Honour among enemies (1 Viewer)

Franz Stigler was also the pilot of the ME 262 white three that was credited wrongly including by K&C as being the mount of Adolf Galland. A remarkable airman and a gentleman
Mitch
 
A touch of humanity amid a sea of horror, as a side comment I wonder if the Yank bloke was ever nic-named Peanuts given his name was Charlie Brown?.
Wayne.
 
Wonderful story Rob, thanks for posting. It just goes to show that during the horrors of war there were some instances of humanity shining through.

Tom
 
There was another German pilot who made a practice of things like this. I can't remember his name (the book is buried somewhere in a garage) but he was prone to painting 'Lucky 13' or similar on his planes. I have a rough idea the fellow concerned had a higher score than the guy in the article did, so I'm assuming they're different men.
 
there are a number of reports where German pilots did such things though, Stigler's has become the most well known. conversely, it would have been nice to have seen James harden do a similar act of chivalry when he attacked the U-boats carrying survivors from the Laconia. Hartenstein the U-boat commander had sent open messages in English for help with the thousands of civilian and POW's the ship had on board yet, the aircraft still bombed the subs causing many many casualties and, forced the subs to break loose the life rafts and send the survivors on deck to the sea.

This changed the sea war with the infamous ''Laconia'' order where survivors that were to that point assisted or saved by U-boats when practical were ordered to be left. This was the charge that was laid at Donitz's door at Nuremburg war tribunal and, where US navy personnel gave evidence stating they did the same in the pacific against the Japanese

The morality is not always black and white
Mitch
 
One thing that the Tolliver brothers, authors of 'Horridio' my source, emphasised was the German pilots code of honour. The most common example was the sparing of shot down pilots who'd resorted to their parachutes. The authors - who are Americans - contrasted this to what, they wrote, was a frequent practice of American pilots shooting Germans in their parachutes. Indeed, they state that there was an explicit order that ME262 pilots were to be machine-gunned to prevent them returning to battle. I'm sure there's more to all this and there appears to be a touch too much of the glorification of German martial exploits in the book I mention. Has anyone else read it?
 
TomNT said:
Wonderful story Rob, thanks for posting. It just goes to show that during the horrors of war there were some instances of humanity shining through.

Tom
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Yes it does doesn't it Tom:smile2: Acts of great humanity on both sides in both world wars, helps restore your faith in mankind a bit doesn't it!.

Rob
 
A nice story but not really very smart of Stigler as the crew that survived would have flown other missions against Germany. I think the trouble with stories like this is that it shows soldiers as warriors with empathy for their brothers and romanticizes war. However, it's a dirty business, kill or be killed. Can you imagine this happening on the Eastern Front? Not likely. It was give no quarter and give none in return. Best leave romanticizing to books and toy soldiers.
 
jazzeum said:
A nice story but not really very smart of Stigler as the crew that survived would have flown other missions against Germany. I think the trouble with stories like this is that it shows soldiers as warriors with empathy for their brothers and romanticizes war. However, it's a dirty business, kill or be killed. Can you imagine this happening on the Eastern Front? Not likely. It was give no quarter and give none in return. Best leave romanticizing to books and toy soldiers.
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Interesting perspective Brad. I guess yes that if the plane was not a write off on landing it would have returned again to possibly kill his fellow comrades and countrymen. However perhaps his humanity towards his fellow warriors was stronger than his belief in what he was fighting for? (all conjecture of course, who knows ). I say this because just yesterday I stumbled across this story of an SS Soldier who having been captured had a total change of heart and fell in love with the place he was held, so much so as to leave his life savings to the village of Comrie ;

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...ttish-prison-camp-village-kind-treatment.html

War does funny things to people doesn't it, it can bring out the worst and also the best in them.

Rob
 
Stigler spoke many times and, in depth as to why he felt on this occasion that he would not shoot down the aircraft. also remember that he could have shot it down and, would then have been awarded the ritterkreuz for number of kills.

His exact word were that initially he was going to shoot it out of the sky and, as closing in he was surprised to see no fire from the defensive guns when he got closer he could see the state the aircraft was in and, spontaneously decided to escort the aircraft home.

I am sure it had little to do with his convictions and duty to his country or leaders
Mitch
 
completely lost as to whether this was about a historical event in the history part of the forum or, the music thread????
Mitch
 
Mitch said:
completely lost as to whether this was about a historical event in the history part of the forum or, the music thread????
Mitch
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No, you're not, you're just saying that :wink2:
 
Yes it was an odd decision. His idea to send it to Sweden was a good one. The Americans would've been interned and not conducted any more raids on Germany. The other thing to do was to escort it to a German airfield. 'Taking' their surrender was equally as good (a number of bombers did land like this). Hard to communicate these things in the air of course.
 
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