Oberleutnant Ludwig Franz Stigler (21 August 1915 – 22 March 2008) was a German
fighter pilot and
fighter ace in
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. 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,
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
gliders when he was 12, and in 1933, he piloted a
biplane.
[ He flew for Deutsche Luft Hansa (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]