They must have seen the bomber - part of the U.S. Mercifully, though, he realised as he coaxed the massive plane along at 135mph, barely above its stalling speed, the German fighters had disappeared. But that would mean leaving an unconscious man behind to die alone, and Brown refused to do that. He and the crew would parachute to safety, prisoners of war but alive.
If common sense prevailed, he would order everyone to bail out and leave the B-17 Flying Fortress to its fate. Returning from a daylight bombing run to Bremen, he had manoeuvred the plane magnificently through a pack of Messerschmitt fighters, taken hit after hit, then spiralled five miles down through the air, belching smoke and flames, in an apparent death dive before somehow levelling her out less than 2,000ft from the ground. Somehow the pilot, 20-year-old Lt Charlie Brown, still clung to the controls - and the last vestiges of hope. The nose cone had been blown out and a 200mph gale hurtled through the fuselage. The rear gunner’s body hung lifeless in his shattered turret, another gunner was unconscious and bleeding heavily, the rest of the ten-man crew battered, wounded and in shock.
Holed all over by flak and bullets and down to a single good engine, it struggled simply to stay in the air over Germany, let alone make it the 300 miles back to England. The lone Allied bomber was a sitting duck. The Daily Mail tells us about it better than I ever could: It really is one of the most amazing true stories I have ever read. Maybe others feel like me and that is why the Art of Manliness featured Adam Makos, the writer of ‘A Higher Call’ in a recent podcast with a fuller story about the book on their blog.Īlison, my wife, knowing how much I love inspirational stories, borrowed the book from the local library over the holiday period. War stories have always caught my attention, especially manly acts of courage and chivalry.
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