▶ Dogfight: The Mystery of the Red Baron

northeastern France April 20th 1918 the skies above the Western Front are an arena of ferocious dog fighting to mean allied and Germany among the players in this aerial jewel is the legendary German ace Manfred von Richthofen the red banner von Richthofen z' distinctive red Fokker triplane is seen raking through the psalm Valley in its sights to british Sopwith camels first one then the second are swiftly eliminated by the deadly assassin they at the 79th and 80th kills of his career now Kaiser Wilhelm is being pressed by the Barons mother to withdraw his highest-scoring fighter pilot from the frontline in two days time Manfred von Richthofen is due to go home on leave but faithfully he has one more day of flying combat a day that will end in mystery controversy and death in March 1918 the Germans launched the Ludendorff offensive their final effort to end the war German troops and supplies pour into the valley of the soul to counter British and Australian troops dig in on the high ground of the Mullen College in vital support both sides use reconnaissance aircraft to spot but the enemy is doing and both sides fly fighter squadrons to protect their reconnaissance missions one fighter squadron is the famed Flying Circus commanded by Manfred von Richthofen it is brought up to the front RAF two or nine squadron is one of its pilots is a Canadian captain Roy brown the stage is set for the aerial arms race of the First World War to climax in one fatal shooting Manfred von Richthofen was born into minor Prussian nobility his father was a cavalry officer young man ffred inherited the hunters appetite and instinct he had a very happy youth he was athletic he was strong he was joyful and he very much liked the shooting riding swimming or what young boys do his destiny was certain he would join the Imperial German army and his athleticism and horsemanship led him inexorably into the cavalry when the Great War began the traditional rule for cavalry was reconnaissance but a new war demanded new tactics stalemate across entrenched positions and miles of barbed wire and petered the movement of horse aircraft took on the vital role of spotting enemy trenches artillery positions and troop movements they became the eyes and ears of battle there were scouting pilots and of course there was some reticence from high command especially from the old cavalry officers that that aircraft would be any of any use whatsoever and they were very much seen as something experimental something fancy and we'll stick with the tradition thank you very much little more than glorified kites the early reconnaissance aircraft but fragile underpowered and unarmed carrying only their service revolvers pilots took to the skies the eerie alarms race was about to begin as they tended to meet aircraft in the air more often these pilots and observers decided to take upon themselves to to have a pop as a soldier it was a natural thing to do to try and shoot at your enemy who after all is the opposing side and you are supposed to be killing stranded in the cavalry von Richthofen became hit by the exploits of the new Knights of the air young men taken to the skies to gather vital information for the ground forces below he got bored and he wanted to have a more exciting role in this war and he thought to be trained as a pilot would take much too long time he wanted to have it now and therefore he was quite happy going in reconnaissance and bomber flights as a companion but not as a pilot von Richtofen transferred to the German air service and by May 1915 was travelling to Cologne to join an observer flight training program it was a shock I sat in an airplane for the first time a blast of wind the propeller disturbed me greatly everything flew away from my flying jacket slipped off my muffler too loose in short I was miserable it was a non promising debut but von Richthofen continued his training but his hunter's instinct he knew that control of the skies would depend on good marksmanship for both sides protecting your own and preventing enemy reconnaissance no became a frantic race to get the machine gun into the air the major challenge was really to get enough power out of the aircraft if you put a machine gun on it you lost perhaps a thousand feet in height sin in working height because of the extra weight and that could be a matter of life or death if the enemy pilot could get above you it was quickly realized that he had the advantage a handful of young ambitious pilots on both sides were now beginning to experiment one of the innovators was Royal Flying Corps captain Lenore Hawker in the spring of 1915 he mounted a Lewis gun on his bristol scout Lord was difficult to aim off to one side of the propeller hawker successfully shot down two german aircraft and forced another to land Hawker had fired the first salvo in an arms race that would soon pit him against von Richtofen in a mortal duel despite hawkers efforts most pilots and designers agreed that the attack was to aim head-on at the enemy but theory was easier than practice we had to devise some means of firing a gun through the rotating propeller rigidly fixed in airplane so it could be steered by steering the airplane and of course the big problem was propeller avoidance the breakthrough came in the spring of 1915 with a young French aviator named Roland garrus garrus had learned to fly in 1909 and his skill in the air had won him a string of pioneering air races when war broke out he was sent as a test pilot to the aircraft designer Raymond song yay Sonia was experimenting with a synchronization device that would allow a gun to fire through a rotating propeller not is it but song-yi was failing instead he tried an alternative solution attaching metal deflector wedges to the propeller blades of his marine aircraft the idea being that when the machine gun fired if a bullet hit the steel wedge it would be deflected away from the wooden propeller sometimes it split the bullet sometimes it came back at you so this was gutsy stuff in February 1915 Garrus intercepted a German reconnaissance aerial within seconds he sent it burning to the ground the kill was followed by a run of victories roland-garros became the first fighter ace Garros and absolutely confounded the Germans at this airplane coming towards them with the rotating propeller he thought they were perfectly safe and suddenly it started spouting bullets so there was confusion in the ranks garrison Yves Minh twas short lived over enemy lines he suffered engine failure and was forced to land his capture aircraft with its deflector blades were sent to a young Dutch designer on the German payroll Anthony Fokker unwittingly Garris had handed the Germans the advantage Fokker realized the steel wedges were dangerous what was needed was a mechanism linking the revolution of the propeller to the firing of the gun in a matter of days Fokker came up with his so-called interrupter gear an engine-driven system which would only release a bullet from the gun when it would miss the propeller blades for his German paymaster's Fokker had delivered the holy grail of the early air war a synchronized forward firing machine gun you could put the line of the gun close to the line of the airplane directly in the pilots eye view so in the act of pointing is airplane at the target he was effectively looking straight down the line of his gun by the autumn of 1915 the German air force have the upper hand with their synchronized front firing the fast fokker eindecker x' were coming on stream an ambitious young pilots were learning how to use them two of the deadliest were max Immelman and osman polka polka and Immelman did begin to learn the language of aerial warfare the aircraft wasn't that good but it was reasonably maneuverable reasonably fast and best of all it was great at diving and and that was what they actually used to devise some of the early fighter tactics or struck by the young german aces Manfred von Richthofen was still stuck as a gunner into an engine bombers but he wanted to become an aerial fighter like poker a chance encounter was about to change his life on October the 1st 1915 Manfred von Richthofen met by chance his idol the indica fighter ace Oswald Baca among ass polka was the only one who'd shot down an enemy airman I asked tell me honestly how do you really do it to which he laughed and replied good heavens it is indeed quite simple I fly in as close as I can take good aim shoot and then he falls down Godric often saw his destiny while von Richtofen learned to fly well colleague max Immelman were inventing fighter tactics preying on the connoisseurship pulling steeply out of an attacking dive Immelman would start a loop and stall turn his aircraft to begin a second attack his audacious maneuver the Immelman turn passed into flying full-floor not to be outdone volka wrote a tactical rulebook that became the Bible for fighter pilots right into the Second World War try to place yourself between the Sun and the enemy attack when the enemy least expects it never turn your back and try to run foolish acts of bravery only bring death Belka was really the father of aerial tactics the early years of the air war were the era of the lone hunters you had aces in particular who would go up hide in clouds look for a lone victim pounds try and take them by surprise and shoot them down slow two-seater reconnaissance aircraft like the be2c were particularly vulnerable beware of the Hun in the Sun the British really had a problem on their hands they were being shot down to such an extent actually that the pilots would calling themselves Fokker fodder it was having an effect on morale and we really needed to come up with some idea how to tackle this the British tried to respond Brigadier General Hugh Trenchard commander of the Royal Flying Corps issued an order on the 16th of January 1916 until the RFC are in possession of a machine as good as or better than the German Fokker it must be a hard and fast rule that a machine proceeding on reconnaissance must be escorted by at least three other fighting machines these machines must fly in close formation people realize that they had to work greater safety in numbers give the Allies a chance but more aircraft in the skies brought an escalation of aerial combat or dogfighting one rule really which is to kill the other guy before he can kill you and if you can see him before he can see you then that's 90 percent of the battle over the first half of 1916 witnessed the German offensive of Verdun then the Allied counter-offensive of the psalm epic unrelenting slaughter that would haunt a generation in the skies above Manfred von Richthofen cut his teeth as a pilot flying support sorties first in a two-seater then a nine Decker he was maybe not a talented flyer from the outset he failed his first flying exam but he was very quick in grasping the essentials and learned and enjoyed it he once said it's wonderful to hunt from the air the Allies were delivering new dedicated fighter squadrons to the front the dh2 our so-called pusher aircraft had the engine behind the pilot and a forward machine gun it was fast and highly maneuverable the Allies finally had a match for the German ein Decker's the point was nailed home in June when dogfighting with D h2s max Immelman was killed as the battle of the somme raged below with aerial reconnaissance more vital than ever the British finally delivered their own synchronised forward file the seesaw of aerial advantage had swung firmly back to the Allies in 1916 the British situation was radically transformed by two things one the arrival of new and better aircraft the dh2 the fe to be and the Sopwith one the half Strutter so they had better planes they also got a lot of them and numbers are strength and as a result the Allies had an almost complete mastery of the air the Germans were on the defensive and needed a new plan all eyes turned to their top ace Oswald Booker people like Belka had the idea of forming dedicated fighter groups they so called justice with the best pilots and the best machine which would go off and hunt the Allied aircraft and could be concentrated on particular sectors of the front so that even if the Germans were outnumbered overall at the key point in the key times they might have at these numerical parity if not sometimes superiority Valka hand-picked his pilots one was the young man he'd inspire to become a fighter pilot Manfred von Richthofen bulker drilled his new protegees with his tactical principles his gesture to squadron quickly notched up victory upon victory to von Richtofen volka became a mentor Bilka was looking for aggressive capable pilots with the the killer instinct that really characterizes all successful fighter pilots they needed to have the situational awareness to know what was going on around them in a dogfight they needed to have good marksmanship all those things I think he saw particularly the marksmanship and the ruthlessness in von Richtofen towards the end of 1916 the new justice were gaining the initiative when Volker took charge of the fast heavily armed new albatross fighter in September german air supremacy was regained Valka doubled his score in the autumn to 40 victories but ironically have a height of his success he was killed in a mid-air collision his successor was then shot down by the British ace Llano Hawker the leadership vacuum was quickly filled by the rising star Manfred von Richthofen in just two months with just a - he had notched up his first 10 kills now as its temporary leader he took off in search of hawkers dh2 squadron hell-bent on revenge the dh2 is incredibly maneuverable and awkwardly very talented Richthofen had the advantage of speed and armament so what then happened was a deadly game of tail chasing both of us flying like madmen in a circle first left then right I was acutely aware that I was not dealing with a beginner finally escaped by flying in a zigzag course that gave me my chance you my opponent fell shocked through the head a mere 150 feet behind our line another few minutes and he might have escaped here Manfred really found somebody who was matching him and he was the lucky one because in the end he could bring him down but he really respected his competence and talent hawker the daring british pioneer was buried beside the wreckage of his aircraft he was born Richthofen s-- xi kill a legend was in the making on the 10th of January 1917 Manfred von Richthofen was appointed leader of his own Justice Squadron number 11 fast gaining a fearsome reputation the new commander painted his albatross right read the legend of the Red Baron was born you needed to recognize each other and it's from that that you start getting aircraft being painted either in squadron colors or in individual colors and for if doping to actually paint his aircraft completely red it did become a talisman throughout the spring of 1917 the German Justice wreaked havoc allied reconnaissance an air support for the Auris offensive below was annihilated in the skies in the first week of April the Royal Flying Corps lost 75 aircraft nicknamed bloody April the air war had become a particularly nasty business teenage RFC pilots were arriving at the front often with as little as 18 hours flying time they learned fast or died the life expectancy of a new pilot in 1917 was a matter of weeks man for man the proportion of those killed in action in the skies exceeded even the carnage in the trenches balloon the whole month down 362 allied airplanes Richtofen and his men and japs in other units they created havoc at Alice and April 17 the offline core never had such serious losses it was the worst month of the war for them in bloody April allied losses in the skies outnumber the Germans by four to one von Richter burns personal tally was now 52 kills he had overtaken his mentor Booker and was now the leading ace of the war it wasn't a game for Richthofen of sentiment it was a matter of killing of protecting his comrades on the ground that's what he was doing it for the British of course most of them hated him because he was good at his job and that the popular idea of him being a cold-blooded killer who was cowardly and not accepting straight fights but hiding behind his wingman that that's an unfortunate inability to understand the reason why he was there and the nature of war he didn't mind having a kill which was completely defenseless indeed he preferred it he would tend to avoid combat where he perceived any risk but he would go in when he thought he was able to achieve his kill he would go in very very close and he would fill the enemy with lead the Allies were suffering the greater losses but they managed to deliver new and successful aircraft to the front the se5a was fast and climbed quickly the Sopwith Camel was well-armed and maneuverable and the versatile two-seater Bristol could hold its own as a fighter they all came on stream in the summer of 1917 these aircraft were almost as good if not better than the Germans there was an essential parity of technology in this car one British aircraft may have done something slightly better than another German aircraft but it was swings and roundabouts from that time on the war in the air was more about numbers numbers would hit Germany hard the Allied naval blockade was hurting unable to replace aircraft as quickly as as opponents von Richthofen responded by combining justice squadrons into ever larger units mobile hunting squadrons that could be packed up and redeployed proved extremely effective the famed Flying Circus the Germans also had one final ace up their sleeve Anthony Fokker the designer had been working on a revolutionary new fighter aircraft the dr1 triplane in August 1917 he personally delivered it to von Richthofen it had tremendous advantages in maneuverability and von Richtofen would have liked it for that because he was able to fly it to its limit and make almost certain but nobody could ever get on his tail as the war entered its fourth year the arms race for aerial supremacy and von Richthofen skill as a pilot had reached their Zenith war had turned fragile flying machines into high-powered heavily armed fighter aircraft and the skies above the Western Front had become the stage for the daily dance of death this is the era of the dogfight and some pilots said actually by 1918 if they weren't 60 aircraft involved you couldn't call it a dogfight great swirling beehive of activity and danger in a box of air a mile square quite extraordinary sight to see now after the United States entry into the war there were American pilots two flying British and French aircraft Germany realized at the weight of American involvement would soon be decisive with Britain and France would be defeated no time to lose general Ludendorff's final offensive began in March 1918 to protect German reconnaissance and intercept British operations von Richthofen Flying Circus was ordered to copy airfield in the sole value they were soon in action but on Saturday April the 20th von Richthofen scored his 79th and 80th kills shooting down two Sopwith camels pressed by the Barons mother Kaiser Wilhelm now prepared to withdraw the hero of the German air service from the front billeted here are the small chateau at cappy von Richtofen was just two days from taking his leave but faithfully he has one more day a flying combat the morning of Sunday the 21st of April 1918 was not unusual except that the wind which normally blew west to east turned east to west at oh nine forty five hours the Baron took off at the head of a formation of nine Fokker dr1 s a little after 10:40 the squadron's bought five sopwith camel fighters coming up from the south we turn to face them as the fighters come together at 10,000 feet two pilots one German one allied are under strict instructions to remain above the frame von Richthofen is babysitting his young cousin Wolfram likewise Wilfred may a new recruit from Canada has been ordered by captain Roy brown not to engage the enemy as the main fighter Rose may ease as away as instructed but when he sees a tantalizingly close the adrenaline takes hold and he decides to attack the pilot is bought from vaudeville toy the danger is quickly seen by the hawkish eye of the Red Baron for Wilford May the site of the infamous red triplane is too much and he disengages from the fight sensing his 85th victory von Richtofen dives to get behind me looks like one of our fights inside a Giri triplane you can t really love get on the planet several live witnesses on the ground spot first one aircraft and then another dive out to the clouds a moment later a third aircraft has seemed to leave the fight it's captain Brown giving chase to protect his inexperienced recruit Andriy Kobin misjudges his opponent speed run ends up some way behind to catch up he tricks me taking aim with the right machine gun Mazin experience shows zigzagging he deprives the camel of its greatest virtue speed desperate as one ritalin closes in May drops lower and lower in Assam canal more verbose ouessem the convoy narrowly avoids disaster with the village church von Richthofen again takes aim with the right hand machine gun and fires but the gun jams and may is reproved now deep into allied territory ground Gunners are trying to get a red triplane in their sights closing in from the southeast to make his attack captain Brown is pushing his aircraft to its limit ahead the river Somme turned sharply to the south pillow the steep block the moorland Coral Ridge may climbs the ridge fearing at any moment to lead from the Barrens guns von Richtofen closest for a kill but now as the two aircraft climb the ridge captain Brown unleashes a long burst of fire from the southeast towards the tail of the triplane y'all got a masseuse a man gets out of the way we'll be okay on the back slope of the ridge Gunners booyah Nevins also left with with our Lewis machine gun and just below the crest of the ridge sergeant Popkin who has been following the fight swing mrs. Vickers machine gun into action the red triplane breaks sharply northeast stalls and has seemed to stagger to the ground and a few bothersome Colette brickworks Manfred von Richthofen the greatest ace of World War one is dead shot through the chest by a single 303 bullet why did Germany's master tactician break the rules pursuing his quarry deep into enemy territory and who really fired the fatal shot that brought him down why did Manfred von Richthofen break the rules and allow himself to become isolated deep and low in enemy territory there was a crucial factor that the wind had changed direction instead of the normal West East it had turned east to west and it carried von Richthofen over the allowed lines far more quickly than he anticipated it's very easy to get incredibly disorientated when you're that low down because all your landmarks have gone you can't see that village you can't see that church spire you can't see that enemy battery over there von Richtofen is at fault in not watching back in care of his own security as he usually did it's a case of target fixation and he's got he's got tunnel vision focused exclusively on his target Manfred of course while human being and human being is not with heart faults and yes he disobeyed his own rules for reasons which we do not know which we cannot pursue nowadays but he did and he paid it with his life von Richtofen uncharacteristic errors have perplexed scholars but above all controversy continues over who brought him down the kill was officially credited to captain Roy brown of ref2 or nine squadron but was it truly bronze bullets which ended the Baron's life von Richtofen body was taken to Pilar Ville where several medical examinations were carried out they showed that he had been mortally wounded by a single 303 bullet that entered below the right armpit had passed through the chest emerging just below the left nipple the puzzle was that both Allied aircraft and ground Gunners used the same 303 ammunition the direction distance and timing of this fatal shot were vital clues that had never been satisfactorily explored starting from the medical reports author and aviation historian Norman Franks has been reinvestigating the mystery once we looked at the pathology interviewed two or three eminent pathologists and they said that the sort of wound that he would have suffered would have given him no more than 12 to 20 seconds of life once he was hit just enough to get down I've spoken I've asked a few pilots about this there was that were there and one in particular Rudolf stock of Bavarian he was flying that morning and he reckons that Richtofen was still alive when he landed because he said the triplane was so touchy to fly it was absolutely impossible for it to land smoothly on its own we wounded had von Richthofen wrestled his aircraft safely to the ground eighty years after the event this question was finally answered by startling new piece of evidence a letter which arrived at London's Imperial War Museum here was a letter sent in by mr. Tonko as telling us about a trip to France by him and his father in the in the early 1970s son didn't really know anything about the First World War he was just taking his dad back to the battlefields and they went to the mall encorage and suddenly the story came out that his father had actually been in the Royal Artillery in a forward observation post with his officer and had watched the whole of the Richtofen brown dog fight and it seemed wrist opens aircraft come down my father's officer sent my father down to take the pilot prisoner which my father did my father was the first man to the aircraft and the pilot tried to say something in German to my father the pilot then sighed and died this added a whole new dimension to the final moments of Rick's tomans life and been confirmed like the aircraft came down intact it was practically flying down Richtofen was still alive which nobody didn't known about before with von Richthofen alive on the ground the shooter must have fired at him just twenty seconds before he landed was captain Braun close enough to have made the kill a second new piece of evidence now emerged it was a large collection of Correspondence from the 1930s between a former World War 2 RAF officer John Coleman and surviving witnesses of the Baron's last flight it had lain quietly undisturbed for 60 years well I found very quickly was it almost none of the original contributors to the Coleman Papers had in fact been contacted by later authors and therefore it was very fresh and very rewarding to look at it in the collection was a letter from an Australian engineer called Derbyshire who was watching the action from the Somme canal crucially he was in a position to see both von Richthofen and captain Braun know this the acid test I turned to look at the two leading planes just going over the ridge heard a burst of gunfire and the [ __ ] stopped in its stride and did the first half of a loop then straightened out and fluttered down out of sight as if doing a pancake landing by this time the third plane was just approaching the ridge I was amazed later to hear that the Hun was brought down by a plane as the chaser was not firing at the time the Germans stopped derbyshire statement was a vital clue he saw the triplane coming back over the ridge rear up and then crunched down in a forced landing that to us indicated when he was hit which was way past brown's attack allegedly captain Bryan was pressed into claiming the victory despite the fact that his own combat report was ambiguous as to whether he had made the final kill when Colton contacted him in the 1930s he continued to evade the questions protecting a reputation the perhaps he did not deserve there's no point by making any statement when official records are in existence who did fire the fatal shot from ballistics tests we can evaluate the behavior of a bullet fired from different ranges 3 2 1 when a human body is hit there's an explosive effect called hydrostatic shock the closer the range the greater the wound damage if the bullet had struck von Richtofen at close range I would have expected a more explosive type wound now the evidence is that the wounds were actually probed by the the medical staff after he'd been shot down and they were actually able to follow the bullet path through the body a low damage low velocity here would indicate a long-range shot moreover the 303 bullet that killed one was found the fact that the bullet was found intact inside the clothing of Rito Fran is another indicator that it was a long-range shot and I would say that would be probably 600 yards plus y'all got him soon as a man gets out of Hawaii we'll be ok on the reverse slope of the Moreland corage Australian Connors buoy and Evans were in range I could have hit on Rick Tobin some twenty or thirty seconds before he is known to have died when Colburn wrote to them in the 1930s they remained convinced he was their kill but von Richthofen was hit below the right armpit Bowie and Evans were firing face on to the triplane they could not have hit him from the right-hand side so we asked our gun expert what do we need to look at he said have you got somebody who knows what they're doing six hundred yards away and he's firing at Vaughn Rico burns right side we said yes he said there's your man perched on the slope sergeant Cedric Popkin 24th machine gun company had failed to hit von Richthofen as the chase hurtled towards the ridge but he had swung his Vickers 180 degrees in case the red triplane reappeared he was in luck in our view and final analysis the best candidate for bringing down von Richtofen was surging Popkin Australian sergeant machine gunner Manfred von Richthofen was buried by the Allies on the 22nd of April 1918 with full military honors it is very sad and ironic that he was killed at the height of his competence and success on the other hand he would not have survived as a kind of symbol for chivalrous warfare and as he has in being killed Manfred von Richthofen was revered not only because his 80 victories accounted for more enemy aircraft than any other fighter pilot and world war but because his life and death became a symbol of the aerial arms race of the great war in four years aerial combat had evolved from an amateurish sport to a deadly efficient killing operation but now the new evidence about bond refrence death reveals an extraordinary irony the Red Baron never did lose a dogfight he was killed in action by an old-fashioned gun from the ground

Channel: Spuds McHaggis

Views: 280,031

Keywords: Manfred Von Richthofen (Military Person), Dogfight, WW1, German, Flying, Red, Plane, War, Air, Germany (Country), Aviation (Industry), Soldier (Profession), Airplane, Ace, Fighter Ace, Ariel dogfights, Red Baron, Aircraft, Bi planes, Airforce

Id: Yom0SjBN9wg

Length: 45min 57sec (2757 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 25 2014