward the small gathering under the wing. The sight was not unusual for a reunion, two veterans with their wives, sons, and daughters behind them. But these men who approached Charlie and Franz were special. Charlie knew them but Franz did not.

  “Franz, there’s two gentlemen who would like to meet you,” Charlie said, fighting a grin. He steered Franz out from under the wing and into the light. The first veteran to reach Franz was Charlie’s old ball turret gunner, Sam “Blackie” Blackford, whose wide mustache was gray and whose head was bald but for wispy gray hair above his ears. Blackie started crying as he shook Franz’s hand vigorously, refusing to stop. The other veteran was Charlie’s radio operator, Dick Pechout, whose hair had turned white and whose eyes remained meek behind tortoiseshell glasses. Charlie looped his arms over Franz and Blackie, hugging them. Blackie broke down. Through sobs, he thanked Franz for sparing his life and said that because Franz had not pulled the trigger on him, his children and grandchildren were able to experience life. Pechout draped his arms silently around Franz and the others as the four huddled.

  Blackie’s tears made Franz sob, and Franz’s crying made Charlie well over. The veterans’ families and the other old men of the 379th kept their distance at first. Then, when they could stand it no more, they converged around the sobbing veterans who were their husbands or fathers or grandfathers or buddies.

  From above it must have looked funny, the circle of people crowding around one small man in the center, hugging him and one another amid sounds of tears and laughter. But everyone that day owed something to Franz Stigler, the man in the middle. Because of him, twenty-five men, women, and children—the descendants of Charlie, Blackie, and Pechout—had the chance to live, not to mention the children and grandchildren of Charlie’s other crewmen.

  But Franz thought he had been the one given a gift. When he presented Charlie a book about the Squadron of Experts, inside the cover he penned an inscription, quiet words that the world was never meant to hear. When Charlie read it, he could hear Franz’s voice.

  In 1940, I lost my only brother as a night fighter.

  On the 20th of December, 4 days before Christmas, I had the chance to save a B-17 from her destruction, a plane so badly damaged it was a wonder that she was still flying.

  The pilot, Charlie Brown, is for me, as precious as my brother was.

  Thanks Charlie.

  Your Brother,

  Franz

  From above, the circle of people blended as they hugged near the bomber’s wing, becoming just one mass, bigger and greater as the gaps between them vanished.

  * * *

  * “It was such an incredible, once-in-a-lifetime thing,” Charlie would remember. “I believed that I had a better chance of winning the lottery than finding him alive, some forty years later.” Jackson’s film of Charlie and Franz’s reunion is now available for viewing on the author’s website.

  AFTERWORD

  IN 1955, THE United States and her allies formally welcomed West Germany into NATO and revived the German Air Force. In recognition of their honorable service to their country during World War II and absence of affiliation with The Party, the following officers were reinstated at their old ranks and led successful careers in the new German Air Force.

  Gerhard “Gerd” Barkhorn retired as a three-star general.

  Gustav Roedel retired as a one-star general.

  Hannes Trautloft served as the inspector general and retired as a three-star general.

  Erich Hohagen retired as a one-star general.

  Walter “the Count” Krupinski retired as a three-star general.

  Erich “Bubi” Hartmann joined the new Air Force after ten years in Soviet P.O.W. camps and later retired as a colonel.

  Johannes “Macky” Steinhoff joined the new Air Force and climbed the ranks in spite of his severe disfigurement from his burns. He eventually served as the Air Force’s commander and retired in 1974 as a four-star general. In 1997, the German Fighter Wing 73 was given the honorary name “Steinhoff,” one of the few wings named after a man. Today, the Steinhoff Wing flies regularly alongside the Richthofen Wing, named for the Red Baron.

  IN 1957, AT a 379th Bomb Group reunion, Charlie revealed his true age to his crew. The Quiet Ones were surprised but not offended. They figured Charlie had done a fine job of getting them home, the only measure that mattered.

  CHARLIE NEVER HAD contact with Marjorie after the war, but last heard she had gotten married and never stopped flying.

  IN THE YEARS following their reunion, Franz and Charlie traveled across North America telling their story to any civic clubs, air museums, or military units that requested them. This was their last act of service to build a better world. Their message was simple: enemies are better off as friends.

  Franz Stigler succumbed to illness in March 2008. Shortly before he died, Franz asked Hiya to cremate his body but to keep his ashes close. “I promise I won’t be a bother,” he said. After fifty-two years of marriage he died in Hiya’s arms.

  Charlie Brown died in November 2008, eight months after Franz.

  Prior to Charlie’s death, the U.S. Air Force completed a lengthy investigation into the
events of December 20, 1943, and the actions of Charlie and his crew. The Air Force ruled that military officials had made a mistake in how they had handled the case sixty-four years earlier. In April 2008, the Air Force summoned Charlie to the Florida State Capitol and awarded him the nation’s second highest medal for valor—the Air Force Cross. The Air Force also presented Charlie’s last living crewman, Albert “Doc” Sadok, with the Silver Star and posthumously awarded a Silver Star to each of the eight deceased members of the crew.

  Today, with a combined nine Silver Stars and one Air Force Cross, the crew of Ye Olde Pub remains one of the most decorated bomber crews in history.

  Franz Stigler never got the Knight’s Cross, but as he always said, he got something better.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  My thanks go out to the following people for their help with A Higher Call.

  To Charlie Brown, for opening the door to this epic story when I came knocking. Your lifelong devotion to your crew made this book possible. To Franz Stigler and Helga Stigler, for welcoming this outsider into your lives and sharing stories that were fascinating for me—and painful for you. May the world grant you the peace you deserve.

  To my editor at Berkley Publishing Group, Natalee Rosenstein, who had faith in the transcendental power of this story. Thanks for rolling the dice with this first-time author. To my publisher at Penguin Group, Leslie Gelbman, and her team, thanks for giving the green light to share this book with the world.

  To Charlie’s daughters, Carol Dawn Warner and Kimberly Arnspiger. To the sons of Sam Blackford—Paul Blackford and Chris Blackford—and to Richard Sadok (the son of Al Sadok) and Franz Stigler’s godson Jim Berladyn. The memories, photos, and diaries you shared enriched this book immensely.