Death of the Red Baron

Shortly before noon on 21 April 1918 a red triplane crashed on a hill above the valley of the Somme, by the road from Bray to Corbie, north of the village of Vaux-sur-Somme. The Australian soldiers who ran up to it found a dead or dying pilot in the cockpit. He was Rittmeister Manfred von Richthofen, the most successful fighter pilot of the First World War, who the day before had scored his 79th and 80th victories. He was 25. German propaganda called him the “red battle flier”, after the colour of his aircraft, and the nickname “Red Baron”, under which he went down in history, became widespread mainly after the war.

The last flight

The front on the Somme was only just settling down after Operation “Michael”. The Germans stood less than twenty kilometres from Amiens, and a fierce struggle was going on in the air over the new lines. Jagdgeschwader 1, commanded by Richthofen, a wing of four fighter squadrons known to the Allies as the “Flying Circus”, was based at the airfield at Cappy on the Somme. On the morning of 21 April Richthofen took off on patrol, according to German accounts with nine other pilots, himself flying Fokker Dr.I number 425/17. A strong east wind was blowing, carrying the fighting aircraft over the Allied lines, although the wind there usually blew from the west.

Over the Somme valley the Germans clashed with Sopwith Camels of No. 209 Squadron, which for three weeks had belonged to the newly created RAF. A young Canadian lieutenant, Wilfrid “Wop” May, in his first real combat, attacked Richthofen’s equally inexperienced cousin Wolfram. Manfred went to his aid and drove May off, and then began to chase him westwards along the Somme, just above the ground. The flight commander, the Canadian Captain Arthur Roy Brown, dived after them and fired at the Fokker from long range. Richthofen evaded and went on chasing May, flying a few dozen metres above the Morlancourt ridge, straight over the positions of Australian troops, who fired at him with everything they had. At one point the triplane turned sharply, went into a steep dive and hit a field. The undercarriage broke and the fuel tank burst, but the machine did not burn. Souvenir hunters soon stripped it almost to the frame.

Who fired the shot

A single .303 rifle-calibre bullet entered the right side under the armpit and came out next to the left nipple, tearing the heart and lungs. With such a wound Richthofen could have survived a few dozen seconds at most. Some witnesses later claimed that he was still alive when they arrived and spoke one word, “kaputt”; others found him already dead. His nose and jaw were broken from striking the breeches of the machine guns.

The RAF officially credited Brown with the kill, but the Australians immediately claimed the victory as well. The doctors who examined the body noted that the bullet had come from the right and from below, while Brown had attacked from behind and from the left. Had he hit him, Richthofen could not have gone on chasing May for another minute or two. Today most researchers believe that the airman was killed by fire from the ground, although the dispute over who exactly fired the shot continues to this day. The name most often given is that of Sergeant Cedric Popkin of the Australian 24th Machine Gun Company, who fired at the Fokker with a Vickers twice, the second time from the right. According to other analyses the fatal shot may have come from the Lewis gun of Gunner William “Snowy” Evans of the 53rd Battery, Australian Field Artillery. His comrade from the same battery, Gunner Robert Buie, is regarded as the victor by the authorities of the Australian municipality of Hornsby, which in 2007 placed a plaque at his former home, although the evidence in his favour is the weakest.

Researchers also wonder why an experienced airman, who himself warned young pilots against pursuits low over enemy lines, broke this rule. Combat fatigue, target fixation, the strong wind, because of which he may not have noticed how deep over the enemy positions he had flown, and the effects of a serious head wound from July 1917 have all been suggested.

Funeral at Bertangles

The body was taken over by the nearest Allied air unit, No. 3 Squadron, Australian Flying Corps, whose commander, Major David Blake, organised a funeral with full military honours. On 22 April Richthofen was buried in the cemetery at Bertangles near Amiens. The coffin was carried by flying officers of the Australian squadron, and soldiers fired a volley of honour. The surrounding Allied squadrons sent wreaths, one of which bore the inscription: “To our gallant and worthy foe”. According to some accounts, the following night local French people tried to dig up the enemy’s grave. Soon afterwards a British aircraft dropped a message over a German airfield stating that Rittmeister Manfred von Richthofen had been killed in aerial combat on 21 April and buried with full military honours.

Ace of aces

Richthofen was born on 2 May 1892 in Kleinburg, today Borek, a district of Wrocław, into a Prussian noble family. As a young officer he served in the 1st Uhlan Regiment “Emperor Alexander III”, in a squadron stationed in Ostrowo, today Ostrów Wielkopolski. It was there too that his death certificate was found in an archive in 2009. At the start of the war he fought as a cavalryman; in May 1915 he transferred to aviation, first as an observer and, after a chance meeting with Oswald Boelcke, as a pilot. He scored his first confirmed victory on 17 September 1916 over Cambrai in Boelcke’s squadron, and on 23 November he shot down the British ace Lanoe Hawker. In January 1917, after his 16th victory, he received the Pour le Mérite and took command of Jasta 11. It was then that he had his aircraft painted red. In “Bloody April” 1917, during the Battle of Arras, his squadron inflicted terrible losses on the British.

In June 1917 he took command of the newly formed Jagdgeschwader 1. On 6 July, over Flanders, he suffered a serious head wound from which he never fully recovered. He suffered from headaches and nausea after flights, and those around him noticed a change in his temperament. In the same year his memoirs, Der rote Kampfflieger, were published, which further cemented the legend. His 80 victories are exceptionally well documented: most of them can be matched to losses recorded in British files. No other airman of the First World War had more officially credited.

National hero

For Germany the loss was not only a military one. Richthofen was a national hero, and his face was known from postcards and newspapers. The Vice-President of the Reichstag, Hermann Paasche, told the chamber that “our king of the air” had not returned from his last flight and that, although only a quarter of a century old, he had become a model for his army. In accordance with the written instruction Richthofen had left in case of his death, command of Jagdgeschwader 1 passed to Wilhelm Reinhard, until then commander of Jasta 6. German fighter aviation fought on, but in 1918 the Allies’ numerical superiority in the air grew with every month.

The grave at Bertangles was not the last. In the early 1920s the French moved the remains to the German military cemetery at Fricourt; in 1925 they were solemnly reburied in Berlin’s Invalids’ Cemetery, and in 1975 they were moved to the family grave in Wiesbaden.