Burns Insurance Group Newsletter JANUARY 2014 | Page 3

He Said “Good Luck... You’re In God’s Hands
The pilot glanced outside his cockpit and
froze. He blinked hard and looked again,
hoping it was just a mirage. But his co-pilot
stared at the same horrible vision.
“My God, this is a nightmare,” the co-pilot
said.
“He’s going to destroy us,” the pilot agreed.
The men were looking at a gray German
Messerschmitt fighter hovering just three
feet off their wingtip. It was five days before
Christmas 1943, and the fighter had closed
in on their crippled American B-17 bomber
for the kill.
The B-17 pilot, Charles Brown, was a
21-year-old West Virginia farm boy on
his first combat mission. His bomber had
been shot to pieces by swarming fighters,
and his plane was alone in the skies above
Germany. Half his crew was wounded, and
the tail gunner was dead, his blood frozen in
icicles over the machine guns.
But when Brown and his co-pilot,
Spencer “Pinky” Luke, looked at the fighter
pilot again, something odd happened. The
German didn’t pull the trigger. He nodded
at Brown instead. What happened next was
one of the most remarkable acts of chivalry recorded during World War II. Years later, Brown would track down his would-be
executioner for a reunion that reduced both
men to tears.
Lt. Franz Stigler was standing near his
fighter on a German airbase when he heard
a bomber’s engine. Looking up, he saw
a B-17 flying so low it looked like it was
going to land. As the bomber disappeared
behind some trees, Stigler tossed his
cigarette aside, saluted a ground crewman
and took off in pursuit.
As Stigler’s fighter rose to meet the
bomber, he decided to attack it from behind.
He climbed behind the sputtering bomber,
squinted into his gun sight and placed his
hand on the trigger. He was about to fire

by John Black for CNN
when he hesitated. Stigler was baffled. No
one in the bomber fired at him.

He looked closer at the tail gunner. He was
still, his white fleece collar soaked with
blood. Stigler craned his neck to examine
the rest of the bomber. Its skin had been
peeled away by shells, its guns knocked out.
He could see men huddled inside the plane
tending the wounds of other crewmen.
Then he nudged his plane alongside the
bomber’s wings and locked eyes with the
pilot whose eyes were wide with shock and
horror.
Alone with the crippled bomber, Stigler
changed his mission. He nodded at the
American pilot and began flying in formation so German anti-aircraft gunners on the
ground wouldn’t shoot down the slow-moving bomber. Stigler escorted the bomber
over the North Sea and took one last look
at the American pilot. Then he saluted him,
peeled his fighter away and returned to Germany.
“Good luck,” Stigler said to himself. “You’re
in God’s hands.”
A mission to find the man who spared his life
Late in life the encounter with the German
pilot began to gnaw at Lt. Charles Brown. He
started having nightmares, but in his dream
there would be no act of mercy. He would
awaken just before his bomber crashed.
Brown took on a new mission. He had to find
that German pilot. Who was he? Why did he
save my life?
On January 18, 1990, Brown received a
letter. He opened it and read:
“Dear Charles, All these years I wondered
what happened to the B-17, did she make
it?
It was Stigler. He had had left Germany
after the war and moved to Vancouver,
British Columbia, in 1953. He became a

prosperous businessman. Now retired,
Stigler told Brown that he would be in Florida come summer and “it sure would be nice
to talk about our encounter.”
Brown was so excited, though, that he
couldn’t wait to see Stigler. He called
directory assistance for Vancouver and
asked whether there was a number for a
Franz Stigler. He dialed the number, and
Stigler picked up.
“My God, it’s you!” Brown shouted as tears
ran down his cheeks.
Brown had to do more. He wrote a letter
to Stigler in which he said: “To say THANK
YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU on behalf of my surviving crewmembers and their
families appears totally inadequate.”
The two pilots would meet again, but this
time in the lobby of a Florida hotel.
One of Brown’s friends was there to record
the summer reunion. Both men looked like
retired businessmen: they were plump,
sporting neat ties and formal shirts. They
talked about their encounter in a light, jovial
tone.
The mood then changed. Someone asked
Stigler what he thought about Brown. Stigler
sighed and his square jaw tightened. He
began to fight back tears before he said in
heavily accented English:
“I love you, Charlie.”
Brown and Stigler became great pals. They
would take fishing trips together. They would
fly cross-country to each other homes and
take road trips together to share their story
at schools and veterans’ reunions.