About this item
THE NEW YORK TIMES AND INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLERFour days before Christmas 1943, a badly damaged American bomber struggled to fly over wartime Germany. At its controls was a 21-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 in the squeeze of a trigger. What happened next would defy imagination and later be called the most incredible encounter between enemies in World War II.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.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 1,000 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 8th Air Force would later classify as "top secret." It was an act that Franz could never mention or else face 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.
About the Author
Larry Alexander is a journalist and military historian who has written a number of books about World War II, most notably about Easy Company of the 101st Airborne Division of the U.S. Army. Easy Company was made famous principally by Stephen Ambrose's book, Band of Brothers, and the television miniseries of that name. For over a decade, Alexander has been a columnist for the "Intelligencer Journal", a newspaper in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. His books include Biggest Brother: The Life of Major Dick Winters, the Man Who Led the Band of Brothers, In the Footsteps of the Band of Brothers: A Return to Easy Company's Battlefields with Sgt. Forrest Guth, and Shadows In The Jungle: The Alamo Scouts Behind Japanese Lines In World War II. Alexander participates in American Civil War re-enactments as "a living historian" with Company E of the 30th Pennsylvania Infantry, 1st Pennsylvania Reserves Civil War re-enactment unit. He has also participated in the making of the motion pictures, Gettysburg and God and Generals. Alexander was nominated for a Pulitizer Prize in 2005 and had won state-level journalism awards. He lives in Ephrata, Pa. with his wife, Barbara.
