Oberleutnant () is the highest lieutenant officer rank in the German-speaking armed forces of Germany (Bundeswehr), the Austrian Armed Forces, and the Swiss Armed Forces. Austria Germany In the German Army, it dates from the early 19th century. Tr ...

Ludwig Franz Stigler (21 August 1915 – 22 March 2008) was a German

fighter pilot A fighter pilot is a military aviator trained to engage in air-to-air combat, air-to-ground combat and sometimes electronic warfare while in the cockpit of a fighter aircraft. Fighter pilots undergo specialized training in aerial warfare and ...

and

fighter ace A flying ace, fighter ace or air ace is a military aviator credited with shooting down five or more enemy aircraft during aerial combat. The exact number of aerial victories required to officially qualify as an ace is varied, but is usually co ...

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

. He is best known for his role in a December 1943 incident in which he spared the crew of a severely damaged

B-17 bomber The Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress is a four-engined heavy bomber developed in the 1930s for the United States Army Air Corps (USAAC). Relatively fast and high-flying for a bomber of its era, the B-17 was used primarily in the European Theater ...

. He escorted the plane to safety over enemy lines. The story was kept secret for many years, but in 1990 the two pilots finally reunited and were close friends until their deaths in 2008. Stigler died in Canada, where he moved after the war.

Early life

Stigler was born on 21 August 1915 in

Regensburg Regensburg or is a city in eastern Bavaria, at the confluence of the Danube, Naab and Regen rivers. It is capital of the Upper Palatinate subregion of the state in the south of Germany. With more than 150,000 inhabitants, Regensburg is the ...

Bavaria Bavaria ( ; ), officially the Free State of Bavaria (german: Freistaat Bayern, link=no ), is a state in the south-east of Germany. With an area of , Bavaria is the largest German state by land area, comprising roughly a fifth of the total l ...

. His father was a World War I pilot/observer. Stigler began flying

glider Glider may refer to: Aircraft and transport Aircraft * Glider (aircraft), heavier-than-air aircraft primarily intended for unpowered flight ** Glider (sailplane), a rigid-winged glider aircraft with an undercarriage, used in the sport of gliding ...

s when he was 12, and in 1933, he piloted a

biplane A biplane is a fixed-wing aircraft with two main wings stacked one above the other. The first powered, controlled aeroplane to fly, the Wright Flyer, used a biplane wing arrangement, as did many aircraft in the early years of aviation. While a ...

. He flew for

Deutsche Luft Hansa ''Deutsche Luft Hansa A.G.'' (from 1933 styled as ''Deutsche Lufthansa'' and also known as ''Luft Hansa'', ''Lufthansa'', or DLH) was a German airline, serving as flag carrier of the country during the later years of the Weimar Republic and t ...

(the predecessor of

Lufthansa Deutsche Lufthansa AG (), commonly shortened to Lufthansa, is the flag carrier of Germany. When combined with its subsidiaries, it is the second- largest airline in Europe in terms of passengers carried. Lufthansa is one of the five founding ...

) before joining the

Luftwaffe The ''Luftwaffe'' () was the aerial-warfare branch of the German '' Wehrmacht'' before and during World War II. Germany's military air arms during World War I, the '' Luftstreitkräfte'' of the Imperial Army and the '' Marine-Fliegerabt ...

in 1940.

Military service

In the Luftwaffe, Stigler became an instructor pilot. One of his students was Gerhard Barkhorn, who went on to down over 300 planes in combat. Stigler himself flew 487 combat missions, downing 28 planes while himself being shot down 17 times (he bailed out six times and landed in a damaged plane 11 times). His brother, August, who was also a pilot, was killed in the crash of a

Ju 88 The Junkers Ju 88 is a German World War II ''Luftwaffe'' twin-engined multirole combat aircraft. Junkers Aircraft and Motor Works (JFM) designed the plane in the mid-1930s as a so-called '' Schnellbomber'' ("fast bomber") that would be too fast ...

in August 1940. As a member of ''Jagdgeschwader'' (JG) 27 in

North Africa North Africa, or Northern Africa is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region, and it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of Mauritania in ...

as well as

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

, and of the ''Jagdverband'' (JV) 44 jet fighter squadron, the aircraft Stigler flew in combat were the

Bf 109 The Messerschmitt Bf 109 is a German World War II fighter aircraft that was, along with the Focke-Wulf Fw 190, the backbone of the Luftwaffe's fighter force. The Bf 109 first saw operational service in 1937 during the Spanish Civil War an ...

and Me 262. Stigler—under the spelling Stiegler—is alleged to have been a member of a group of II/JG 27 pilots who made false kill claims in the Western Desert. From 10 July 1942 to 16 August 1942, Stiegler made at least 14 kill claims that have little or no confirmation in UK records. The II/JG group was prevented from flying together after 59-kill ace Hans-Arnold Stahlschmidt reported that he saw them shooting into the dunes of the desert during a mission in which they claimed 12 kills (two by Stiegler).

B-17 incident

On 20 December 1943, Stigler met a

B-17 The Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress is a four-engined heavy bomber developed in the 1930s for the United States Army Air Corps (USAAC). Relatively fast and high-flying for a bomber of its era, the B-17 was used primarily in the European Theater ...

bomber nicknamed ''Ye Olde Pub'' and its American pilot Charles "Charlie" Brown for the first time. Stigler had shot down two B-17s earlier that day and he soon caught up to a wounded B-17 flown by Brown. Lining up to finish the bomber and shoot it down, he noticed the tail gunner never moved the guns. Upon further inspection of the airplane, he saw through large holes in the fuselage a frantic crew trying to save the lives of their fellow airmen, and decided not to fire. Stigler is quoted as saying "and for me it would have been the same as shooting at a parachute", in reference to a statement by his commander and mentor

Gustav Rödel Gustav Rödel (24 October 1915 – 6 February 1995) was a German fighter pilot and fighter ace who served during World War II in the Luftwaffe. Gustav Rödel was born on 24 October 1915 in Saxony. In 1933 the Nazis came to power in Germany. Rödel ...

; "If I hear of one of you shooting a man in a parachute, I'll shoot you myself!". Stigler motioned to Brown to land his airplane in neutral Sweden because of the extensive damage. However, Brown didn't understand and decided to keep flying towards England. Stigler escorted the B-17 and its crew to the

North Sea The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Norway, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. An epeiric sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the Norwegian ...

coast, protecting it from German anti-aircraft gunners (who recognized the silhouette of his BF-109 and held fire). Once they were over water, Stigler saluted Brown, then left to return to base.

Aftermath

Stigler never spoke of the incident as he could have been

court-martial A court-martial or court martial (plural ''courts-martial'' or ''courts martial'', as "martial" is a postpositive adjective) is a military court or a trial conducted in such a court. A court-martial is empowered to determine the guilt of memb ...

ed and executed. Brown told his commanding officers, who chose to keep the incident secret. Years later, in 1990, Brown searched for the German pilot who let them live that day, and eventually the two pilots, along with the ''Pub'' crew, met face to face, half a century later. Between 1990 and 2008, Brown and Stigler became close friends and remained so until their deaths within several months of each other in 2008.Charles L. Brown’s obituary discusses the incident with Stigler and describes their friendship

/ref>

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Stigler, Franz 1915 births 2008 deaths German World War II flying aces Military personnel from Regensburg German emigrants to Canada Luftwaffe pilots