Firefighting has, at its most basic level, a moral philosophy, a code. Firefighting’s code, like other social services, has to do with the results of human behavior, the frailty of the human condition, and our efforts to improve it and our responses to it. As such, our firefighting code must begin with a statement about human nature. And, although there are many opinions about what is natural, we cannot deny that all people have a nature, a nature defined by a set of virtues and principles that guide us about what we are willing to do and, for firefighters, lays out clearly what it is we must do ethically and morally.
A fundamental virtue for firefighters is the virtue of fairness. Fairness was described by Aristotle when discussing distributive justice. He said, “What is just is what is proportionate.” It is easy to describe fairness when we are talking about wages and gains; it is more difficult when we are talking about fairness and character. Firefighters learn from the lessons of others who acted virtuously. Such a display of character, of the virtue of fairness, occurred on December 20, 1943, and is described in beautiful detail in the book A Higher Call. It happened in the skies above occupied France involving the rookie crew of a B-17 and a German ace.
Here is the thumbnail version:
It was their first flight because they were the rookie crew. They were assigned to fly on the Purple Heart corner, the lowest spot in the formation, the most dangerous spot. The Germans always attacked those planes first; they were very easy targets. Thirty miles from the target, the sky started to fill with antiaircraft fire, and bomber after bomber was struck. The rookies’ plane was struck, and a piece of flak sheared away a huge swath of the bomber’s Plexiglas nose, allowing subzero wind to rush into the plane, freezing everything in its path including the B-17’s guns. After dropping their bombs, the rookies were swarmed by German fighters who tore the plane apart, killed the tail gunner and the radio man, and wounded two others.
In a final act of desperation, the pilot tried a dive, flipping the plane upside down to try to throw off the fighters orbiting above him. The maneuver worked; now a mere few hundred feet above the ground, they limped toward the French coast. The crew was aware that the Germans had fortified the coastline against an air and sea attack. However, the wall was not their greatest danger; it was a German pilot below them.
On the ground was German fighter pilot Franz Stigler, an ace many times over. Drafted into the military, Franz was an ordinary German soldier, not a Nazi. Franz was a drafted German flying to defend his country. His first assignment had been in Africa, where he learned the aviator’s code. Shortly after he arrived, his captain sat him down and explained “the code.” He said, “Here, we live by a code; every time you go up, you will be outnumbered; those odds may make a man want to fight dirty to survive. But let what I am about to say to you act as a warning: Honor is everything here. What will you do, Stigler, for instance, if you find your enemy floating in a parachute?”
His officer continued, “If I ever hear of you shooting at a man in a parachute, I will shoot you down myself. You follow the rules of war for you, not for your enemy. You fight by the rules to keep your humanity.”
Franz had lived by those rules throughout the war. Then he heard the B-17’s weak engines.
He climbed into his plane; in less than a minute, he was in the air. Franz decided to attack from behind. He waited for the tailgunner to fire, but nothing happened. He knew intuitively that this situation was different; he could see the tailgunner hunched over his guns, his blood streaming down the barrels of his guns. Every foot of this bomber had holes where bullets entered and flaked away the body of the B-17. He could see the crew huddled over one another, caring for their wounded. He recognized the B-17 was defenseless. Franz knew that the French coast and its deadly guns were just a few miles ahead. He knew that the soldiers would be running to man their guns and blast this bomber from the sky. He remembered his code and drew his 109 alongside the cockpit of the wounded B-17 and mouthed the word “Sweden.” Sweden was neutral and it was closer, but the Americans thought he was trying to get them to surrender.
Franz made the conscious decision to stay on their wing, protecting these fellow warriors from the ground guns that they were most assuredly now over. On the ground, the confused gunners, seeing the B-17 and 109 flying wing tip to wing tip, assumed the B-17 was captured and never fired. Ten miles out over the English Channel, Franz said a silent prayer; saluted his fellow pilots; and turned his 109 back toward France, where he knew the Gestapo would have him court-martialed and executed.
Fairness. Codes. A virtue and a principle that saved the lives of seven airmen that day. Firefighters have a chance to practice fairness every day. We live by a code, we respond to every call regardless of what neighborhood they came from, regardless of who made the call. We respond to every call and honor and respect everyone’s humanity equally. We respond to every call and treat everyone there with the same dignity and respect, whether they be criminal or victim, whether they be abusive or grateful, whether they be threatening or compliant. We treat everyone fairly. We live by a code.
Behavior Is the Truth
Ego, Honor, and Dueling
Honor Ante Omnia, No One Left Behind
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