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

by Adam Makos

  Franz scanned the craft for guns that the bomber’s crew could still turn on him. He saw that the waist gun was missing, blasted from its mount. He saw that the top turret was empty and that the radio room had been blown apart. He flew just high enough that he was beyond the elevation of the ball turret. Then, alongside the bomber, Franz saw something troubling. Exploding shells had stripped away its skin in the waist. Through the plane’s exposed ribs he saw its crew, huddled over one another, caring for their wounded. Moving forward, Franz settled his 109 into position above the bomber’s right wingtip. He could see that the bomber’s nose was blown away. The bomber flew as if held up by an invisible string.

  What now? Franz thought.

  Suddenly, movement beneath the bomber drew his eyes. Franz watched as the ball turret gunner swiveled his guns toward him. You’d shoot me if you could, Franz thought. He knew the turret lacked the elevation to aim at him.

  From his turret, Blackie looked in shock at the 109 pilot. A minute before, Blackie had prepared to die, expecting the 109 pilot to shoot him from the sky after disappearing behind the tail. But the pilot had never fired. Now, instead, the German fighter pilot flew formation with the American bomber.* Blackie abandoned his efforts to clear his guns. Instead, he folded his hands. “What are you waiting for?” Blackie said quietly as the German’s eyes met his.

  The Franz Stigler who went to Africa to avenge his brother’s death would have had an answer. He would have destroyed the bomber and killed its crew. But there, in the desert, and over ancient Sicily, the last of Europe’s Knights had taught Franz Stigler a new code. Their code said to fight with fearlessness and restraint, to celebrate victories not death, and to know when it was time to answer a higher call.

  Franz gazed at the men in the waist tending one another’s wounds. He looked into the ashen face of the ball turret gunner. He thought about what his brother August would have done.

  A gear clicked in Franz’s soul. He laid a hand over the pocket of his jacket and felt his rosary beads within. This will be no victory for me, Franz decided. I will not have this on my conscience for the rest of my life.1

  Franz saw the coast a few miles ahead. There he knew alarms were blaring and soldiers were running to their guns. Any second explosions would ring out, showering the bomber in a rain of steel. Franz had chosen to spare the bomber’s crew from his own guns, a gesture that would have been enough for most men. But Franz decided he would try something more.

  Looking along the wing and into the cockpit he saw that the copilot was absent. Through the shadows he saw the pilot in the left seat, his hands gripping the controls. Franz waved, trying to get the pilot’s attention, but the man stared straight ahead. Franz remained on the bomber’s wing, the machine’s laboring engines drowning out his 109’s purr. He wanted to shout to the pilot, to tell him that time was running out.

  INSIDE THE BOMBER’S cockpit, Charlie’s eyes alternated between his instruments and the white coastline that filled the windshield. He knew the flak guns would start popping any second. He hoped Pinky and the others had jumped.

  Charlie leaned forward to check the gauges, watching for any signs of trouble from engine four, his problem child. Glancing out the copilot’s window at the engine, Charlie saw a sight that made his heart freeze for a second.

  A gray 109 with a green spine bobbed in the turbulence, three feet from The Pub’s right wingtip.*

  Charlie shut his eyes and shook his head, thinking he had slipped into a bad dream. But when he opened his eyes, the 109 was still there.

  In the nose, Doc caught a glimpse of the same dark shape through Andy’s window. He locked his eyes on the 109 and witnessed something unbelievable.

  The German pilot nodded to the American pilot.

  Charlie saw the German nod at him but thought he was seeing things. Instead of nodding back, Charlie just kept staring. In the nose, Doc remained glued to Andy’s window.

  Pinky climbed into the cockpit and took his seat beside Charlie. “We’re staying,” he said. “The guys all decided—you’re gonna need help to fly this girl home.”

  Pinky expected Charlie to grin or object. Charlie stared past him. Pinky followed Charlie’s eyes out the window.

  “My, God, this is a nightmare,” Pinky said.

  Unblinking, Charlie said to Pinky, “He’s going to destroy us.”

  FROM HIS PERCH on the bomber’s wing, Franz saw the two pilots staring at him. He saw shock and fear in their eyes. They knew they were helpless.

  With his left hand, Franz pointed down to the ground, motioning for the pilots to land in Germany. He knew it was preferable to be a P.O.W. than to have one’s life snuffed out in a flak burst. But the American pilots shook their heads. Franz cursed in frustration. He knew he could be shot for letting the bomber go. That alone was treason. But Franz also knew that leaving the bomber now would be no different than shooting it down.

  Kicking the rudder, Franz moved a few feet away from the bomber’s wing so his silhouette could be seen from above and below. He knew that if another German fighter came along it would not interfere with him there. He reasoned the same for the boys on the ground. Germany’s flak gunners were the best in the world and would know the silhouette of a 109 by heart. If they spotted him they would know he was one of theirs. But when they saw the bomber on his wing, would they hold their fire?

  THE SOLDIERS SCURRIED between flak guns along the concrete embattlements of the Atlantic Wall. Nestled in their concrete gun pits, the flak gunners of the German Air Force watched the fighter and bomber flying toward them. Side by side, the two planes looked like a small sparrow and a large gull.

  The gunners had been watching the planes with field glasses ever since they first appeared as two black crosses on the southern horizon. Something was unusual about the approaching planes. It was their formation. The battery commander and his spotters studied the formation through their field glasses. Seeing the two planes flying in unison flipped a switch in their minds.

  Whenever a bomber flew over them as a straggler, it was always alone—smoking, limping, and fleeing as fast as it could. But the approaching fighter and bomber had purpose and deliberation to their flight. They flew low and slow in unison, as if they had nothing to hide.

  “It’s one of ours!” they saw and shouted.

  “It’s one of theirs!” they realized as well.

  No one knew what to do, not even the battery commander. Everyone in the German Air Force knew they had B-17s of their own, shot down planes that had been rebuilt to fly clandestine operations or be used in training, so fighter pilots could practice flying against the plane they would meet in combat. The battery commander knew there could be any number of explanations, but one thing was certain: there was a Messerschmitt 109 about to fly over him and he could not fire on one of his own.

  “Hold your fire!” he shouted. One by one the gunners stepped back from their long-barreled cannons. The ammo bearers set down their shells. They tipped up the rims of their helmets, marveling as the fighter and bomber flew overhead. Side by side the 109 and the B-17 soared over the soldiers defending the Atlantic Wall then over the beach obstacles and the crashing surf.

  The sight was a beautiful one, the little fighter protecting the big bomber. They flew together out over the gray sea as if they were leaving one world for another. The gunners watched, their hands shading their eyes, squinting as the two planes flew away and shrunk in the distance. No one said it, but it looked like the 109 was taking the bomber home.

  BEHIND THE CONTROLS, Charlie was so fixated on the nightmare flying alongside his right wing that he had totally forgotten about the Atlantic Wall. It was not until he looked down and saw only the sea that he realized that dry land and one of Germany’s most tightly defended flak zones were behind him. Not a shot had been fired. But Charlie had not yet connected the dots. When he looked at the German pilot on his wing, he saw the enemy pilot as a threat, probably one of the same fighters who had shot his plane to piece
s earlier, now toying with them, planning to finish them off over the sea.

  Charlie felt a new emotion—despair. He wanted always to have the answers for his crew or a plan. This was the leader’s job, he believed, the reason he’d always pretended to be older than he was and had never told his crew otherwise. But now, with the German 109 stuck on his wing, he had no idea what to do next.

  Unlike Charlie, Franz had a plan. He had seen the bomber’s wounds and knew the bomber’s damage better than its pilots. He knew what they needed to do. Franz waved to get the pilots’ attention. When they looked his way, Franz pointed across his body, motioning to the east.

  “Sweden!” he mouthed to them. “Sweden!”

  Franz knew that neutral Sweden was just a thirty-minute flight away. He saw the Americans slowly turning west and knew they were going to attempt a two-hour flight across the sea to England. All they needed to do was fly to Sweden, land, and be interned. There, doctors could care for their wounded and together the crew could all outlive the war in peace and quiet.

  Franz pointed again, with greater vigor and mouthed, “Sweden!”

  The American copilot just shrugged.

  Flying over the sea was a scary prospect for Franz in his small fighter. He could not imagine what the bomber pilots were thinking in their plane that was slowly falling apart. “Sit out the war!” he wanted to shout to them. “It’s better than a watery grave!” But the B-17 copilot just looked at him, perplexed.

  Franz knew he was not getting anywhere with the copilot, so he decided that the pilot was perhaps a more sensible man. Gently nudging his rudder, Franz leapfrogged the bomber, his shadow passing over the cockpit. Hovering above the left wing, Franz saw long brown oil stains creeping backward from the bomber’s knocked-out engine. Now he was absolutely certain. They needed to turn to Sweden or they would never make it home alive. When the bomber’s pilot looked at Franz, he did so with resignation, as if he had hoped that the German had left him for good when he departed the right wing. Again, Franz pointed toward Sweden and mouthed the word, “Sweden!” But the bomber’s pilot shook his head, confused.

  What a dumb guy, Franz thought.*

  Inside the cockpit, Charlie asked Pinky, “What is he getting at?” Pinky had no idea. Charlie’s mind was so frayed from having passed out earlier that he never considered Sweden as an option.

  Charlie shouted for Frenchy, who crept into the cockpit, having fallen asleep. Frenchy could not believe his eyes. “Look how relaxed he is,” Pinky marveled.

  “Audacious SOB, huh?” Charlie said.

  Frenchy was at a loss for words. Charlie told Frenchy the German was probably one of the ones who had shot them up earlier and was now out of ammo or else he would have shot them down. “He’s just curious,” Charlie concluded.

  Pinky told Frenchy the German was pointing, trying to tell them something.

  “He probably wants you to turn and fly back to Germany,” Frenchy said. Charlie’s face grew serious at the thought. His nerves were already stretched. The thought that the German could be a threat to his crew was the final straw.

  “He’s not taking us anywhere,” Charlie promised Frenchy. Charlie asked if Frenchy’s guns were working. Frenchy said they were.

  “Get up in your turret and swing toward him,” Charlie ordered. “See if you can chase this crazy bastard away.”

  FRANZ HAD SEEN the third airman appear in the cockpit and look at him wide-eyed, then disappear. He knew the Americans were puzzled and scared and wasn’t surprised when he saw movement in the top turret. A crewman poked his head between the turret’s guns, confirmed that Franz was still there, and began to revolve the turret toward Franz’s fighter.

  Franz knew what was coming. Taking one last look at the American pilot, he did the only thing that came to mind. He saluted him.

  The American pilot stared back with a genuine look of surprise.

  “Good luck, you’re in God’s hands,” Franz said. Banking his fighter, Franz peeled up and over the bomber then dove away, leveling out in the direction of Germany.

  WHEN BLACKIE REGAINED his composure, he emerged from his turret and entered the cockpit to tell Charlie what he had seen. He found Doc already there, jabbering with Charlie and Pinky about their 109 escort.

  “What do you think he was trying to say?” Pinky asked.

  “He was looking for the string so he could cut us out of the sky,” Charlie quipped.

  “I think he flew up to salute us,” Blackie said. “To say, ‘I gave you my best and you survived.’”

  “What do you think, Doc?” Charlie asked.

  “Pretty damn brazen,” Doc said. “Shades of Eddie Rickenbacker.” Doc was referring to Rickenbacker, America’s top WWI ace and most chivalrous pilot. The legend went that Rickenbacker was so overjoyed when WWI ended that he flew over the trenches to watch the soldiers from both sides meet in no-man’s-land to celebrate their survival.

  Charlie nodded in agreement. He and the German had flown side by side for fewer than ten minutes, never exchanging a word. But the image of the pilot’s salute was frozen in Charlie’s mind. Charlie did not know the German’s name or what he wanted, but he was certain of one thing: whoever he was, his enemy was a good man.

  * * *

  * The Germans did claim the bomber as destroyed and gave credit for the victory to Lieutenant Ernst Suess, a sixty-seven-victory ace. That morning Suess had picked up his pregnant wife at the train station in Oldenburg so they could spend Christmas together. During his attack on The Pub, his plane was damaged and Suess bailed out. According to his comrade, Viktor Widmaier, Suess’s parachute failed to open and his comrades found him, dead, in a field west of Bremen.

  * Blackie would remember, “My guns were frozen up and I had my barrels pointed at him. He kept closing and I couldn’t shoot.”

  * Blackie would remember, “He came up on our right wing, so close that his wing actually overlapped ours. I kept my dead guns trained on him. We looked directly at each other.”

  * “I look out and there’s the world’s worst nightmare sitting on my wing,” Charlie would remember. “That little sucker looked like he owned me and belonged there.”

  * “He ignored my signals,” Franz would remember. “He and his crew needed doctors. I kept motioning to him but he kept going, both arms wrapped tightly around the controls. The bomber, I believed, was doomed to crash in the sea. All aboard would be killed.”2

  16

  THE THIRD PILOT

  THAT SAME AFTERNOON, OVER THE NORTH SEA

  WITH THEIR GERMAN escort now departed, Charlie saw the murky North Sea below him, swirling with the promise of an icy death. The bomber’s slight but steady descent terrified him. The plane seemed to be swimming laboriously through the heavy air, falling a few feet every minute due to drag from the hole in her nose, a dead engine, and her frayed skin. She was overweight for the two and a half engines that were pushing her, and Charlie found the only way to keep her flying straight was to drop the left wing by a few degrees.

  A quarter of the way home, engine four shook any confidence that had surged in Charlie. “It’s running away again!” Pinky shouted. By then Pinky knew the routine too well and launched the shut-down procedures, praying the troublesome engine would restart. It did, but the momentary loss of power cost the bomber two hundred feet of altitude. Charlie wondered if they had enough altitude to cross all three hundred miles of ocean at the rate their height was bleeding away. He knew the answer: No way.

  Charlie called for Frenchy, who stumbled in from his turret. “Spread the word, have the men toss everything that’s not nailed down,” Charlie said. Frenchy nodded. “My guns, too?” he asked. Charlie thought about it. They would be truly defenseless without Frenchy’s guns. But that German pilot’s strangely uneventful escort had given Charlie a sense of hope that they were going to make it home. “Dump ’em,” Charlie said.

  The crew roamed the length of the plane, gathering anything they could expel. From the waist
windows they tossed machine guns, flak vests, and oxygen bottles. Belts of bullets trailed through the sky. The men got on their hands and knees and scooped brass shell casings into helmets and shoveled them out to sea. Pechout amazed the others when he appeared at the waist, a bandage over his eye, his beloved radio set in his arms. He heaved out the black box. Frenchy suggested removing Ecky’s guns, but Blackie warned him not to go back there.

  Frenchy returned to the cockpit and told Charlie it was done. “All we can do now is pray,” Charlie said. Frenchy draped his arms over the seat backs of Charlie and Pinky as if he was afraid to be alone. Although battered beyond the endurance of most aircraft, The Pub continued to claw at the stormy sky through scattered, misty clouds.

  Halfway home, with the sea still spanning the horizon, the needle on the altimeter slowly ticked backward as the bomber slipped beneath one thousand feet of altitude. Blackie appeared in the cockpit, grinning like he always did. Charlie asked how his feet were feeling, and Blackie said he couldn’t feel a thing below his knees. Charlie asked if Russian was stable. “The morphine has him in la-la land,” Blackie said. Blackie stopped talking when he noticed the altimeter. Frantically he looked out both windows to see the altitude for himself. “Yup, we’re dropping,” Charlie said. Blackie suggested he was going back to go hit the morphine himself.

  Thirty minutes later the bomber dipped below five hundred feet.* They were three-fourths of the way home, but the ocean still filled the horizon. Pinky trembled, his arms shaking the yoke. Each time Charlie felt The Pub shudder and drop a few feet, he touched the Bible in his pocket like a transmitter on a microphone hoping it would beam his prayers up faster. He asked his “Third Pilot” to stay close.