Four days before Christmas 1943, a badly damaged American bomber struggled tofly over wartime Germany. At its controls was a 21-year-old pilot. Half hiscrew lay wounded or dead. It was their first mission. Suddenly, a sleek, darkshape pulled up on the bomber’s tail—a German Messerschmitt fighter. Worse,the German pilot was an ace, a man able to destroy the American bomber in thesqueeze of a trigger. What happened next would defy imagination and later becalled _the most incredible encounter between enemies in World War II._This is the true story of the two pilots whose lives collided in the skiesthat day—the American—2nd Lieutenant Charlie Brown, a former farm boy fromWest Virginia who came to captain a B-17—and the German—2nd Lieutenant FranzStigler, a former airline pilot from Bavaria who sought to avoid fighting inWorld War II._A Higher Call_ follows both Charlie and Franz’s harrowing missions. Charliewould face takeoffs in English fog over the flaming wreckage of his buddies’planes, flak bursts so close they would light his cockpit, and packs of enemyfighters that would circle his plane like sharks. Franz would face sandstormsin the desert, a crash alone at sea, and the spectacle of 1,000 bombers eachwith eleven guns, waiting for his attack. Ultimately, Charlie and Franz wouldstare across the frozen skies at one another. What happened between them, theAmerican 8th Air Force would later classify as “top secret.” It was an actthat Franz could never mention or else face a firing squad. It was theencounter that would haunt both Charlie and Franz for forty years until, asold men, they would search for one another, a last mission that could changetheir lives forever.words : 124512