Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Aces High General Discussion => Topic started by: hornet36 on June 19, 2009, 06:53:21 PM
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-- quite a story.
Look carefully at the B-17 and note how shot up it is - one engine dead, tail, horizontal stabilizer and nose shot up.. It was ready to fall out of the sky. (This is a painting done by an artist from the description of both pilots many years later.) Then realize that there is a German ME-109 fighter flying next to it. Now read the story below. I think you'll be surprised.....
Charlie Brown was a B-17 Flying Fortress pilot with the 379th Bomber Group at Kimbolton, England. His B-17 was called 'Ye Old Pub' and was in a terrible state, having been hit by flak and fighters. The compass was damaged and they were flying deeper over enemy territory instead of heading home to Kimbolton.
After flying the B-17 over an enemy airfield, a German pilot named Franz Steigler was ordered to take off and shoot down the B-17. When he got near the B-17, he could not believe his eyes. In his words, he 'had never seen a plane in such a bad state'. The tail and rear section was severely damaged, and the tail gunner wounded. The top gunner was all over the top of the fuselage. The nose was smashed and there were holes everywhere.
Despite having ammunition, Franz flew to the side of the B-17 and looked at Charlie Brown, the pilot. Brown was scared and struggling to control his damaged and blood-stained plane.
BF-109 pilot Franz Stigler B-17 pilot Charlie Brown..
Aware that they had no idea where they were going, Franz waved at Charlie to turn 180 degrees. Franz escorted and guided the stricken plane to, and slightly over, the North Sea towards England. He then saluted Charlie Brown and turned away, back to Europe. When Franz landed he told the CO that the plane had been shot down over the sea, and never told the truth to anybody. Charlie Brown and the remains of his crew told all at their briefing, but were ordered never to talk about it.
More than 40 years later, Charlie Brown wanted to find the Luftwaffe pilot who saved the crew. After years of research, Franz was found. He had never talked about the incident, not even at post-war reunions.
They met in the USA at a 379th Bomber Group reunion, together with 25 people who are alive now - all because Franz never fired his guns that day.
(L-R) German Ace Franz Stigler, artist Ernie Boyett, and B-17 pilot Charlie Brown.
When asked why he didn’t shoot them down, Stigler later said, “I didn’t have the heart to finish those brave men. I flew beside them for a long time. They were trying desperately to get home and I was going to let them do that. I could not have shot at them. It would have been the same as shooting at a man in a parachute.”
Both men died in 2008.
This is a true story http://www.snopes.com/military/charliebrown.asp
THIS WAS BACK IN THE DAYS WHEN THERE WAS HONOR IN BEING A WARRIOR...THEY PROUDLY WORE UNIFORMS, AND THEY DIDN'T HIDE IN AMBUSH INSIDE A MOSQUE, OR BEHIND WOMEN AND CHILDREN, NOR DID THEY USE MENTALLY RETARDED WOMEN AS SUICIDE BOMBERS TO TARGET AND KILL INNOCENT CIVILIANS...HOW TIMES HAVE CHANGED......
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YOU"RE RIGHT WE SHOULD NEUTRON BOMB ALL THOSE DIRTY TERRORISTS.
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Great story, no need to soil it with politics.
Guerrilla warfare has been around for thousands years BTW, and is one of the reasons for American Independence.
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That is a great war story. <S>
To a small extent actions like this come along once in a great while in this game.
(Not that theres any real comparison.....)
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WOW! Had never heard that one. Thanks for sharing.
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Great story, no need to soil it with politics.
Guerrilla warfare has been around for thousands years BTW, and is one of the reasons for American Independence.
Agreed. It's a fairly well known story.
If you believe what you wrote as your commentary afterwards, I'd suggest some serious history study.
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Yeah its a fantastic story :salute
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THIS WAS BACK IN THE DAYS WHEN THERE WAS HONOR IN BEING A WARRIOR...THEY PROUDLY WORE UNIFORMS, AND THEY DIDN'T HIDE IN AMBUSH INSIDE A MOSQUE, OR BEHIND WOMEN AND CHILDREN, NOR DID THEY USE MENTALLY RETARDED WOMEN AS SUICIDE BOMBERS TO TARGET AND KILL INNOCENT CIVILIANS...HOW TIMES HAVE CHANGED......
Why would desecrate a good story with this BS? You shame the two gentlemen you speak of, by including that BS.
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Why would desecrate a good story with this BS? You shame the two gentlemen you speak of, by including that BS.
+1
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Why would desecrate a good story with this BS? You shame the two gentlemen you speak of, by including that BS.
Plus 1
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Great story thanks for sharing. :salute
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THIS WAS BACK IN THE DAYS WHEN THERE WAS HONOR IN BEING A WARRIOR...THEY PROUDLY WORE UNIFORMS, AND THEY DIDN'T HIDE IN AMBUSH INSIDE A MOSQUE, OR BEHIND WOMEN AND CHILDREN, NOR DID THEY USE MENTALLY RETARDED WOMEN AS SUICIDE BOMBERS TO TARGET AND KILL INNOCENT CIVILIANS...HOW TIMES HAVE CHANGED......
just a copy and paste...don't shoot the messenger... ;)
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this isn't the place to copy and paste it, you might want to delete it.
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THIS WAS BACK IN THE DAYS WHEN THERE WAS HONOR IN BEING A WARRIOR...THEY PROUDLY WORE UNIFORMS, AND THEY DIDN'T HIDE IN AMBUSH INSIDE A MOSQUE, OR BEHIND WOMEN AND CHILDREN, NOR DID THEY USE MENTALLY RETARDED WOMEN AS SUICIDE BOMBERS TO TARGET AND KILL INNOCENT CIVILIANS...HOW TIMES HAVE CHANGED......
just a copy and paste...don't shoot the messenger... ;)
Wink at someone else. You took the time to "snopes" it. To think you're even a CM and posting that crap.
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Agreed. It's a fairly well known story.
If you believe what you wrote as your commentary afterwards, I'd suggest some serious history study.
I'll ask you what the military tactics were in the Revolutionary War? What point of his are you disputing?
Revolutionary War, the British believed it to be "honorable" to line up in nice tight rows in front of each other and shoot for three or four hours, whoever was left standing won.
Americans, the savages we were, decided that standing behind walls and trees that stopped those pesky bullets, and shooting at the nicely lined up European ranks.... (then run when they got too close), was more our style. This is true small unit guerrilla warfare, versus a larger, more powerful/ less mobile enemy.
As far as his history, maybe it is you that should study. This style of war fighting has been around since B.C.
Since Classical Antiquity, when many strategies and tactics were used to fight foreign occupation that anticipated the modern guerrilla. An early example was the hit-and-run tactics employed by the nomadic Scythians of Central Asia against Darius the Great's Persian Achaemenid Empire and later against Alexander the Great's Macedonian Empire. The Fabian strategy applied by the Roman Republic against Hannibal in the Second Punic War could be considered another early example of guerrilla tactics: After witnessing several disastrous defeats, assassinations and raiding parties, the Romans set aside the typical military doctrine of crushing the enemy in a single battle and initiated a successful, albeit unpopular, war of attrition against the Carthaginians that lasted for 14 years. In expanding their own Empire, the Romans encountered numerous examples of guerrilla resistance to their legions as well.[2] The success of Judas Maccabeus in his rebellion against Seleucid rule was at least partly due to his mastery of irregular warfare.
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I'll ask you what the military tactics were in the Revolutionary War? What point of his are you disputing?
I think the second part of his post was directed at hornet, at least that's how I took it.
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I'll ask you what the military tactics were in the Revolutionary War? What point of his are you disputing?
Revolutionary War, the British believed it to be "honorable" to line up in nice tight rows in front of each other and shoot for three or four hours, whoever was left standing won.
Americans, the savages we were, decided that standing behind walls and trees that stopped those pesky bullets, and shooting at the nicely lined up European ranks.... (then run when they got too close), was more our style. This is true small unit guerrilla warfare, versus a larger, more powerful/ less mobile enemy.
As far as his history, maybe it is you that should study. This style of war fighting has been around since B.C.
Well thank God you were here to clear things up for us.
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I'll ask you what the military tactics were in the Revolutionary War? What point of his are you disputing?
Revolutionary War, the British believed it to be "honorable" to line up in nice tight rows in front of each other and shoot for three or four hours, whoever was left standing won.
Americans, the savages we were, decided that standing behind walls and trees that stopped those pesky bullets, and shooting at the nicely lined up European ranks.... (then run when they got too close), was more our style. This is true small unit guerrilla warfare, versus a larger, more powerful/ less mobile enemy.
As far as his history, maybe it is you that should study. This style of war fighting has been around since B.C.
Kids, this is what humping manatee's will do to your brain.
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Haven't seen a post declaring that the Revolutionary War WASN'T guerrilla warfare other than "Hurr durr, you're stoopid."
I happen to agree with MORAY. Though it doesn't matter much as this will probably be locked. Or at least moved to where it belongs.
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I'll ask you what the military tactics were in the Revolutionary War? What point of his are you disputing?
Revolutionary War, the British believed it to be "honorable" to line up in nice tight rows in front of each other and shoot for three or four hours, whoever was left standing won.
Americans, the savages we were, decided that standing behind walls and trees that stopped those pesky bullets, and shooting at the nicely lined up European ranks.... (then run when they got too close), was more our style. This is true small unit guerrilla warfare, versus a larger, more powerful/ less mobile enemy.
As far as his history, maybe it is you that should study. This style of war fighting has been around since B.C.
I'll stack my history background up against most folks :)
That being said, you clearly misunderstood my comment in response to the CAPs comment in Hornet's post. I agree with what you are saying, which is my point. Wars have fought down and dirty in forever, which is what you are saying. To suggest that somehow wars were more honorable in another time is just silly. Nothing honorable about 250,000 casualties at the Somme because the generals tried to fight machine guns in an 'honorable' way by sending their troops walking nicely into the guns. Nothing honorable about Guernica, London, Berlin, Dresden, Tokyo etc. Talk to any of the guys at Normandy, Iwo or you name it and there is nothing honorable going on.
War is a savage business no matter how nicely you try and dress it up. We tend to forget it after a while and have to learn it all over again sad to say.
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The "honorable" war hornet so praises involved the mass slaughter of civilians on a scale never seen before, a slaughter done by German, Japanese, Russian, British and American forces. Many heinious things have been done in the past, are done now and willl be done in the future. They are not OK, but the "golden age" reward looking crap is just that, crap. What happened in the past does not excuse what happens now and what happens now does not excuse what happened in the past.
Just don't pretend that there was a time and place where people were nice and cuddly as there wasn't.
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Hurr Dhurr, I can't read. :lol
(post deleted)
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The "honorable" war hornet so praises also included the Holocost, Hiroshima and Nagasaki among others. An honorable time indeed. :confused:
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Kids, this is what humping manatee's will do to your brain.
Exactly what is that, masher? The ability to think and reason effectively? Are you required, at this point, to post a reply after every one of mine at this point? The past ten threads, there you are, attempting some sort of repartee. You're starting to try too hard, and going back to old material. Give it a rest, it's old. It was amusing, the first few threads, but you can't keep up.
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Exactly what is that, masher? The ability to think and reason effectively? Are you required, at this point, to post a reply after every one of mine at this point? The past ten threads, there you are, attempting some sort of repartee. You're starting to try too hard, and going back to old material. Give it a rest, it's old. It was amusing, the first few threads, but you can't keep up.
It's not my fault you misunderstood CAP1's post, that fact rests on yourself. That was the first time I typed it on this Forum. :rock
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Great story, ruined by the last paragraph. :rolleyes:
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It's not my fault you misunderstood CAP1's post, that fact rests on yourself. That was the first time I typed it on this Forum. :rock
Apparently I did, since he had directly quoted the previous poster.
At no point did he say "no, I mean the idiot that posted the crap at the bottom". I admit I simply thought he disagreed with guerrilla warfare being around for thousands of years, which is what the quote was in reference to.
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War is a savage business no matter how nicely you try and dress it up. We tend to forget it after a while and have to learn it all over again sad to say.
Theres a very good quote from a song I like by a band called Runrig. It simply says 'The answers in teh History books are slowly burning down'
I find that theres many ways of reading those words, and none of them make you feel happy about it because its so true. :(
Mankind just wont learn from its Mistakes.
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Haven't seen a post declaring that the Revolutionary War WASN'T guerrilla warfare other than "Hurr durr, you're stoopid."
I happen to agree with MORAY. Though it doesn't matter much as this will probably be locked. Or at least moved to where it belongs.
The Revolutionary War WASN'T guerilla warfare. In fact, I'll bet you can't name one battle that was won by the guerilla tactics you speak of.
In fact, it's pretty hard to find many battles that WERE won by the Americans. Two, however, were critical, Saratoga and Yorktown. Both were fought conventionally by conventional forces on both sides.
The clever-colonists-hiding-behind-trees thing is a myth, perhaps based on the retreat of the British from Concord on 4/19/75, but otherwise completely false.
- oldman
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The Revolutionary War WASN'T guerilla warfare. In fact, I'll bet you can't name one battle that was won by the guerilla tactics you speak of.
- oldman
I would consider the attack on Trenton, kind of a guerrila attack.
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I would consider the attack on Trenton, kind of a guerrila attack.
Why?
- oldman
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I would consider the attack on Trenton, kind of a guerrila attack.
Not really TJ.
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I'll stack my history background up against most folks :)
That being said, you clearly misunderstood my comment in response to the CAPs comment in Hornet's post. I agree with what you are saying, which is my point. Wars have fought down and dirty in forever, which is what you are saying. To suggest that somehow wars were more honorable in another time is just silly. Nothing honorable about 250,000 casualties at the Somme because the generals tried to fight machine guns in an 'honorable' way by sending their troops walking nicely into the guns. Nothing honorable about Guernica, London, Berlin, Dresden, Tokyo etc. Talk to any of the guys at Normandy, Iwo or you name it and there is nothing honorable going on.
War is a savage business no matter how nicely you try and dress it up. We tend to forget it after a while and have to learn it all over again sad to say.
The reason that Dan knows so much about history and is almost always right is because............ He is old enough to have been there! :x
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The reason that Dan knows so much about history and is almost always right is because............ He is old enough to have been there! :x
:rock :rofl :uhoh :noid
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Not really TJ.
It definately wasn't traditional line up and shoot-at-each-other. I'll just leave it at a surprise attack, for lack of a better term. :salute
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It definately wasn't traditional line up and shoot-at-each-other. I'll just leave it at a surprise attack, for lack of a better term. :salute
Best way to put it TJ.
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The reason that Dan knows so much about history and is almost always right is because............ He is old enough to have been there! :x
No, it is because Dan has interviewed Silat. That guy is so old, he was determined too old for service when he tried to enlist during the Revolutionary War.
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Amazing story thanks for sharing. :salute