Brown took off from his base at Kimbolton, near Cambridge, as part of a raid on the Focke-Wulf fighter plant at Bremen in Germany. One of the Flying Fortresses was piloted by a 22-year-old lieutenant named Charlie Brown, from Western, W.V. Army Air Force was the Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress. The British and Canadians flew the four-engined Avro Lancasters and Short Sterlings, while the mainstay of the U.S. He climbed away as fast as he could.īy late 1943, he was posted in Holland at a base from where the Luftwaffe could best attack Allied aircraft on both the outward and return legs of bombing missions. Stigler released his bomb and it bounced so well that it became airborne and kept pace just off his port wing. The idea was to make the bomb "skip" on the water and hit the ship's side. Each Me-109 carried a 225-kilogram bomb slung underneath and, having reached the target, they were instructed to dive and release the bomb as they pulled out. While stationed in the Mediterranean, his squadron was detailed to escort Stuka dive bombers targeting a shipping convoy. Fortunately, the windshield slowed the bullet's velocity and it failed to penetrate his skull. Stigler was wounded four times, suffered burns and sustained lifelong scars on his legs and head, among them a very visible forehead mark made by a bullet that came though the windshield of his fighter. His score was 28 confirmed aircraft shot down or badly damaged and more than 30 "probables." He flew a total of 417 combat missions from 1940 to 1945 and earned the Iron Cross Second Class, the Iron Cross First Class and the German Cross in Gold.Īlthough there were many German pilots with much higher scores, some claiming well in excess of a 100, it is doubtful that they survived as many critical situations. He was shot down 17 times and bailed out of aircraft four times, but otherwise managed to land or crash-land. In four years of operational flying, he served in North Africa, Sicily, Italy, Holland and Germany. Like most fighter pilots, he flew with several different squadrons and eventually commanded two, 8/11 and 12/IV Squadrons (or Jagdstaffels), which in turn were part of Jagdgeschwader 27, the equivalent of an Allied fighter wing. On most of his combat missions, he flew the legendary Messerschmitt BF-109F, which, according to fighter pilots on both sides, had characteristics that were superior to the equally legendary Supermarine Spitfire and Hawker Hurricane. Despite having flown multiengine aircraft, Mr. In 1939, he joined the fledgling Luftwaffe, and by Sept. After qualifying, he flew several different types of aircraft. He studied aeronautical engineering and took flying lessons. By the time he was 12, Franz had soloed in a glider. His father had served as an observer in the German air force, and after the war, he encouraged his son to take an interest in flying.
Stigler had immigrated to Canada, but for years, he wondered whether the Boeing B-17 had made it back to Britain.īorn in Bavaria when the First World War was at its height, he was meant to be a pilot. bomber whose crew was obviously badly wounded men, he just couldn't pull the trigger and instead escorted the aircraft to safety. In 1943, faced with shooting down a badly damaged U.S. VANCOUVER - Franz Stigler of Surrey, B.C., was a German fighter pilot who committed one of the few documented acts of chivalry during air combat in the Second World War. It would be 43 years before he learned its fate. Ordered into the skies to shoot down a damaged Allied bomber during the Second World War, he could not bring himself to open fire. Luftwaffe pilot-turned-Canadian who performed an act of amazing grace, dies.
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