A Higher Call: An Incredible True Story of Combat and Chivalry in the War-Torn Skies of World War II

Early in September 1942, Franz Stigler returns to his hometown near Amberg for an eight-week leave after a year in North Africa. Proudly wearing his desert cuff title, he visits the local pub but is abruptly slapped and chased out by the brewmaster’s daughter; at home he learns his mother has fended off a crowd of former admirers by falsely announcing he was married. While Franz tries to relax, newspaper headlines bring steady bad news: JG 27 aces Günther Steinhausen and Hans-Arnold Stahlschmitt are killed, and on 30 September the celebrated Hans-Joachim Marseille dies in a bailout accident. As Rommel’s forces stall at El Alamein and Allied strength grows, orders arrive that JG 27 is withdrawing from Africa—Franz is not to return.

Over family dinners with his father and Father Josef, both former WW I airmen, they conclude Germany’s fate was sealed when Hitler opened a two-front war against the Soviet Union. Yet they advise Franz that duty remains: he is, above all, a German fighter pilot, and—paradoxically—Germans “fight their best when they’re losing.”

In April 1943 Staffel-Führer Franz Stigler rejoins II./JG 27 on Sicily, trading the desert’s sand for Trapani’s olive groves but flying the troublesome new Bf-109 G-4 “Gustav.” Still wary after Hans-Joachim Marseille’s fatal engine failure, Franz insists his own Yellow 2 runs hot while ground crew work under the trees. A midday alarm ends the test: 26 American B-17s—part of Operation Flax—bomb Trapani, torching eight parked fighters. Without an airworthy machine, Franz rides out the raid in an empty slit-latrine; miraculously, Yellow 2 survives intact.

That evening, he and his young friend Lt. Willi Kientsch drive to Mount Erice, where Group Commander Gustav Roedel runs “the Knights of Sicily” from a cave beneath the medieval Venus Castle. Three days later the pair scramble too late to save Palermo but spot the B-17 “herd” west of Marettimo Island. Their tail attacks fail—none of the bombers fall—yet moments later, they tangle with ten P-38 “Fork-Tailed Devils.” Willi claims two and Franz cripples one, watching its pilot drift alone in a life-raft before turning home. Amid dead comrades and escalating Allied strength, the Sicilian front already feels precarious.

Late-April 1943 places Franz Stigler and Lt. Willi Kientsch in the widening Mediterranean crisis. Summoned to General Adolf Galland’s seaside headquarters near Trapani, they, Group-Commander Gustav Roedel and Colonel Günther Lützow explain why recent interceptor sorties have failed against American B-17 “Four Motors.” Galland—at odds with Reichsmarschall Göring—demands new, aggressive head-on tactics; the session ends amicably, bonding ace to junior pilots.

Meanwhile, Sicily’s air defense crumbles. Battered remnants of JG 77 arrive from Tunisia with mechanics crammed into fighter fuselages; Steinhoff’s desperate evacuation underscores Africa’s loss. A week later, Operation Flax claims most of Squadron 6 during a night rescue mission to Pantelleria. Stigler’s bullet-riddled Messerschmitt ditches at sea, and he reaches shore by raft. Only Kientsch survives among the other ten pilots. Still recovering, Stigler faces Gestapo questioning—triggered by his late brother’s suspected ties to Catholic resistance—until Steinhoff intervenes.

By early June, Allied air superiority forces Axis withdrawals: Trapani burns, Pantelleria surrenders, and JG 27’s exhausted men hand their few Bf-109s to JG 53 before boarding trains north. News of Hamburg’s fire-storm raids reveals the war’s new reality: Their next battles will be fought over German soil itself.

In August 1943, Franz Stigler returns to Amberg on leave, greeting a war-weary mother and learning that Gestapo scrutiny stems from his deceased brother August’s links to Catholic resistance. Anna insists August still chose his path, prompting Franz to weigh individual agency against the regime’s demands.

Reassigned to JG 27’s 6th Squadron at Wiesbaden, Franz reunites with friend-turned-commanding officer Willi Kientsch. The unit’s newest mascot—a 300-pound black bear named Bobbi, gifted from the Berlin Zoo—becomes comic relief: Stigler moves the animal into his apartment and smuggles him to the town pool for sweltering-summer swims, delighting locals and pilots alike. Meanwhile the men adjust to sleek Bf-109 G-6 “Bulge” fighters and a new operational rhythm: daily high-altitude climbs to intercept Allied heavy bombers now striking Germany directly.

Off duty, camaraderie, beer, and Bobbi temporarily mask dread; on duty, the mission feels essential yet daunting. Stigler senses the war’s stakes have shifted—Hamburg’s recent fire-storm raids confirm the homeland itself is the battlefield—and the pilot dimly apprehends that defending the Reich may soon demand choices every bit as personal as those that haunted his brother.