A Higher Call

by Adam Makos

Unlike Charlie, Franz had a plan. He had seen the bomber’s wounds and knew the bomber’s damage better than its pilots. He knew what they needed to do. Franz waved to get the pilots’ attention. When they looked his way, Franz pointed across his body, motioning to the east.

“Sweden!” he mouthed to them...

Inside the bomber’s cockpit, Charlie began to breathe again. But the bomber was still sinking. As it passed through two hundred feet, Charlie told Frenchy to get Doc out of the nose and to tell the others to prepare to crash-land.

The aim was to try to land a four-motor plane on an engine and a half. Charlie slipped off his gloves to better grip the yoke. Ahead the runway seemed to swell. From his window, he watched the left landing gear slowly descend and lock down. Frenchy popped back into the cockpit to report that the gear on both sides was down but the flaps were frozen. Charlie told Frenchy to fire the emergency flare and then get everyone into the radio room to brace for a crash.

Some twenty minutes after his encounter with the B-17, Franz landed at Bremen Airport to have his radiator changed. He wanted to get home to Wiesbaden but also knew he could not risk catastrophic engine failure on the flight there. He had chosen Bremen Airport over Jever Field to avoid questions about his encounter with the American bomber. Franz knew from the moment he had peeled away from the bomber that he had committed a dangerous act. He could not tell anyone the truth—he had helped the enemy escape. If anyone pinned him to that act, he knew he would face a firing squad. People in Germany had been killed for far less. The prior June, a woman had been executed for telling a joke during a break from work at a munitions factory. Her crime was to say: “Hitler and Goering are standing atop the Berlin radio tower. Hitler says he wants to do something to put a smile on Berliners’ faces. So Goering says: ‘Why don’t you jump?’”

Franz wanted to get as far from the scene of his crime as possible. He asked a mechanic to get to work on his plane so he could fly home that night. “You won’t be going anywhere,” the mechanic said. “This will take hours.” Reluctantly, Franz prepared to stay the night. If the Gestapo came looking for a pilot who had let a B-17 escape, Franz would play dumb and pray for the best. His fate, he knew, was in God’s hands.

Their inspection completed, Thompson told Charlie he was going to recommend medals for the entire crew, including Charlie. He said he had one last question. “Why didn’t you hit the silk over Germany?” “Sir, I had a man who was too injured to jump.” “So you and your crew stayed for just one man?” “Yes, sir,” Charlie said and nodded. To him it was that simple. They had fought for one another from a Texas bar to the skies of Bremen. They knew they were stronger together than apart.

“I told them your story, just as you told me,” Harper said. “But when I mentioned the part about the German they went berserk!” Charlie sighed with relief. He thought Harper had come to deliver bad news about Russian. Harper explained that 8th Air Force headquarters had given him orders to pass along. “When you see your crew, you are to instruct them not to discuss the mission with anyone.” Charlie raised an eyebrow. “Here’s the worst part,” Harper said. “Forget about any medals for your crew.” “That’s bullshit!” Charlie said, standing. Harper rose to Charlie’s level. “I tried as hard as I could. I know what headquarters is thinking. If your men get medals, people will ask how they got them. Then if your men tell the story, they’ll mention the Kraut pilot.” Charlie shook his head in disbelief. “The brass wants you to forget this day ever happened,” Harper said. “Those are the orders.”

He could not smile. Sixteen days after December 20th he knew he had to get back over Germany or throw in the towel.

On April 11, 1944, Charlie and his original crew would complete their twenty-eighth and final mission after an eleven-hour flight to Sorau, Germany.

By war’s end, the 379th would be the best in the bombing business. On that day when Charlie would watch his men toast their survival, in the back of his mind he would wonder about the German pilot who had escorted them out of hell. Who was he and why did he let us go? Charlie would look to the eastern horizon and secretly hope that his enemy would survive the war.

Franz’s face had grown leaner, his jaw stronger, and his nose sharper. Flying three hundred combat missions had turned him into a grown man.

Franz looked to the tower but still saw no flares. He knew the bombers were on the way. The early reports said three hundred American heavies had departed Italy and were heading north.

He now prayed that he would lead others well. He no longer prayed for himself or for his safety. He had long given up on the idea of surviving the war. Franz had been away from Squadron 6 for only two weeks when a sergeant came looking for him on his base in Yugoslavia. The sergeant nervously told Franz that the wing commander—Roedel—was on the phone in the tower, waiting to talk with him. The sergeant thought Franz was in trouble, not knowing that Franz and Roedel were protégé and mentor. The date was January 29 and Roedel was calling from his headquarters near Vienna. He sounded disturbed. The day’s casualty report, a teletype, had come across his desk. Willi was dead.

Franz flashed a half salute to his crew chief and taxied away. His two young wingmen and the others followed him into the skies. Franz had not shot down a plane since encountering the wounded B-17 over Bremen on December 20.

Angry, Franz radioed the group leader and told him they needed to attack at once. He could see they were headed for Graz, the city of all cities that they were to protect. The group leader did not reply.

Relieved and emboldened, Franz radioed his squadron, “Follow me!” In defiance of his leader, Franz throttled forward and engaged the superchargers hidden beneath his fighter’s bulges.* His 109 surged. Franz felt the torque build through the stick. With his squadron behind him, Franz raced north to catch up to the heavies. Far ahead, Franz saw a swarm of 109s—Roedel and his pilots—diving and attacking the bombers. Franz wanted to cheer.

A nearby radio speaker broadcast the air defense channel that announced when Allied fighters had entered German airspace. These days the Allied fighters were always spotted before the bombers. They would fly ahead of the bombers in a new strategy to kill the German fighters as they formed up, before they could attack the bombers. The strategy was devastatingly successful.

Franz stood. “Stick close to me,” he reminded his boys, then walked to his fighter.

Since Graz, Franz himself had been shot down more times than he could count. In seven months, he had bailed out four times and belly-landed his fighter just as much. Franz still checked his rosary before every flight. The beads were now more purple than black. They were getting worn out, too. Still, off Franz went with the men and boys of Squadron 11 into the skies that others fled.

That evening the flight doctor cleaned and placed a bandage on Franz’s wound. The .50-caliber slug, which had come from a B-17’s gun, had not pierced Franz’s skull, although it had caused a nasty dent in his head. Franz stood to leave, but the doctor stopped him. The doctor knew Franz’s skull was weakened, maybe fragmented.

At a time when Germany needed every fighter pilot, Franz Stigler was out of the war.

So Franz decided to travel to Berlin, a three-day train ride through bombed-out train yards, to find out where his father’s pension had gone. Only after his mother had been cared for would Franz allow himself to report to Florida.

The House of Flyers loomed with its tall marble columns and ornate carvings set into the building’s façade. The men had legendary names among Germany’s fighter forces: Roedel, Neumann, Luetzow, Steinhoff, and a colonel named Hannes Trautloft. They had all gathered for the most dangerous mission of their lives. They glanced anxiously over their shoulders as chauffeurs drove their staff cars away. They knew there was no turning back.

Two weeks earlier Luetzow had summoned these men, his fellow Outcasts, to gather in secret.

There at Trautloft’s cabin, Luetzow and the Outcasts decided to act before not a brick was left standing in Germany. So Luetzow called the meeting with Goering under harmless pretenses, a confrontation that would later be called “the Fighter Pilots’ Mutiny.”

Luetzow did not break his stone-face composure. So Goering reverted to taunting. He told Luetzow that the real problem was the fighter pilots’ cowardice. Germany needs braver men, he said, “eager for a crack at the enemy,” to challenge the bombers nose to nose. Luetzow retorted, “And you, sir, have simply ignored the existence of four-engined bombers completely. You’ve given us no new aircraft, no new weapons.”

Goering had kept his Air Force flying decade-old 109s, and when the newer FW-190 fighters arrived, he sent most of them to the Eastern Front to fly ground attack missions. More than any one man’s, Goering’s foolhardy decisions had led to the devastation of Germany’s cities.

With the mutiny a failure, Galland and Luetzow were certain that Germany was doomed.

They also knew it was only a matter of time until they would hear a knock on the door and find the Gestapo waiting to drag them to a firing squad.

Instead of retiring to Florida, Franz had landed a slot in jet school after pestering Roedel, who secured him the appointment, one that long lines of pilots desired.

Really, Franz knew the engines were as fragile as china because they were made from low-grade materials due to mineral shortages.* A brand-new engine had a life-span of just twenty-eight hours, and refurbished engines were good for just ten hours between overhauls.

true. His right eyebrow arched higher than his left one, giving his face a permanent quizzical expression. Hohagen had been shot down in ’43, and in the crash his head had hit his gun sight, shattering his skull. With no other options, doctors had replaced his broken skull pieces with Plexiglas before sewing him back up, leaving his face forever uneven.

Racing from Berlin to escape the Allies and the grasp of The Party, the men of JV-44 felt a rush of freedom. They sensed that they were the last squadron of the Air Force, the last knights in a crumbling realm.

The next morning, April 1, 1945, dawned with optimism as Franz and his comrades reported to the unit’s new headquarters, a tall, castle-like building two miles south of the field. The vacated building had been an orphanage once, but the children were long gone—now tucked away in safer territories.

They knew that jets and supplies were useless without pilots.

That evening they drove to the fighter pilot’s rest home—Florida. They had heard rumors that one of Germany’s top pilots was recuperating there, a man with 195 victories to his name. The next morning that pilot took a seat at the unit’s table during breakfast. He was Captain Walter “the Count” Krupinski. He had been Steinhoff’s wingman on the Eastern Front.

Now, with his comrades listening intently, Franz revealed the engine’s secret flaw. He told them the engine’s fan blades were made from inferior metals that could not resist heat the way they should. Germany could no longer access minerals like cobalt and nickel to make strong blades. If a pilot throttled forward too quickly, heat would build in the engine and melt the blades. “It won’t always kill you,” Franz said. “It will kill the next guy.”

Whispers began floating among Germany’s remaining fighter squadrons that the Count had cast his lot with the Mutineers. Pilots began sneaking away from their units to join JV-44, and combat-proven instructors in Trautloft’s flying school asked to transfer to Galland.

The flight of five aimed toward the northeast and flew low to build their speed before climbing. The skies around them were empty. Franz suddenly believed what Steinhoff meant when he said, “We are the Air Force.” Through his jet’s plastic bubble canopy, Franz saw Bavaria around him. The countryside sparkled as the snow melted to reveal spring’s green pastures. An ugly war has never been fought in a more beautiful place, he thought.

Blistering along at 475 miles per hour, the flight blasted over the female flak gunners who manned the guns around the airfield.

The bombers were still tiny and far beyond range when Franz looked up and saw a sight that made his eyes bulge. Flying straight toward him and his comrades, high above, was a flock of silver fighters. He knew the silhouette—long noses, straight wings, and narrow tails. He had shot one down the prior April. It was the fighter the Germans called “the Flying Cross,” the one the Americans called “the Mustang.” It was the P-51, and there were at least one hundred of them. Franz knew he was in trouble.

Now, White 3 was frozen in a death dive.

warned him not to dive in the 262. No one could have experienced what he had and come back to warn of it.* Franz knew he had not pulled from that dive alone. Something had broken the evil spell, and it was a force more powerful than his muscles.

Across Germany, enemy fighters had declared open season on German airfields, continuing eight straight days of raids that would claim 1,697 German aircraft destroyed.

As he joined his comrades in a sprint to lend aid, Franz knew that without some glimmer of hope, JV-44 was going to fold before doing any good.

Franz turned and saw the famous steel-blue eyes of his former flight cadet, Gerd Barkhorn. But Barkhorn was no longer just a cadet. After three and a half years of fighting, mostly on the Eastern Front, Barkhorn stood before Franz as history’s second greatest ace. He was reporting to JV-44.

An officer strolled quietly through, hung his long, gray leather trench coat on the wall, and approached the table. The men saw with surprise that Luetzow, the Man of Ice, had departed his Italian exile to join JV-44.

When Franz stumbled into the silent streets and plodded toward his adopted home, he was no longer just a pilot in the Squadron of Experts. He had become the fourth in command of the world’s most elite flying squadron.

Galland had expected the worst when he heard that Goering had summoned him.