Lieutenant-General Gerhard "Gerd" Barkhorn (20 March 1919 – 8 January 1983) was the second most successful fighter ace of all time after fellow Luftwaffe pilot Erich Hartmann. Barkhorn joined the Luftwaffe in 1937 and completed his training in 1939.

Barkhorn flew his first combat missions in May 1940, during the Battle of France and then the Battle of Britain without scoring a kill. His first victory came in July 1941 and his total rose steadily against Soviet opposition. In March 1944 he was awarded the third highest decoration in the Wehrmacht when he received the Knight's Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords (Ritterkreuz mit Eichenlaub und Schwertern) for 250 aerial victories. Despite being the second highest scoring pilot in aviation history, Barkhorn was not awarded the Diamonds to his Knight's Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords after achieving his 300th victory on 5 January 1945.

Barkhorn flew 1,104 combat sorties and was credited with 301 victories on the Eastern Front against the Soviet Red Air Force piloting the Messerschmitt Bf 109 and Focke-Wulf Fw 190D-9. He flew with the famed Jagdgeschwader 52 (JG 52—Fighter Wing 52), alongside fellow aces Hartmann and Günther Rall, and Jagdgeschwader 2 (JG 2). Less than two weeks later he left JG 52 on the Eastern Front and joined Jagdgeschwader 3 (JG 3), defending Germany from Western Allied air attack.

This article covers the 20 December 1943 incident between Charles Brown and his Allied aircrew and German fighter pilot Franz Stigler, whereby instead of shooting down Brown's crippled bomber, Stigler took a humanitarian stance and escorted the bomber to safety. The matter came to renewed light following media attention in the 1990s.

Charlie Brown was an American military pilot with United States Army Air Corps who was stationed in RAF Kimbolton, Great Britain and assigned to bomb targets in Nazi Germany. Franz Stigler was a veteran Luftwaffe fighter pilot with 28 kills.

On December 20, 1943, Brown was ordered to fly his B-17 Flying Fortress to bomb an aircraft factory near Bremen. After dropping the bombs, Brown's plane was attacked by eight German planes and anti-aircraft fire from the ground. His plane soon sustained heavy damage, and most of its crew members were wounded. Three of the plane's four engines were destroyed or damaged. Brown believed that his gunners destroyed two enemy planes, but after that he blacked out and remembered waking up as the plane was flying low over a German airfield.