Posted on 03/18/2013 10:18:04 AM PDT by robowombat
“the tail gunner was dead”
If I remember correctly, the B-17 did not have a tail gun until much later in the war.
May they both RIP. I salute you both.
Anyone who can read this story without tearing up has no humanity.
No soldier goes to war with the intension of becoming a hero. All they want to do is come home. These pilots came to love and respect each other because of who they were, honorable men first, enemies second.
Answer: Who gives a dam.
Thank you for posting this story.
Thank God for men like Stigler and Brown.
Excellent article. Thanks for posting it.
I believe it was the chin turret in the front that was added later. Like around the F model? German fighters had found attacking head on was the best approach.
“In many ways, a soldier feels more of a bond with the enemy they’re fighting than with the countrymen back home,” Amen Bro
http://1-22infantry.org/history4/lengfeld.htm
The plaque on the monument erected for
LT Friedrich Lengfeld.
The inscription (in both English and German) reads:
No man hath greater love than he who
layeth down his life for his enemy.
IN MEMORY
OF
LIEUTENANT FRIEDRICH LENGFELD
Here in Huertgen Forest on November 12, 1944,
Lt. Lengfeld, a German officer, gave his life
while trying to save the life of an American
soldier lying severly wounded in the “Wilde
Sau” minefield and appealing for medical aid.
PLACED AT THIS SITE ON OCTOBER 7, 1994
THE
TWENTY SECOND UNITED STATES
INFANTRY
SOCIETY - WORLD WAR II
“Deeds Not Words”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_H%C3%BCrtgen_Forest
Erstwhile enemy remembered
There is a stone monument with a bronze plaque at the Hürtgen military cemetery dedicated by veterans of the U.S. 4th Infantry Division to the memory of Friedrich Lengfeld (29 September 1921–12 November 1944), a German lieutenant. Lengfeld died on 12 November 1944, of severe wounds sustained while helping a wounded American soldier out of the “Wild Sow” (”Wilde Sau”) minefield. It is the only such memorial for a German soldier placed by his erstwhile opponents in a German military cemetery.[14]
The B-17E introduced the tail gun. It was the first production run to go over 42 units— to 512— and first flew on September 5, 1941 (over three months before the US entry into the war).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B-17
If I remember right, those B-17s which arrived at Pearl Harbor during the attack did not have tail gunners.
I think every picture or video of them in Europe showed them having tail guns which were very much needed. They eventually added a chin turret too.
During or maybe after the battle of Fredricksburg, many thousand Union dead and wounded were lying on the battlefield near Marye’s Heights.
A Confederate soldier named Kirkland gathered as many canteens, blankets etc. as he could and during the night went around doing what he could for them.
At first the Union soldiers thought he was stealing but quickly realized what he was doing and quit firing. Kirkland was later killed at Chickamauga.
I’ve got a similar sense. Stigler was yet sending back trained airmen who could well return and then turn the tables on his own people.
I think I’d have put that plane on the ground where hopefully, the crew might have been captured. But they’d be going down regardless.
Thank you.
I guess that’s why David slew Saul TWICE when he had the chance...............
The best part of the book is near the end where Stegler meets with the children and grandchildren of the American fliers, none of whom whould have been in existence but for his charitable whim forty years earlier.
“It is dereliction of duty and treason.”
Your comment suggests that you cannot know or ever experience the extraordinary bond that Franz Stigler and Charley Brown came to know and and experienced. Franz Stigler was true to himself and true to his humanity. It was not dereliction of duty. It was not treason.
Scenario 1) Reagan is president. War has broken out against the Soviet Union. You're an American fighter pilot and you're coming up on a Russian bomber that has been shot to hell and limping home, you don't think they'll even make it back over Canada. You're fighting to stave off Communism.
Scenario 2) Obama is president. War has broken out against Israel. You're an American pilot based in England. The U.S. has joined up with the entire islamic world to punish Israel for not ceding it's territory. An Israeli bomber is shot to hell and limping home. You don't think they'll even make it back across the Atlantic. You're fighting at the whim of a mad man bent on destroying the Jews and creating a global calaphate.
Do you apply the same personal credo in fighting in scenarios 1 and 2 ? If not, why not? If so, let's hear it.
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