Purchase
An Incredible True Story of Combat and Chivalry in the War-Torn Skies of World War II
Berkley
December 2013
On Sale: December 9, 2013
400 pages
ISBN: 0425252868
EAN: 9780425252864
Hardcover
Add to Wish List
Non-Fiction
Four days before Christmas 1943, a badly damaged American bomber struggled to fly over wartime Germany. At its controls was a 21-year-old pilot. Half his crew lay wounded or dead. It was their first mission. Suddenly, a sleek, dark shape pulled up on the bomberβs tailβa German Messerschmitt fighter. Worse, the German pilot was an ace, a man able to destroy the American bomber in the squeeze of a trigger. What happened next would defy imagination and later be called the most incredible encounter between enemies in World War II. This is the true story of the two pilots whose lives collided in the skies that dayβthe Americanβ2nd Lieutenant Charlie Brown, a former farm boy from West Virginia who came to captain a B-17βand the Germanβ2nd Lieutenant Franz Stigler, a former airline pilot from Bavaria who sought to avoid fighting in World War II. A Higher Call follows both Charlie and Franzβs harrowing missions. Charlie would face takeoffs in English fog over the flaming wreckage of his buddiesβ planes, flak bursts so close they would light his cockpit, and packs of enemy fighters that would circle his plane like sharks. Franz would face sandstorms in the desert, a crash alone at sea, and the spectacle of 1,000 bombers each with eleven guns, waiting for his attack. Ultimately, Charlie and Franz would stare across the frozen skies at one another. What happened between them, the American 8th Air Force would later classify as βtop secret.β It was an act that Franz could never mention or else face a firing squad. It was the encounter that would haunt both Charlie and Franz for forty years until, as old men, they would search for one another, a last mission that could change their lives forever.
 Media BuzzDiane Rehm Show - NPR - January 21, 2013
Diane Rehm Show - NPR - December 20, 2012
| 
© 2003-2026