"A Higher Call"

[John Dupre]

I recently finished this book and it was fascinating and very well written. I had heard about Franz Stigler from magazine articles over the years but if I had heard about the encounter at the heart of this book I had forgotten it.

As I understand it the author makes the claim that Stigler was the ONLY Luftwaffe pilot ever to escort a damaged American aircraft safely out of Europe.

I have read that Georg-Peter Eder once escorted the damaged Thunderbolt of Robert S. Johnson to coast of the English channel after failing to shoot it down. No one was ever certain that it was these two pilots but the German claimed to have done the escorting and the American claimed he was escorted on the day in question.

I have vague memory from the Toliver and Constable books or the Edward Sims books that other German pilots claimed similar exhanges during the war.

Does anyone else remember similar exchanges of escorting damaged aircraft to safety?

[Ed Walters]

http://www.sportingartprints.com/signat ... nature=237

Erich Rudorffer - A Bf109 pilot escorting a damaged Hurricane home, and then two weeks later being escorted himself by an RAF pilot.

[alang]

It was Egon Myer who shot up Robert Johnson and he didn't escort him anywhere, he was shot down and killed ayear later by a P-47, poetic justice. Robert Johnson wrote the book "Thunderbolt" and relives it there. It is also featured on the the "Dogfight" TV series in CGI.

[bdsmith337]

Cnn had the story about Stigler posted just today.....
http://www.cnn.com/2013/03/09/living/hi ... ?hpt=hp_c1