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

A Higher Call is built around the tension between the brutal realities of total war and the fragile persistence of personal honor and compassion. Makos uses Stigler’s choice to spare a crippled B-17 as the central moral axis of the book, presenting it not as a simple act of kindness but as a profound assertion of humanity in a system designed to crush it. In December 1943, with the Knight’s Cross tantalizingly within reach, Stigler approaches Brown’s shattered bomber and instead of finishing it off, refuses to fire, escorting it through flak batteries before saluting and turning away. This act is set against a backdrop of escalating violence, propaganda-driven kill counts, and Nazi demands for absolute destruction of the enemy.

Makos reinforces the significance of this choice by tracing Stigler’s professional education in North Africa under Gustav Roedel, whose blunt code of honor is encapsulated when he warns, “If I ever see or hear of you shooting at a man in a parachute,” Roedel said, “I will shoot you down myself” (47). This line distills the ethos that pilots are meant to remain knights of the air despite the war’s growing savagery.