Encounter
For the CKUA network, I produced a half hour documentary in which Luftwaffe fighter ace Franz Stigler and B-17 pilot Charlie Brown take turns relating the unlikely details of their first meeting.
The 20th of December, 1943. Just after 10 AM, 26 thousand feet over the northern coast of Germany, the Allied Air Offensive is back. More than 500 heavy bombers, B-17s from the Eighth Air Force, start another bombing run. Today's target: a German aircraft factory, somewhere below the clouds.
It's an offensive that seems doomed to failure. As always, the air is thick with the lethal black puffs of German flak. As always, German fighters are about to slice through the inadequate fighter escort and maul the bomber formations.
Every day, seven days a week, the big four engine bombers are being shot down at a rate even American factories can't match. For every bomber that spirals down through the clouds, ten men are lost, faster than the training schools can replace them. Already, the experienced captains and majors are being replaced at the controls by green rookies, like Second Lieutenant Charlie Brown from Virginia, whose birthday has just passed.
"I had just turned 21. I had lied to my crew, I'd told them I was 24 when we started, and that I'd just had my 25th birthday."
Brown is flying his second mission in a recently repaired Fort called Ye Old Tub. It's not going well. The murderous flak has already decimated his squadron.
"I got hit my flak on the target on the way. There were only four of us left in the squadron, three had aborted the mission. The flak hit all four of us pretty well. The flight leader and myself pulled out, and then his whole plane caught on fire in a few seconds and he went down."
The most lethal German weapon is about to show up: waves of fast, heavily armed German fighters, flown by experienced, remorseless hunters like Franz Stigler.
"In 1943, I already had 450 combat missions. I shot down 28, confirmed."
But Stigler is flying against the most heavily armed bomber in the air, a machine that deserves it's nickname, the Flying Fortress. They're flying in tight defensive formations.
"It could take a lot of punishment, it was well-armed, and they were flying in a combat box formation. You had to fly through the bullets. I never came home without a hole in my airplane. The most was 82."
But the German fighters are shooting, too.
Charlie Brown: "They looked like fireflies, and you realize those little twinkling lights are gun flashes, and then you can feel and hear the bullets hit the airplane. A cannon shell makes a reasonable thump when it hits. You can hear that above the roar. I got hit twice. I still have part of a German bullet in my left shoulder."
Franz Stigler: "I have a hole in the head from a tailgunner. It was very bitter. You had to get through to the bombers."
Brown: "You'd see a plane catch on fire, that was the worst, and you're screaming for them to bail out. The most parachutes I ever saw at one time was ten to fifteen white, and one or two brown. Brown meant German pilots."
Stigler: "I bailed out six times, and I rode it down 11 times."
The 20th of December, 1943. Just after 10 AM, 26 thousand feet over the northern coast of Germany, the Allied Air Offensive is back. More than 500 heavy bombers, B-17s from the Eighth Air Force, start another bombing run. Today's target: a German aircraft factory, somewhere below the clouds.
It's an offensive that seems doomed to failure. As always, the air is thick with the lethal black puffs of German flak. As always, German fighters are about to slice through the inadequate fighter escort and maul the bomber formations.
Every day, seven days a week, the big four engine bombers are being shot down at a rate even American factories can't match. For every bomber that spirals down through the clouds, ten men are lost, faster than the training schools can replace them. Already, the experienced captains and majors are being replaced at the controls by green rookies, like Second Lieutenant Charlie Brown from Virginia, whose birthday has just passed.
"I had just turned 21. I had lied to my crew, I'd told them I was 24 when we started, and that I'd just had my 25th birthday."
Brown is flying his second mission in a recently repaired Fort called Ye Old Tub. It's not going well. The murderous flak has already decimated his squadron.
"I got hit my flak on the target on the way. There were only four of us left in the squadron, three had aborted the mission. The flak hit all four of us pretty well. The flight leader and myself pulled out, and then his whole plane caught on fire in a few seconds and he went down."
The most lethal German weapon is about to show up: waves of fast, heavily armed German fighters, flown by experienced, remorseless hunters like Franz Stigler.
"In 1943, I already had 450 combat missions. I shot down 28, confirmed."
But Stigler is flying against the most heavily armed bomber in the air, a machine that deserves it's nickname, the Flying Fortress. They're flying in tight defensive formations.
"It could take a lot of punishment, it was well-armed, and they were flying in a combat box formation. You had to fly through the bullets. I never came home without a hole in my airplane. The most was 82."
But the German fighters are shooting, too.
Charlie Brown: "They looked like fireflies, and you realize those little twinkling lights are gun flashes, and then you can feel and hear the bullets hit the airplane. A cannon shell makes a reasonable thump when it hits. You can hear that above the roar. I got hit twice. I still have part of a German bullet in my left shoulder."
Franz Stigler: "I have a hole in the head from a tailgunner. It was very bitter. You had to get through to the bombers."
Brown: "You'd see a plane catch on fire, that was the worst, and you're screaming for them to bail out. The most parachutes I ever saw at one time was ten to fifteen white, and one or two brown. Brown meant German pilots."
Stigler: "I bailed out six times, and I rode it down 11 times."
Stigler's Messerschmitt Bf-109G, the "Gustav", is equipped with two 20 mm cannon, and on this day, a specially mounted 30 mm weapon that packs a lethal punch.
"You could shoot a wing off a B-17 with it. Maybe three, four rounds, you could shoot a wing off. If you hit the right place."
Today, the attack will begin from several thousand feet above the bombers. And today, Franz Stigler will be especially lethal.
"It was 10:30 as we met them, 28 bombers in one formation. I attacked from the top right, and went through and over to the other side and up again, and then from the left. The second pass, when i came from the left, I got one, the one that blew up. Then I came in from the right again, and i got the next one. i got two motors of his, and he made a belly landing."
Charlie Brown: "That particular day, we lost 26 or so, heavy bombers."
Now most of the bombers have dropped their bombs and turned for home, and Franz Stigler has dived away to rearm and refuel. But not far away, Ye Old Tub is in trouble, as anti-aircraft gunners home in.
Brown: "I had been told that when you could see the crimson centres of flak explosions, that you were in serious trouble, and sure enough, it proved to be right. I saw this beautiful black orchid with a crimson centre, and I lost the first engine, and we're working on number four engine."
Now a blast of frigid air is rushing through the aircraft. The explosion has also blown off the Plexiglass nose.
"I was able to stay in formation until we dropped our bombs, and then we started feathering number four, and I just couldn't keep up with the formation."
Now Ye Old Tub is a straggler, without the protection of the combat box, an easy kill for German fighters.
"Eight German fighters came along, and they hit us from the nose, and then seven from the rear, and I came over, levelled out, started the other way, and I couldn't hold it. The last thing I remember was looking up at the ground."
A cannon shell has smashed the oxygen system, and in the thin air at almost 20,000 feet, the result is unconsciousness. The bomber spirals down, until Brown finally comes to.
"The next thing I know, I'm dodging trees, trying to gain altitude."
Now at least, the crippled bomber is still in the air, by the barest of margins, crawling along at treetop level. The young pilot is keeping it barely over stall speed. One engine is running out of control, another is stuck at two-thirds power, with the controls shot away.
With his aircraft levelled off, Charlie Brown is trying to assess the damage. Seven of ten crew members have been killed or wounded.
"I had one guy with a leg blown off. I had one dead, and three who couldn't bail out. I didn't know I was missing the tail of the airplane. The tail gunner was basically blown away, the whole left side was missing, the rudder, the top of the vertical stabilizer, and there was a hole big enough in the right side of the airplane to see all the way through. It was in the hundreds of times we were hit."
Despite the astonishing damage, the Fort is still flying.
"I was just looking for water. I wanted to get the hell out of Germany. I said give me the most direct route to the North Sea."
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"You could shoot a wing off a B-17 with it. Maybe three, four rounds, you could shoot a wing off. If you hit the right place."
Today, the attack will begin from several thousand feet above the bombers. And today, Franz Stigler will be especially lethal.
"It was 10:30 as we met them, 28 bombers in one formation. I attacked from the top right, and went through and over to the other side and up again, and then from the left. The second pass, when i came from the left, I got one, the one that blew up. Then I came in from the right again, and i got the next one. i got two motors of his, and he made a belly landing."
Charlie Brown: "That particular day, we lost 26 or so, heavy bombers."
Now most of the bombers have dropped their bombs and turned for home, and Franz Stigler has dived away to rearm and refuel. But not far away, Ye Old Tub is in trouble, as anti-aircraft gunners home in.
Brown: "I had been told that when you could see the crimson centres of flak explosions, that you were in serious trouble, and sure enough, it proved to be right. I saw this beautiful black orchid with a crimson centre, and I lost the first engine, and we're working on number four engine."
Now a blast of frigid air is rushing through the aircraft. The explosion has also blown off the Plexiglass nose.
"I was able to stay in formation until we dropped our bombs, and then we started feathering number four, and I just couldn't keep up with the formation."
Now Ye Old Tub is a straggler, without the protection of the combat box, an easy kill for German fighters.
"Eight German fighters came along, and they hit us from the nose, and then seven from the rear, and I came over, levelled out, started the other way, and I couldn't hold it. The last thing I remember was looking up at the ground."
A cannon shell has smashed the oxygen system, and in the thin air at almost 20,000 feet, the result is unconsciousness. The bomber spirals down, until Brown finally comes to.
"The next thing I know, I'm dodging trees, trying to gain altitude."
Now at least, the crippled bomber is still in the air, by the barest of margins, crawling along at treetop level. The young pilot is keeping it barely over stall speed. One engine is running out of control, another is stuck at two-thirds power, with the controls shot away.
With his aircraft levelled off, Charlie Brown is trying to assess the damage. Seven of ten crew members have been killed or wounded.
"I had one guy with a leg blown off. I had one dead, and three who couldn't bail out. I didn't know I was missing the tail of the airplane. The tail gunner was basically blown away, the whole left side was missing, the rudder, the top of the vertical stabilizer, and there was a hole big enough in the right side of the airplane to see all the way through. It was in the hundreds of times we were hit."
Despite the astonishing damage, the Fort is still flying.
"I was just looking for water. I wanted to get the hell out of Germany. I said give me the most direct route to the North Sea."
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