Which German fighter pilot escorted a badly damaged enemy B-17 home?

The episode occurred on 20 December 1943, after a successful bombing raid on Bremen. The bomber had damaged internal oxygen, hydraulic and electrical systems, and had lost half its rudder and the port elevator. At the controls was Charles Lester Brown, a B-17 pilot with the 527th Bombardment Squadron.

Franz Stigler was a veteran Luftwaffe fighter pilot assigned to Jagdgeschwader 27. At the time he was an ace with 27 victories. Instead of attacking, he recalled the words of one of his commanders in JG 27, Gustav Rödel, during his combat service in North Africa: if he ever saw or heard of him firing on a man in a parachute, he would kill him himself.

Stigler then positioned himself alongside Brown's aircraft, in close formation off the bomber's port wing, so German anti-aircraft units would not treat it as a target, and escorted the damaged B-17 as it crossed the coast until they reached open water. Convinced that the bomber had already left German airspace, he broke away with a salute. Stigler later flew as a Messerschmitt Me 262 jet fighter pilot with Jagdverband 44 until the end of the war. Brown died on 24 November 2008, and Stigler on 22 March of that same year.