x planes

The “Ye Olde Pub”

On December 20th 1943, 2nd Lieutenant Charles “Charlie” Brown, of the 379th Bomb group, flew the B-17 Flying Fortress “Ye Olde Pub” on a bombing run against the Focke-Wulf aircraft plant at Bremen, Germany.

The squadron encountered heavy flak on approach to the target. Brown had to feather two of his engines, and his aircraft began to trail behind the rest of the bomber formation. He watched his flight leader plummet to the ground ahead of him.

Suddenly, eight fighters attacked from the front, joined by another seven from the rear. The crippled B-17 managed to down one (possibly two aircraft) before starting to spiral to the ground. Brown recalls:
”I either spiraled or spun and came out of the spin just above the ground. My only conscience memory was of dodging trees but I had nightmares for years and years about dodging buildings and then trees. I think the Germans thought that we had spun in and crashed”

The B-17 recovered, but Brown and four of his crew were injured, and one of his gunners was dead. They had no compass and no oxygen. Then they were engaged by a lone Messerschmitt Bf-109, piloted by Franz Stigler. Stigler approached the bomber from the rear, then noticed that the tail gunner was incapacitated, bleeding profusely.

“I saw his gunner lying in the back profusely bleeding….. so, I couldn’t shoot.”

As he flew by the cockpit, he gestured for Brown to land the aircraft - he refused. He tried to get Brown to turn to Sweden - only 30 minutes away - he also refused.

He continued to escort the B-17 towards England, eventually saluting Brown and heading back to base. He told his superiors that the plane had gone down over the sea.

“I tried to get him to land in Germany and he didn’t react at all. So, I figured, well, turn him to Sweden, because his airplane was so shot up; I never saw anything flying so shot up…the most badly damaged aircraft I ever saw, still flying.”

“I didn’t have the heart to finish off those brave men,” Stigler later said. “I flew beside them for a long time. They were trying desperately to get home and I was going to let them do it. I could not have shot at them. It would have been the same as shooting at a man in a parachute.”

Stigler and Brown eventually found each other in 1989, and became firm friends. They both passed away last year.

(more here and here)