# Charlie Brown (pilot)

Charles Lester "Charlie" Brown (October 24, 1922 – November 24, 2008) was a United States Army Air Forces pilot during World War II. He became well known for being the pilot of the B-17F Flying Fortress named Ye Olde Pub which was involved in the Charlie Brown and Franz Stigler incident.

## Early life

Born on October 24, 1922, in Weston, West Virginia as the youngest of six children to a family of farmers, Charlie was interested in flying planes from an early age. In 1939, he enlisted in the U.S. Army. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, he would join the United States Army Air Forces in 1942.

## Military service

After completing flight training and becoming a pilot, Brown was assigned to the 527th Bomb Squadron of the 379th Bomb Group. On 20 December 1943, at the age of 21, he was sent on his first mission when he flew the Ye Olde Pub over Bremen, Germany. Although the bombing mission of a Fw 190 Factory was considered successful, the Ye Olde Pub had sustained damage to two of its engines during the bombing run, leaving it unable to keep up with the bomber formation and the protection it provided. After various attacks from Bf 109s and Fw 190s, the Ye Olde Pub was left without oxygen, working hydraulics, and electrical systems. Another engine had also suffered damage and failed, and the tail gunner had been killed. Brown lost consciousness due to lack of oxygen, and when he regained consciousness, the bomber was at an extremely low attitude of 1,000 meters. Brown rejected bailing out as an option due to some of the crew members being wounded and unable to bail out, and they continued to fly back to their home base, RAF Kimbolton.
Brown's damaged, straggling bomber was spotted by Germans on the ground, including Franz Stigler (then an ace with 27 victories), who was refueling and rearming at an airfield. He soon took off in his Messerschmitt Bf 109 G-6 (which had an American .50 BMG bullet embedded in its radiator, risking the engine overheating) and quickly caught up with Brown's plane. Through openings torn in the damaged bomber's airframe by flak and machine gun fire, Stigler was able to see the injured and incapacitated crew. Brown noticed the Bf 109 to his right. To the American pilot's surprise, the German did not open fire on the crippled bomber. Stigler instead recalled the words of one of his commanding officers from JG 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 myself." Stigler later commented, "To me, it was just like they were in a parachute. I saw them and I couldn't shoot them down."
Twice Stigler tried to persuade Brown to land his plane at a German airfield and surrender, or divert to nearby neutral Sweden, where he and his crew would receive medical treatment and be interned for the remainder of the war. However Brown and the crew of the B-17 did not understand what Stigler was trying to mouth and gesture to them, and so flew on. Stigler later told Brown he was trying to get them to fly to Sweden. He then flew near Brown's plane in close formation on the bomber's port side wing, so that German anti-aircraft units would not target it, and escorted the damaged B-17 across the coast until they reached open water. Brown, still unsure of Stigler's intentions, ordered his dorsal turret gunner to target his guns on Stigler but not open fire, to warn him off. Understanding the message and certain that the bomber was finally out of German airspace, Stigler departed with a salute.

## Later life

After the German pilot spared his life, he made it his mission to find out who it was, and he would eventually meet Franz Stigler in the 1990s and they would remain close friends until Stigler's death in March 2008. He was a scientist and inventor in his later life and received the Air Force Cross and Purple Heart. He lived in Miami from 1972 until his death on November 24, 2008, at the age of 86.