I was creating an incident that would involve one of my characters. My hands paused over the keyboard as I said aloud, “What kind of airplane would he be flying? I better do some research.” I glanced at the clock on the wall – it read 11:45 a.m., so I said, “This won’t take long. I can knock it out quickly and still make my peanut butter and jalapeno sandwich for lunch.”

An alarm bell, police siren, or a submarine Klaxon should have sounded. At the very least the robot from Lost in Space should have yelled, “Danger, Will Robinson! Danger!” Instead, I found myself distracted – falling and crawling through the dreaded Research Rabbit Hole.

I was only looking for a German fighter plane used during World War 2. That should be simple, right? Aaahhh, wrong, but thank you for playing.

I found fifteen different models of German fighters, five interceptors, and twenty-seven reconnaissance, not counting maritime patrol planes or fighter bombers. I needed something a bit more specific, so I went down a side tunnel in the rabbit hole and began researching each of those German planes. Each of those forty-plus planes had positives and negatives for the scenario I was weaving, as well as individual rabbit holes. Did I explore the information on this plane became a too familiar thought in my mind. One rabbit hole led back to another I had already crawled through. I was getting a bit confused and disoriented in all the data until I read about the Messerschmitt Bf 109. The Bf 109 was the key airplane in the Luftwaffe’s fighter force. Just what I needed!

A little red light should have flashed in the back of my head. I should have exited all that data and gone back to what I was writing with the Bf 109 ready to play a new part in my story. But I clicked on one more Internet research link. I read the story of 20 December 1943 after a bombing raid over Bremen, Germany, and the extraordinary meeting of 2nd Lt. Charles “Charlie” Brown, USAAF, and Oberleutnant Franz Stigler, Luftwaffe.

Brown was attempting to maintain control of a severely damaged B-17 Flying Fortress with many of his crew either dead or injured, too injured to bail out. He was doing everything possible to get his plane and crew back to RAF Seething, the home base of the 448th Bomb Group. He prayed the plane would not sustain any more gunfire from the German fighters that had swirled around him like flies at a picnic. Engines overheated or shut down. Parts fell off as what was left of the plane shook everything and everyone. Then terror gripped Brown when he spotted a Bf 109 alongside. 

Oberleutnant Franz Stigler easily saw the damage to the bomber’s bullet-ridden airframe and the injured crew. Instead of firing on the crippled bomber, he escorted the B-17 across the coast and sent him home. Later Stigler said, “I saw them and I couldn’t shoot them down.” [Chivalry Today post on May 1, 2004]

There is much more to this extraordinary story, but you must search for it yourself. It’s in a rabbit hole that will give you pause to reflect on what you think you know. Find it – it is worth your time.

I dumped my original idea for the incident and used a version of this real story to become an integral part of one of my novels.

Oh, I almost forgot. When I finished capturing this new idea, I looked up at the clock on the wall. It was 2:06 p.m. Perhaps being distracted and falling down rabbit holes is not always such a bad thing.