A Higher Call by Adam Makos

A Higher Call by Adam Makos

Four days before Christmas in 1943, a badly damaged American bomber struggled to fly over wartime Germany. At its controls was a twenty-one-year-old pilot. Half his crew lay wounded or dead. It was their first mission. Suddenly a sleek, dark shape 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 with the squeeze of a trigger. What happened next would defy imagination and later be called the most incredible encounter between enemies in World War I. This is the true story of the two pilots whose lives collided in the skies that day--the American--Second Lieutenant Charlie Brown, a former farm boy from West Virginia who came to captain a B-17--and the German--Second Lieutenant Franz Stigler, a former airline pilot from Bavaria who sought to avoid fighting in World War I. A Higher Call follows both Charlie and Franz's harrowing missions. Charlie would 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 enemy fighters that would circle his plane like sharks. Franz would face sandstorms in the desert, a crash alone at sea, and the spectacle of one thousand bombers, each with eleven guns, waiting for his attack.Ultimately, Charlie and Franz would stare across the frozen skies at one another. What happened between them, the American Eighth Air Force would later classify as top secret. It was an act that Franz could never mention without facing a firing squad. It was the encounter that would haunt both Charlie and Franz for forty years until, as old men, they would search for one another, a last mission that could change their lives forever.

Well worth reading.. A Higher Call pounds along with the all-action rhythm its genre seems to demand, but still manages to rescue the idea of German chivalry from cliché... A Higher Call is deeply felt by its author and deeply affecting to read. Apparently humans react more sentimentally to films and books consumed on aeroplanes than on the ground. I read this at 30,000ft... but I suspect it would have ambushed my emotions anywhere. -- Giles Whittle * The Times *
A truly awe inspiring story of wartime chivalry -- Tony Rennell * Daily Mail *
A riveting story of humanity and mercy set against the ghastly backdrop of war * Publishers Weekly *
A remarkable story... Brown and Stigler, former enemies who became friends, died within months of each other in 2008. Their story is worth retelling and celebrating. * USA Today *

Adam Makos is a journalist, historian and editor of the military magazine, Valor. Makos has interviewed countless veterans from the Second World War, Korea, Vietnam, and present-day wars. In 2008 Makos travelled to Iraq to accompany the 101st Airborne and Army Special Forces on their hunt for Al Qaeda terrorists.

Larry Alexander is the author of the New York Times bestselling biography Biggest Brother: The Life of Major Dick Winters, the Man Who Led the Band of Brothers. He is also the author of Shadows In the Jungle: The Alamo Scouts Behind Japanese Lines in World War II and In the Footsteps of the Band of Brothers: A Return to Easy Company's Battlefields With Sgt. Forrest Guth.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781782392569
ISBN 10	1782392564
Title	A Higher Call
Author	Adam Makos
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Atlantic Books
Year published	2014-04-03
Number of pages	400
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.