A Higher Call: An Incredible True Story of Combat and Chivalry in the War

The international bestseller. Praised as “beautifully told” (CNN), “a remarkable story… worth retelling and celebrating” (USA Today), and “a good one” (Fox News), this New York Times bestseller reveals an extraordinary tale of humanity forged in the darkest hours of the Second World War.

In December 1943, a severely damaged American B-17 bomber limps across the skies of wartime Germany. At the controls is twenty-one-year-old Second Lieutenant Charlie Brown, flying his very first combat mission with half his crew dead or critically wounded. As the crippled aircraft struggles to stay aloft, a Messerschmitt fighter suddenly rises to its tail. At its controls is veteran German ace Franz Stigler—one squeeze of the trigger would finish the American crew.

What follows is an encounter so improbable that it would later be described as “the most incredible meeting between enemies in World War II.” The U.S. Eighth Air Force classified the incident as top secret, while Stigler himself dared not speak of it, knowing that revealing the truth could have led to a firing squad.

For decades, the moment haunted both men—until, in old age, they set out on parallel searches to find one another. Their reunion, forty years later, became the final mission that changed both their lives forever.