
Charlie Brown and Franz Stigler Incident - marvindanig
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Brown_and_Franz_Stigler_incident
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elcapitan
Stiegler (the German pilot) was exactly one shot down enemy machine away from
getting the Knight's Cross. So that machine would have been easy prey - maybe
too easy for his sense of honor?

I think it's interesting that he justified his action with his commander
telling his men that shooting enemy pilots that have parachuted out of their
machines is dishonorable, and that he essentially saw the almost defenseless
machine with most of the crew killed in a comparable position.

There's a sense that technological abstraction makes warfare more evil,
because people don't see each other anymore, and killing becomes even more
abstract. That's even noticeable in non-war situations like car traffic, where
people can become pretty aggressive behind the glass windows of their metal
boxes. Even more obvious with drone strikes from a safe place halfway around
the world. But for some reason those early days of airfight (probably more so
in WW1 and less in WW2 though) convey this notion of "chivalry", which is
somewhat counter-intuitive.

Maybe the common shared experience of having to deal with these complicated
flying machines created this kind of respect for the other side?

~~~
pandaman
The term "chivalry" originates from medieval knights, who had been operators
of devastating war machines of the time. And sure, they were warmongers,
sexist, oppressors of working class etc. etc. but there is historical record
of honorable behavior.

I don't see anything counterintuitive in modern operators of devastating war
machines behaving in similar way. Not every warrior is a murderous psychopath.
In fact, I have never seen one so they are probably quite rare. While an
infantryman, for example, could go through wars for years without ever killing
anybody, a pilot is likely to be killing people regularly, just like knights
of the past. I imagine the chivalry is the way to cope with killing.

People in traffic don't need to develop it because they are not really killing
each other (except for rare road rage incidents). On the other hand, samurais,
the warrior caste in Japan developed similar behavior, bushido. Likewise,
Vedic tradition also speaks of strict warrior code for khatriya, Indian
warrior caste.

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fiatmoney
"Brown went on to complete a combat tour."

Traditionally the reason for not allowing enemies to escape is that they will
regroup and fight you again (accepting surrender, or allowing parachutists to
land & become POWs, is a different matter). In this case, the escaped crew was
able to return to bomb German civilians.

~~~
scotty79
No good deed goes unpunished.

How unfashionable by today's standards of shooting a guy in rags from IR
vision enabled, high calibre helicopter gun because he has old rifle and some
ammo so might pose a problem to somebody at some point in the future.

~~~
lostlogin
At least your scenario has a guy with a gun in his sights. "We don't do body
counts" type attitudes seem to reign supreme.

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sjclemmy
My grandfather who fought in WWII (British) developed a close friendship with
a German veteran in his later years. I think they met in southern Spain where
they both spent a lot of time in their retirement in the 1980s. I doubt their
story was as spectacular as this, but there was clearly some experience they
both shared that led to the friendship. I'm not suggesting they knew each
other in the war (but who knows?), but the fact they both went through similar
experiences allowed them to develop a bond.

I wonder how common this is?

~~~
jbmorgado
I would guess it is not something difficult to do in this scenario. We are
talking about a war where young men get drafted and sent to the carnage, most
of them don't go there voluntarily out of some ideology.

So it's easy to see some years later that you were just being used and form a
bond with someone that was exactly in the same situation as you were but using
different colors.

All in all, those two men had more in common with each other than with the men
from their own country that were waging war from whiting their palaces and
sending them to their deaths.

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theorique
The Swedish power metal band Sabaton told the story of this incident in their
song "No Bullets Fly"

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x02g4-XT_VU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x02g4-XT_VU)

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YeGoblynQueenne
>> Stigler recalled the words of one of his commanding officers from
Jagdgeschwader 27, Gustav Rödel, during his time fighting in North Africa, “
If I ever see or hear of you shooting at a man in a parachute, I will shoot
you down myself."

At first I thought this was somehow in response to the battle of Crete and the
civilians attacking the parachuting Germans, and I was preparing to offer a
few choice words about the "honour" of the esteemed commander.

But then I read a bit further into the link from that quote:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attacks_on_parachutists#Second...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attacks_on_parachutists#Second_World_War)

And it seems Stigler's act was not isolated, and German pilots did let bomber
crews at least jump out of their damaged planes.

I was reminded of something I've heard before, that the air forces of the
European powers in WWII were carrying over a tradition of gallantry from WWI-
or at least they did so at the start of the new war.

I also remember something about the war in Africa not being as vicious (or at
least the troops not being as cruel) as the one in Europe, but again, no
sources for that.

Edit: I should say that I find the whole idea of honour and gallantry at war
completely pants. The same people who found it dishonourable to shoot at
parachuting enemies had no compunction in bombing the shit out of peoples'
houses, farms, factories and generally livelihood, on the ground, not to
mention not giving a flying pig about the same people and what their bombs
would do to them.

Somebody mentioned the knights below, and how they had a code of honour also
(and sometimes, even lived by it). Well the knights are a great example. They
were honourable and gallant to each other when they remembered it (unless they
were drunk out of their basinets) but the way they treated mere peasants...
well, I don't have to say anything, we've all read Game of Thrones, so.

Case in point (for Germans in WWII):

Massacre of Cretan civilians at Kondomari, Crete, 1941

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Crete#/media/File:Bu...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Crete#/media/File:Bundesarchiv_Bild_101I-166-0525-30,_Kreta,_Kondomari,_Erschie%C3%9Fung_von_Zivilisten.jpg)

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saynsedit
War is terrible. Average citizen doesn't realize it until there's a draft or
until after they're a veteran.

I hope one day we'll reach critical mass of war awareness and stand up against
it. For now, we're building "modern" smaller target nuclear weapons.

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webreac
I have just read
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_bombing_during_World...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_bombing_during_World_War_II#The_British_later_in_the_war)
that was very different from what my teacher said. For him, germans were far
more effective than uk in bombing war production factories and uk was getting
short of airplanes. Churchill has decided to focus more on german towns,
causing the retaliation on London bombing. According to him, this plan has
been a total success, uk was able to rebuild its war production factories and
to catch up with Germany.

As history is always rewrote by winner, I was not able to confirm this story.

~~~
lostlogin
I recommend "Britain's War Machine" by David Edgerton. Prior to hostilities
Britain had an inferior military in many regards (but many superior tanks,
ships and planes) but her manufacturing and resources available from Empire
far exceeded those of Germany. It didn't take that long to get war production
going, and by most measures of armament production Britain had overtaken
Germany by 1941. It's a while since I read the book but it was quite eye
opening to me too see the stats on how powerful Britain was when going into
the Second World War. The story of the plucky underdog is a myth.

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sandworm101
The bomber did not surrender. It did not land and/or seek sanctuary with a
neutral party, even though both options were the more humane. It was not a
wounded soldier trying to stay alive: it was still fighting and showed no
intention of surrender. Today, the German pilot should have shot it down or be
punished for allowing a combatant to so escape.

Chivalry is all well and good but, like so many other stories from that war,
this reminds me of the speech in Remains of the Day where the American
congressman calls all the old powers amateurs, that the coming war (WWII)
wouldn't be prevented by a agreement between gentlemen over dinner. Imagine
the outrage today if a US soldier allowed a wounded ISIS fighter to limp home
with his weapon rather than capture him. Conversely, imagine what would happen
to that wounded ISIS fighter should his compatriots see him fail to kill the
hesitant US soldier. War has moved on.

~~~
cognivore
Until you've had to kill people yourself, seen the results, and lived with
yourself afterwards, I don't think you have anything to say about what someone
else has been in that situation and decided not to kill that day.

~~~
sandworm101
Which is why civilians have laws and soldiers have their orders: to overcome
personal morality. That bomber pilot came back, so did the german fighter
pilot, as would the ISIS fighter. Orders and laws recognize the bigger
picture.

The structure operates both ways. We punish soldiers for applying their
morality above orders because often that morality tells them to kill where
their commanders don't want them too. In this case the soldier's moral code
told him to disobey orders by not killing, but what about those situations
where the soldier's moral code tells to disobey orders by killing? That leads
to revenge, torture and all manner of illegal horrors ... which is why after
WWII we setup a host of laws meant specifically to further usurp such
decisions. The lesson was that, despite some noble stories, the decisions of
gentlemen could no longer be trusted.

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lb1lf
I read an account of this incident and its aftermath - including the meet
between the two pilots decades after the war.

Absorbing read, quite different from your average WWII literature -
investigating Stigler's background in some detail to look for motivation for
this act, &c.

It was titled 'A higher call' IIRC. Most recommended.

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jbmorgado
Am I the only one that see Stigler as clearly the better man in all this
story?

All Brown did (not counting the his bravery and the bravery of his crew, but
looking just at the interaction Brown Stigler) was to spare the German plane
after he helped him get out of that mess and send him away with a pointed gun
warning and then shut up about the gesture and keep bombing German civilians
until the end of the war.

