The Red Baron

Are there any theories here on who killed Manfred von Richthofen?

I think his career is interesting to read about, considering his success rate and the fact that he was able to land his plane after being fatally shot.

 

I recall reading that he was actualy shot from the ground by a rifle?

 

You can read a little more about this subject here...The Red Knight

 

Thanks for posting the link.

I remember hearing it said that Billy Bishop had been the one to stop him, but I guess that theory is more prevalent in Owen Sound, Ontario, his home town.

 

Yep Ricardo, I think many Canadian students like yourself and myself are taught that Billy Bishop was the one to finally bring the Baron down. Whether this is true or not is another story. It's definitely assumed to be a fact in Owen Sound!

 

I think that I heard of hit before but I can’t figure it out where did I heard of the Red Baron before. Legend tells that he was one of the best pilots around. Is he really that good?

 

The death of Manfred von Richthofen or The Red Baron on 21st April 1918 is till now a controversy & confusion.Canadian,Australian & British servicemen all claimed to take the credit of firing the Richthofen's plane which caused his death.

 

Definitely hit from the ground. The single bullet came from the right side and entered Richthofens body on the right side of his torso.

Captain Roy Brown fired from above and left. Not possible for him to have brought The Baron down.

And Billy Bishop never made a claim. I've personally never heard that he had, and the post on this forum is the first time I've ever heard that anyone has ever suggested that he was the one that shot him down.

Brown was awarded the victory at the time because he was the only aircraft to actually get a shot at Richthofens machine. The Allied air force's wanted desperately to believe that Richthofens had been vanquished by another pilot. It was an exercise in wartime propaganda and morale boosting that has since been debunked by two authors, Norman Frank's and Alan Bennett in their book " The Red Barons Last Flight".

If you look hard enough, the internet also has Richthofens autopsy report which provides details on the wound that killed him, as well as the head wound he was still recovering from at the time of death.

The book fingers an Australian machine gunner, Cedric Bassett Popkin as the only candidate with the correct circumstances possible to have brought Richthofen down. There are other claimants that are rejected, including other Aussie machine gunners Buie and Stubbs, and a rifle platoon that did not have any rapid fire weapons.

The book also dismisses Roy Browns claim, and reveals that Brown himself put a question mark on his claim sheet. In addition, Captain Roy Brown post war did not actually claim to have brought Richthofens aircraft down publically even once, despite the media of the day putting words into his mouth in published interviews.

Roy Brown deserves credit not just for putting up with all the nonsense postwar, but for his own modesty in handling the whole affair in the manner that he did.

Neither Brown nor Richthofen were fit to fly that day. Both should have been grounded, Richthofen for his head wound and Brown for his stomach ulcer. In a later period both of them would have been declared unfit to fly, but this was the First World War, and such niceties of the airwar did not exist back then.

Bolshevik

 

No.

Manfred von Richthofen was still alive, enough to land his plane in a sugar beet field. An Australian officer was first on the scene and Manfred looked at him, uttered the single word "KAPUT", and died in front of the Australian.

The aircraft was stripped for souvenirs by Australian soldiers. Most of these pieces have been turned in to the national war museum in Canberra. The museum has also had its fair share of fake pieces donated as well, some of them very sophisticated. Other exhibits include Richthofens flying boots and jacket, as well as the twin machine guns taken from the aircraft.

Examination of the weapons reveals that one of the guns was "jammed" with what the authors describe as a "number 2 stoppage". Richthofens pursuit of Lt. "Wop" May was a classic case of " target fixation", and he went after May even on one gun, straying behind Allied lines in his determination to succeed. May followed Roy Browns instructions to the letter, which was to break for home as soon as he got into trouble, heading for the safety of his own lines, and giving Brown the opportunity to at least get a burst at Richthofens machine.

Richthofen was so intent on achieving kill number 81 that he kept up the pursuit long after it should have been abandoned.

 

There is also a soldier joke that The Baron's aircraft was actually brought down by the sheer weight of the souvenir plaques and memorabilia that many postwar people claimed to have been stripped from the wreckage.

Just a small bit of Australiana to amuse.

 

Just a small change.

The two machine gunners whose claims were rejected were called Buie and Evans.

Richthofens last words were not understood with the exception of the single word KAPUT.

The stripping of the wreckage no doubt added to the mystery for a long time as no examination of the bullet holes and damage to it was possible.

Billy Bishop had an encounter with Richthofens Jasta 11 way back in Richthofens career when Manfred was at kill number 30. Bishop received a decoration for his work that day, but certainly did not bring Richthofens career to an end.

The British offered a Victoria Cross to the man that could bring the Baron down. Brown was not awarded anything despite receiving initial credit for Richthofens "scalp", and Sgt. Cedric Popkin received precisely nothing at all despite general acknowledgement in this day and age that he was the man that brought Richthofens career to an end, proving that the British were either liars about the VC award or wanted to bestow the decoration on a PILOT ONLY, rather than a grubby PBI.

Richthofens head wound was described as having been received in a crash, but according to most sources I've read, it was the result of a lucky shot while Manfred was attacking a two- seater, a long range shot that grazed his head, causing more than one operation to remove bone fragments, and markedly changing his personality by all accounts. It could even have contributed to his poor decision making on April 21st, but I'm only guessing that.

Bolshevik

 

I want video reference!

 

Pics or it didn't happen!

 

I don't know how to post pictures. There are pictures of the wreckage, stripped down with Australian soldiers standing around it.

I'm sure if you look hard enough you can find them very easily. I just don't know how to post them.

You might even like to pick up a copy of the Franks/Bennett book. It's available on the internet. Many Australian libraries have copies. CAC can find one at Palmerston library where I borrowed mine from.

 

Uh, mate, it is a joke

 

Seems like pipe was pretty wanted as a smokibg tool?

 

Pipe, wherere is my pipe?