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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. One engine dead, tail severely damaged, the horizontal stabilizer was damaged and the nose shot up ... it was ready to fall out of the sky. The compass was damaged and they were unknowingly flying deeper over enemy territory instead of heading home to Kimbolton.
When the B-17 flew over a German airfield, a Luftwaffe pilot named Franz Steigler was ordered to take off, chase down the B-17 and shoot it out of the sky.
When he got near the B-17, Steigler 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 CO 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.
(This is a painting done by an artist from the description of both pilots. It depicts Brown's heavily damaged B-17 with Steigler's German ME-109 fighter flying next to it.)
More than 40 years later, Charlie Brown wanted to find the Luftwaffe pilot who spared him and his 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. 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." Both Franz and Charlie died in 2008.
