The Messerschmitt Me 262 Schwalbe ("Swallow") was the world's first operational jet-powered fighter aircraft. Design work started before World War II began but engine problems prevented the aircraft from attaining operational status with the Luftwaffe until mid-1944. Compared with Allied fighters of its day, including the jet-powered Gloster Meteor, it was much faster and better armed. One of the most advanced aviation designs in operational use during World War II, the Me 262 was used in a variety of roles, including light bomber, reconnaissance and even experimental night fighter versions. Me 262 pilots claimed a total of 542 Allied kills (although higher claims are sometimes made) against the loss of about 100 Me 262s.^{[citation needed]} The Allies countered its potential effectiveness in the air by relentlessly attacking the aircraft on the ground and while they were taking off or landing. Maintenance problems and a lack of fuel during the deteriorating late-war situation also reduced the effectiveness of the aircraft as a fighting force. In the end, the Me 262 had a negligible impact on the course of the war due to its late introduction and the small numbers that were deployed in operational service.

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.