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December 20, 1943
Posted: Thu Dec 20, 2012 10:28 pm
by Fat Cat
A young American bomber pilot named Charlie Brown found himself somewhere over Germany, struggling to keep his plane aloft with just one of its four engines still working. They were returning from their first mission as a unit, the successful bombing of a German munitions factory. Of his crew members, one was dead and six wounded, and 2nd Lt. Brown was alone in his cockpit, the three unharmed men tending to the others. Brown’s B-17 had been attacked by 15 German planes and left for dead, and Brown himself had been knocked out in the assault, regaining consciousness in just enough time to pull the plane out of a near-fatal nose dive.
None of that was as shocking as the German pilot now suddenly to his right.
Brown thought he was hallucinating. He did that thing you see people do in movies: He closed his eyes and shook his head no. He looked, again, out the co-pilot’s window. Again, the lone German was still there, and now it was worse. He’d flown over to Brown’s left and was frantic: pointing, mouthing things that Brown couldn’t begin to comprehend, making these wild gestures, exaggerating his expressions like a cartoon character.
Brown, already in shock, was freshly shot through with fear. What was this guy up to?
He craned his neck and yelled back for his top gunner, screamed at him to get up in his turret and shoot this guy out of the sky. Before Brown’s gunner could squeeze off his first round, the German did something even weirder: He looked Brown in the eye and gave him a salute. Then he peeled away.
What just happened? That question would haunt Brown for more than 40 years, long after he married and left the service and resettled in Miami, long after he had expected the nightmares about the German to stop and just learned to live with them.
http://floppingaces.net/2012/12/20/on-t ... gher-call/
Re: December 20, 1943
Posted: Thu Dec 20, 2012 10:36 pm
by Alfred_E._Neuman
Fantastic story. I hadn't heard of it before.
Re: December 20, 1943
Posted: Fri Dec 21, 2012 12:47 am
by tough old man
Great story. I'll be ordering that one.
Re: December 20, 1943
Posted: Fri Dec 21, 2012 1:01 am
by Turdacious
Great read. Thanks Fats!
Re: December 20, 1943
Posted: Fri Dec 21, 2012 1:59 am
by DARTH
Many Luftwaffe pilots were of Prussian and Prussian nobilty families and considered themselves Knights of the Sky's.
Many would fight like the devil, even sneak up and waste you in combat, but many also felt that if you were no longer a threat then it was disshonorable and cowardly to press the attack.
And many looked at their Allied counterparts as the same as they and resepcted them as warriors.
Not so common with the Japs.
Re: December 20, 1943
Posted: Fri Dec 21, 2012 2:11 am
by Fat Cat
The above is true. With regard to bushidō, it was--or at least became--a ghastly failure, and rarely has the delivery fallen so short of the promise in the history of mankind.
Re: December 20, 1943
Posted: Fri Dec 21, 2012 3:09 am
by DARTH
Fat Cat wrote:The above is true. With regard to bushidō, it was--or at least became--a ghastly failure, and rarely has the delivery fallen so short of the promise in the history of mankind.
Yep, because the Showa bastards perverted it and also sold it to the lower class, non Samurai japs and pumped them up to think of themselves as Samurai.
But even most Samurai did not feel that those who oppossed them that were not other Samurai deserved any honor.
I am not one of those guys who takes Japanese arts and then thinks he's a Samurai and cums himslef over all thing Nippon or puts them over his own colture.
We have our own and my own ancestrial martial traditions and philosophy.
Fats, you ever read Boyington's Baa Baa Black Sheep? Touches on some of this on a personal level of one it was aimed at. (And also some of the Japs who thought it was bullshit.)
Re: December 20, 1943
Posted: Thu Dec 27, 2012 5:01 pm
by Turdacious
[youtube]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8EkmyoG83Q[/youtube]
http://109lair.hobbyvista.com/articles/ ... tigler.htm
Just finished the book. The description of the encounter in the air was well written. The book would have been pretty weak if it had just described what happened on 12/20/43, and their lives before and after Stigler and Brown eventual meeting-- fortunately there was a lot more to it than that.
The book is more about Stigler than Brown. The descriptions of the German Air Force was great-- Stigler served with and knew a lot of the great German aviators and Luftwaffe commanders, and the author intertwined their stories well. It made me want to read a lot more books about them. The ending, where the two pilots meet, really ties the book together well.
Re: December 20, 1943
Posted: Fri Dec 28, 2012 1:14 am
by Batboy2/75
The Luftwaffe from Goering down considered themselves knights that lived by the code of Chivalry. While Goering paid lip service to the idea of Chivalry, his men generally didn't.
Read the German Paratropers 10 commandments
1. You are the elite of the German Army. For you, combat shall be fulfillment. You shall seek it out and train yourself to stand any test.
2. Cultivate true comradeship, for together with your comrades you will triumph or die.
3. Be shy of speech and incorruptible. Men act, women chatter; chatter will bring you to the grave.
4. Calm and caution, vigor and determination, valor and a fanatical offensive spirit will make you superior in attack.
5. In facing the foe, ammunition is the most precious thing. He who shoots uselessly, merely to reassure himself, is a man without guts. He is a weakling and does not deserve the title of parachutist.
6. Never surrender. Your honor lies in Victory or Death.
7. Only with good weapons can you have success. So look after them on the principle—First my weapons, then myself.
8. You must grasp the full meaning of an operation so that, should your leader fall by the way, you can carry it out with coolness and caution.
9. Fight chivalrously against an honest foe; armed irregulars deserve no quarter.
10. With your eyes open, keyed up to top pitch, agile as a greyhound, tough as leather, hard as Krupp steel, you will be the embodiment of a German warrior.
Re: December 20, 1943
Posted: Sun Dec 30, 2012 8:17 pm
by DARTH
Batboy2/75 wrote:The Luftwaffe from Goering down considered themselves knights that lived by the code of Chivalry. While Goering paid lip service to the idea of Chivalry, his men generally didn't.
Read the German Paratropers 10 commandments
1. You are the elite of the German Army. For you, combat shall be fulfillment. You shall seek it out and train yourself to stand any test.
2. Cultivate true comradeship, for together with your comrades you will triumph or die.
3. Be shy of speech and incorruptible. Men act, women chatter; chatter will bring you to the grave.
4. Calm and caution, vigor and determination, valor and a fanatical offensive spirit will make you superior in attack.
5. In facing the foe, ammunition is the most precious thing. He who shoots uselessly, merely to reassure himself, is a man without guts. He is a weakling and does not deserve the title of parachutist.
6. Never surrender. Your honor lies in Victory or Death.
7. Only with good weapons can you have success. So look after them on the principle—First my weapons, then myself.
8. You must grasp the full meaning of an operation so that, should your leader fall by the way, you can carry it out with coolness and caution.
9. Fight chivalrously against an honest foe; armed irregulars deserve no quarter.
10. With your eyes open, keyed up to top pitch, agile as a greyhound, tough as leather, hard as Krupp steel, you will be the embodiment of a German warrior.
Echos of Fredrick the Great in there. "He who fires before the order is given is a coaward and a kerr." or something like that.
Re: December 20, 1943
Posted: Mon Dec 31, 2012 2:12 am
by Jay
Where was the Red Baron during all of this?
Re: December 20, 1943
Posted: Wed Feb 13, 2013 8:56 am
by DARTH
A great book. Iron Dog gave it to me to read and I could not put it down.
Re: December 20, 1943
Posted: Wed Feb 13, 2013 10:42 am
by Andy83
Goddamn! Makes me want WWII all over again!! Wars are cool!
Re: December 20, 1943
Posted: Wed Feb 13, 2013 12:56 pm
by Kenny X
Interesting. Thanks for posting this, Fats.