![]() ![]() This is the true story of the two pilots whose lives collided in the skies that day-the American-2nd Lieutenant Charlie Brown, a former farm boy from West Virginia who came to captain a B-17-and the German-2nd Lieutenant Franz Stigler, a former airline pilot from Bavaria who sought to avoid fighting in World War II.Ī Higher Call follows both Charlie and Franz’s harrowing missions. What happened next would defy imagination and later be called the most incredible encounter between enemies in World War II. Worse, the German pilot was an ace, a man able to destroy the American bomber in the squeeze of a trigger. Suddenly, a sleek, dark shape pulled up on the bomber’s tail-a German Messerschmitt fighter. Despite massive advances, Hitler's plan to conquer the Soviet Union before winter had failed, at great cost, and that failure would prove to be a turning point in the war.Four days before Christmas 1943, a badly damaged American bomber struggled to fly over wartime Germany. More than 800,000 Soviets had been killed, and an additional 6 million Soviet soldiers had been wounded or captured. By the end of this, one of the largest, deadliest military operations in history, Germany had suffered some 775,000 casualties. But, when the notorious Russian winter (nicknamed "General Winter") set in, German advances came to a halt. By December of 1941, German troops were within sight of Moscow, and they laid siege to the city. ![]() Within a single week, German forces advanced 200 miles into Soviet territory, destroyed nearly 4,000 aircraft, and killed, captured, or wounded some 600,000 Red Army troops. ![]() Even so, the Soviets were unprepared for the sudden blitzkreig attacks across a border that spanned nearly 2,900 km (1,800 mi), and they suffered horrible losses. Although Germany had signed a non-aggression pact with the USSR in 1939, both sides remained suspicious of one another, and the agreement merely gave them more time to prepare for a probable war. Hitler had long had his eye on Soviet resources. On June 22, 1941, Nazi Germany and its Axis allies began a massive invasion of the Soviet Union named Operation Barbarossa - some 4.5 million troops launched a surprise attack deployed from German-controlled Poland, Finland, and Romania. ![]()
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