A Higher Call: The Incredible True Story of Heroism and Chivalry During the Second World War

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The two pilots met nearly 50 years later, and that account is also part of this amazing story that I recommend highly! I just finished reading the book myself a few months ago and I was bitten by the same bug to build the Ye Olde Pub and Herr Stigler's 109. Larry Alexander is the author of the New York Times bestselling biography Biggest Brother: The Life of Major Dick Winters, the Man Who Led the Band of Brothers. Worse, the German pilot was an ace, a man able to destroy the American bomber in the squeeze of a trigger.

The gruesome scenes are visually stunning and the right words are poetic in their ability to make you feel the intensity of the horrific aerial duels. He probably killed more than a hundred enemy airmen and continued to fly missions up until the very end of the war. In it, Franz Stigler, a German Luftwaffe fighter ace flying a Messerschmitt Bf 109, guided a severely damaged American Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress out of German airspace after failing to persuade it to surrender, an act of chivalry. Not all their engines were working, so they had fallen behind the other bombers and were easy prey as they tried to limp back to England. Due to this policy, a few highly skilled ( and lucky) pilots flew hundreds of sorties and many victories, Erich Hartmann, the top German "expert" had 352 victories and flew 1456 sorties.He not only gave the bomber a pass but escorted it until it was out of harm's way and parted with a salute to the other pilot. He piloted a B-17 and a B-24 in WWII and met Adolf Galland after the war at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum years ago.

Drafted by Munich’s Cardinal von Faulhaber and Pope Pius XI, it told German Catholics in carefully veiled terms that National Socialism was an evil religion based on racism that stood contrary to the church’s teachings and every man’s right to equality.What I didn’t realize was how tepid enthusiasm for the Nazis was in general among the German air force. He also showed a pilot trying to shave (masks sealed better on clean-shaven faces, so shaving was important), but the poor man’s hands were shaking so badly that he nicked himself three times in a row. Stigler, such things were a shameful burden he avoided, and he refocused his job on keeping the rookies alive and competent for their own sakes, and the illusory glory of war was lost to his earlier overachieving self. Stigler's duty was to destroy the American aircraft, but after seeing the wounded crew, instead flew in formation and guided it away from Germany after failing to persuade it to surrender.

This is a touching tale of humanity under the worst circumstances, and redemption on both sides, forty years later. Suess was able to get out of his stricken Bf-109 but was shot and killed while hanging in his parachute.With the bomber filling his screen and is seconds from opening up with his guns and cannons to finish the wounded plane, he realizes the tail gunner isn’t firing.