Great story! Check out Sabaton - No Bullets Fly… it’s exactly this story! I always have tears in my eyes watching this. I read once 25 people of mixed ages surrounded Franz at a meeting… he was told that all these people live because he didn’t shoot down the Olde Pub and it’s crew survived and had children and grandchildren… touching! Greetings from Germany 👍🤘
Whenever this story is told Franz Stigler gets most of the praise because he could have easily shot down the British bomber. That was his job after all, and he had done it many times before without feeling especially guilty about it. But on this day he didn't. What a great decision! However, the only 20 years old pilot with the very American name Charly Brown cannot be praised highly enough! He was able after all to fly his badly damaged plane home after he had passed out, and a crash was only narrowly avoised. Charly Brown saved the lives of his remaining crew members. Without him Franz Stigler wouldn't have had the chance to spare the bomber! It's great that's the two pilots found each other so many decades after the war! And it's great that Franz Stigler finally found out that the scared young pilot of the plane, which had been spared and protected by Stigler, had been able to fly his machine home and land it safely! What a story!!
Aloha from Hawaii! Thank you for brilliantly reiterating my all time favorite story from ww2. No matter how bad my week has been this story cheers me up and makes me smile releasing a flow of dopamine I thought was depleted. Thank you "From down below , an enemy's spotted So hurry up rearm and refuel But through the bombers damaged airframe See wounded men scared to the bone. Look to the right, then look again And see the enemy in the eye No bullets fly, saved by his mercy Escorted out, out of harm's way Fly, fighting fair It's the code of the air Brothers, heroes, foes"... -Sabaton, No Bullets Fly
I listened to the audiobook "A Higher Call" about this. Almost all the German pilots hated Hitler, Goering, and the SS and Gestapo. There discribe having to get drunk to tolerate standing before Der Fuhrer to accept a medal. My father was one of those crewmen of the American "four engines" bombers
its not correct - stigler earned the "ritterkreuz" a few weeks before - it was angled with an otath - never boot a beaten man - knightmanship - so he hornered this oath ...
Like every good story, it has. That is the hallmark of a good story, that people retell it over and over. But the point is, he told it well. Just his voice, no special effects, and suddenly 33 minutes are gone. Good job.
