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A stricken Allied bomber and the German ace sent to shoot it down.....

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  • A stricken Allied bomber and the German ace sent to shoot it down.....

    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.

    Mercifully, though, he realised as he coaxed the massive plane along at 135mph, barely above its stalling speed, the German fighters had disappeared. They must have seen the bomber — part of the U.S. Air Force based in eastern England — plummeting to earth that day in December, 1943, and ticked off another kill before returning to base.

    There was a faint chance, then, they might make it home after all, even though, as his flight engineer now reported after an inspection of the plane’s blood-spattered interior, ‘we’re chewed to pieces, the hydraulics are bleeding, the left stabiliser is all but gone and there are holes in the fuselage big enough to climb through’.

    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 refuelling and reloading his guns on the ground when the lone B-17 had lumbered slowly overhead.

    Within minutes, he was fast-taxiing to the runway and up in the air to give chase, the precious Knight’s Cross now just a leather-gloved trigger-finger away.

    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.

    MORE.....
    'Never look down on a person unless you're helping them up'.
    .

  • #2
    great story rashers.........


    ''bomber harris'' had a list of german cities and towns to be bombed as part of his plans to disrupt german industry.......

    DRESDEN.......was never on his list......he was ordered, and reluctly bombed that city......
    Here Rex!!!...Here Rex!!!.....Wuff!!!....... Wuff!!!

    Comment


    • #3
      rashers I loved that story, incredible bravery and courage and humanity by all and Steigler.Triumph of human nature.
      today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday.

      Comment


      • #4
        Agree 100%... two more images of the same incident in 1943.

        stigler1.jpg



        Stigler_Brown.jpg

        Everything is self-evident.

        Comment


        • #5
          What a great story.
          I google because I'm not young enough to know everything.
          Nemo Mortalium Omnibus Horis Sapit

          Comment


          • #6
            Brilliant story Rashers.
            For those of you living in or around Dublin I would urge you to take a trip to the Leopardstown Park Hospital and see if you can get chatting to some of the resident gentlemen there, men who fought in the skies of Europe during world war two. These heroes are becoming less in numbers as they are now at a great age.

            May I relay a story to you all, a story that I played a part in yet I'm not blowing my own trumpet but a story that left me in awe.

            I had reason to see one of these veterans one evening during the course of work. This man who was a very good age had taken unwell in the previous days, the staff and some family members had felt that this man's days on Earth had come to an end.
            A brief history told me this man was well enough the previous week to attend his grandsons birthday party. But today he was gravely ill. Myself and my partner gazed around this mans bed and observed paintings of Spitfires in action, we learned that this ailing gentleman had fought in the battle of Britain.

            "Well why not let him fight one more battle" was the suggestion from my partner and I, let us treat him and take him to hospital. This man fought through the second world war, he flew fighter planes and fought those dog fights we all read in our comic books and seen in the movies. Everyone agreed and the treatment began.

            A couple of weeks later I was outside the local Emergency Department when all of a sudden a car came to a halt on the roadside, a younger man got out of the car and came towards me and my partner, it was the Son of the gentleman fighter pilot, he told us his Dad had won another battle and was doing really well, sitting up and chatting away with family. I smiled a broad smile, job done.
            To me this older gentleman was a hero, a rock star or movie star of his day, he deserved another piece of the limelight and life.

            Comment


            • #7
              Is Leopardstown Park some kind of RAF retirement home 40p ?
              Everything is self-evident.

              Comment


              • #8
                Originally posted by cogito View Post
                Is Leopardstown Park some kind of RAF retirement home 40p ?
                It's a hospital for war veterans and officers of the British army who served during world war two. The corridors are lined with some fantastic photos and paintings from the second world war. I think many are Irish men and women who served or where attached in some way to the war effort.

                But now with many veterans passing away with age I think the hospital is moving into general care for the aged.

                Comment


                • #9
                  Good to see they're being looked after...
                  Everything is self-evident.

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Originally posted by Fortypence View Post
                    Brilliant story Rashers.
                    For those of you living in or around Dublin I would urge you to take a trip to the Leopardstown Park Hospital and see if you can get chatting to some of the resident gentlemen there, men who fought in the skies of Europe during world war two. These heroes are becoming less in numbers as they are now at a great age.

                    May I relay a story to you all, a story that I played a part in yet I'm not blowing my own trumpet but a story that left me in awe.

                    I had reason to see one of these veterans one evening during the course of work. This man who was a very good age had taken unwell in the previous days, the staff and some family members had felt that this man's days on Earth had come to an end.
                    A brief history told me this man was well enough the previous week to attend his grandsons birthday party. But today he was gravely ill. Myself and my partner gazed around this mans bed and observed paintings of Spitfires in action, we learned that this ailing gentleman had fought in the battle of Britain.

                    "Well why not let him fight one more battle" was the suggestion from my partner and I, let us treat him and take him to hospital. This man fought through the second world war, he flew fighter planes and fought those dog fights we all read in our comic books and seen in the movies. Everyone agreed and the treatment began.

                    A couple of weeks later I was outside the local Emergency Department when all of a sudden a car came to a halt on the roadside, a younger man got out of the car and came towards me and my partner, it was the Son of the gentleman fighter pilot, he told us his Dad had won another battle and was doing really well, sitting up and chatting away with family. I smiled a broad smile, job done.
                    To me this older gentleman was a hero, a rock star or movie star of his day, he deserved another piece of the limelight and life.
                    Job well and truly done fp
                    I google because I'm not young enough to know everything.
                    Nemo Mortalium Omnibus Horis Sapit

                    Comment

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