History: 20 December 1943 - Charlie Brown and Franz Stigler

Franz Stigler and Charlie Brown

This post – ‘Charlie Brown and Franz Stigler: Compassion Amongst Enemies’ – is a favourite of mine, and I’ve chosen to highlight it today because tomorrow will be the 80th anniversary of this unbelievable incident.

Charlie Brown was the 21-year-old pilot of a B-17 Flying Fortress, nicknamed ‘Ye Olde Pub’, with a crew of 10 (including Charlie) who, on that fateful day, were part of a mission targeting an aircraft production facility in Bremen.

Franz Stigler, 28, was a Luftwaffe pilot with 27 victory tallies to his name; he only needed another 3 points to be eligible for Nazi Germany’s highest award, the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross, and a bomber like the B-17 was worth those tantalising 3 points.

‘A Higher Call’ by John D Hall

Sabaton wrote a song about this, ‘No Bullets Fly’.

The end of the animated story video shows a young man listening to the song as he realises it’s about his grandfather, Franz Stigler, and he tells his mother who sent Sabaton a video message thanking them for the song.