Red Baron

Discovery Channel - Unsolved History: Death of the Red Baron
Unsolved History is history the way it was! Through detailed examination of archeological and forensic evidence, existing photographs, artifact examination, and carefully selected interviews from eyewitnesses and experts - events are reconstructed and historical questions are finally answered. Manfred von Richthofen, known to the world as "The Red Baron," was the greatest flying ace of World War I - and still to this day revered as the most famous and skilled pilot the world has ever known. He sent scores of Allied flyers down in flames throughout the war, but he was not invincible. Richthofen was shot down over a French field on the morning of April 21, 1918, killed by a single bullet that passed clear through his heart. Who shot The Red Baron? Was it Canadian pilot Roy Brown, who had been on his tail just a minute or so before the Baron's red triplane crashed? Was it one of the Australian gunners firing at the plane skimming just a couple of hundred feet above them? Or, was it another unsung Allied hero? To this day, it's been a mystery from history. But now, with the latest techniques in ballistic analysis, microscopic forensics, computer flight simulators and high-powered laser range findings, learn the truth behind what happened on the final flight of the Kaiser's finest air warrior."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAktSWz55zY

Images:
1. The funeral of Manfred von Richthofen. April 22, 1918, No.3 Squadron lays to rest an old adversary, at Bertangles Cemetery, France..
2. Baron Manfred von Richthofen takes off in his all-red D.III (distinguished from D.II by V-form interplane struts and from D.V by squared rudder).
3. photo of ‘The Fed Baron’ landing his Fokker DL1 triplane
4. Baron Manfred von Ricthofen wearing fur boots to keep his feet warm in flight

Background from {[ https://net.lib.byu.edu/~rdh7/wwi/comment/richt.htm]}
The Death of Manfred von Richthofen:
Who fired the fatal shot?

by Dr M. Geoffrey Miller
First published in "Sabretache", the Journal and Proceedings of the Military History Society of Australia, Vol. XXXIX, No. 2, June 1998, and © 1998, M. Geoffrey Miller
________________________________________
It is now eighty years since Baron Manfred von Richthofen, Germany’s greatest WW1 fighter pilot, was shot down and killed over the Australian lines in the Western Front in France on 21 April 1918.
Captain Brown, a Canadian pilot in the Royal Flying Corps, flying a Sopwith Camel single seat fighter, was known to have attacked von Richthofen and he was officially credited with shooting him down, eventually receiving a bar to his DSC for the feat. Brown’s claim to have shot down von Richthofen was immediately contested by the Australians because von Richthofen had flown at a very low height directly over their lines and had been fired on by Australian anti-aircraft machine gunners, as well as by many Australian soldiers.
The controversy as to who was responsible for shooting down von Richthofen has continued over the years. C E W Bean, the author of the Official History of Australia in the War of 1914 to 1918, carried out considerable research into the death and devoted an Appendix, in Volume V of the Official History, published in 1935, to describe the circumstances in detail (1). Bean was of the opinion that Sergeant Popkin, an Australian Vickers machine gunner, was responsible for shooting down von Richthofen and that Captain Brown had not fired the fatal shot.
There have been many books and articles published since then on the subject of who was responsible for shooting down von Richthofen. Most authors agree that it was an Australian, but disagree as to his identity, however Markham, (2) as late as 1993, did not consider that any Australian was responsible and wrote an article re-attributing the death of von Richthofen to Captain Brown.
This present paper will refer in particular to two books. DaleTitler (3) published a book agreeing that Australian machine gunners were responsible but considered that Gunner Robert Buie, firing a Lewis gun, shot down the German triplane. Carisella and Ryan (4) disagreed with Titler, and supported Bean’s opinion that it was Sergeant Popkin who was responsible.
Although the various authors have drawn different conclusions about who was responsible for Richthofen’s death, it is apparent that all previous accounts of the postmortem examinations made on Manfred von Richthofen have been taken from Bean’s account in Volume V of his Official History. It must be emphasised that Bean did not quote the reports in their entirety but left out some of the original text of the reports. The original complete reports are in the Richthofen section of the Bean Papers (the Bean Papers) held in the research section of the Australian War Memorial (AWM) in Canberra (5) and a consideration of these throws important new light on the controversy. There is also an unpublished letter from Popkin to Bean in the papers, clarifying an original newspaper report about Popkin that has been used by Titler and Carisella and Ryan in their books and by Markham in his article.
Using these primary sources in the Australian War Memorial, wherever possible, a critical analysis of the postmortem examination and a reconstruction of the probable events of 21 April 1918 has been made.
The Postmortem Examination
The details of the postmortem examinations of von Richthofen’s body are more than a little confused. Referring to the contradictory medical examinations made on the body of von Richthofen, Newton (6), in 1986, wrote:
The different conclusions reached in the two medical reports were to start a controversy which, to date, has never been unquestionably resolved. Who fired the fatal shot? Did it come from the air or the ground?
However a careful assessment of the documents in the Bean Papers seems to clarify the confusion.
It is accepted that Manfred von Richthofen was flying an all red Fokker triplane when he crashed in the Somme Valley near Corbie on the 21 April 1918. His body was taken to a hangar belonging to the No. 3 Squadron, Australian Flying Corps at Poulainville, where an examination of the body was held. The body was washed by an orderly and the first superficial postmortem examination was made by a panel of doctors. According to Bean (7), the panel consisted of Colonel T Sinclair, consulting surgeon to the Fourth army, Captain G C Graham, RAMC and Lieutenant G E Downs, RAMC, attached to the Air Force. Newton, however, refers to the presence also of Colonel J A Dixon, consulting physician to the British Fourth Army.
Colonel Sinclair’s report is in the Richthofen file of the Bean papers at the AWM and is as follows:
Copy extract from A.H.File No. 21/13/506
In the Field
22nd April 1918
We have made a surface examination of Captain Baron von Richthofen and find that there are only the entrance and exit wounds of one rifle bullet on the trunk. The entrance wound is on the right side about the level of the ninth-rib, which is fractured, just in front of the posterior axillary line. The bullet appears to have passed obliquely backwards through the chest striking the spinal column , from which it glanced in a forward direction and issued on the left side of the chest, at a level about two inches higher than its entrance on the right and about in the anterior axillary line.
There was also a compound fracture of the lower jaw on the left side, apparently not caused by a missile - and also some minor bruises of the head and face.
The body was not opened - these facts were ascertained by probing from the surface wounds.
(Sgd) Thomas Sinclair
Colonel AMS
Consulting surgeon IV Army
BEF

According to Sinclair, therefore, assuming that von Richthofen was sitting straight in his cockpit and the aeroplane was in level flight, the bullet must have struck him from the right side, was fired from an angle that was slightly in front of the body and was fired from below.
Captain Graham and Lieutenant Downs submitted a separate report on von Richthofen's death, a copy of this was also in the Bean papers at the AWM:

“Copy extract from AH File No. 21/13/506
We examined the body of Captain Baron von Richthofen on the evening of the 21st instant. We found that he had one entrance and one exit wound caused by the same bullet.
The entrance wound was situated on the right side of the chest in the posterior folf (sic) of the armpit; the exit wound was situated at a slightly higher level near the front of the chest , the point of exit being about half inch below the right (sic) nipple and about three-quarter of an inch external to it. From the nature of the exit wound we think that the bullet passed straight through the chest from right to left, and also slightly forward . Had the bullet been deflected from the spine the exit wound would have been much larger.
The gun firing this bullet must have been situated in the same plane as the long axis of the German machine and fired from the right and slightly behind the right of Captain von Richthofen.
We are agreed that the situation of the entrance and exit wounds are such that they could have not have been caused by fire from the ground.
Sgd G. C. Graham
Capt. RAMC
MO i/c 22nd Wing RAF
Sngd G. E. Downs
Lieut. RAMC.
In the Field
22/4/18
Graham and Downs referred to the exit wound being on the right side; Bean made a note that this is likely to be in error. If the exit wound was on the right side, it is unlikely that such a wound would have been mortal and it is generally accepted that Graham and Downs had made a mistake.
However there still remains the last paragraph of their report attributing the fatal bullet to a shot from the air, not the ground. If, as they considered, the bullet had not been deflected by the vertebral column, then the track of the bullet must have been laterally from below and behind the midline. However the only way that their statement that: “The gun firing this bullet must have been situated in the same plane as the long axis of the German machine” could be correct would be if von Richthofen had been twisting his trunk almost 90 degrees to the right and looking sideways or backwards when he was struck.
According to Newton, a Medical Board consisting of Colonel Barber, Major C. L Chapman, Australian Medical Corps, Major D Blake and Captain E G Knox of No 3 Squadron , AFC, examined the body a second time. This must be the inquiry under the presidentship of the Director-General of the Australian Army and Air Force Medical Services (Colonel Barber) referred to by Titler but Titler’s account is at variance with that of Newton when he stated that Colonel Nixon, Colonel Sinclair and Major C L Chapman were the medical officers present.
There is no record of any report made by this Medical Board in the Bean Papers. However, in 1935, Colonel Barber wrote to Bean and this letter is now quoted in its entirety, apparently for the first time. The underlining is original:

Oct 23 1935
My dear Bean,
With reference to your letter of October 14th. asking for information.
I was inspecting this Air Force Unit and found the medical orderly washing Richthofen's body so I made an examination. There were only two bullet wounds, one of entry, one of exit of a bullet that had evidently passed through the chest and the heart. There was no wound of the head but there was considerable bruising over the right jaw which may have been fractured. The orderly told me that the consulting surgeon of the Army had made a post-mortem in the morning and I asked how he did it as there was no evidence. The orderly told me that the cons. surgeon used a bit of fencing wire which he had pushed along the track of the wound through over the heart. I used the same bit of wire for the same purpose so you see the medical examination was not a thorough one and not a post mortem exam in the ordinary sense of the term. The bullet hole in the side of the plane coincided with the wound through the chest and I am sure he was shot from below while banking.
I sent a full report to General Birdwood at Australian Corps and I have often wondered what became of it.
With kind regards,
Yrs sincerely
George W. Barber
Colonel Barber enclosed a diagram of the bullet wounds on the body with his letter. In this he clearly showed the entrance wound in the left posterior axillary line at about the level of the ninth rib, and drew a cross over the right chest, internal to the nipple on the AP view. Under the diagram he wrote:


“Richthofen approximate sites of exit and entry of bullet. I forget now which was which but think the site of entry was the one in the back. G. W. B.”
(This diagram, however, is at slight variance with the other medical reports, quoted above, as both agree that the exit wound is external to the nipple. )
Barber’s letter clarifies the probe used by Sinclair; a surgical probe is a rigid piece of metal with a smooth rounded bulbous tip that is designed to avoid making false passages in the tissues. A ‘piece of fence wire’ is flexible and has a cut end, this would certainly not have been rounded and would have been prone to catch in the tissues, particularly the light air filled tissues of the lung. Barber’s letter, therefore, casts profound doubt on the accuracy of Sinclair’s report. It would have been possible to have used such a probe to examine the exit wound and determine that the bullet track involved the heart, but it would have been quite impossible to determine the track of the bullet to the vertebral column by using such a probe from the entrance wound.
Other difficulties in Sinclair’s report that the bullet was deflected by the vertebral column have been carefully addressed by O’Dwyer in 1969 (8). Dwyer sought medical opinions on the extreme difficulty in probing lung tissue. The elastic lungs would collapse as soon as air enters the pleural cavity (the space between the lungs and the chest wall), and it would be impossible for a probe to detect any perforation of the lungs made by a bullet.
From a consideration of the above, one is drawn to the conclusion that the fatal bullet must have passed directly through the chest from its entry wound at the posterior axillary line (the back of the armpit) at the level of the 9th rib (that is at about five inches below the lower level of the outstretched arm). As there is no real evidence that the bullet hit the vertebrae the most probable trajectory of the bullet would have to be along a line joining the entrance and exit wounds. Such a line indicates that the bullet was fired from the side, behind and below the pilot’s body, notwithstanding his position in the cockpit.
As the exit wound was about three-quarters of an inch external to the left nipple this means that the bullet would have passed through the heart and would have been rapidly fatal. Von Richthofen would have lost consciousness within 20 to 30 seconds, and certainly could have not continued to fly his aeroplane and fire on Lt. May for over a minute (9).
It is possible to correlate the medical evidence with that of the eyewitnesses of the last flight. Fortunately, as the events took place at low altitude, directly over the Australian lines, the chase and crash were witnessed by many eye witnesses.
EYEWITNESS REPORTS OF 21 APRIL 1918.
Bean's quoted reports are taken from official documents available in the Bean Papers or are from correspondence with the protagonists. Titler accepted many of Bean's quotations but also corresponded directly with Gunner Buie and Carisella and Ryan also corresponded directly with many of their witnesses.
There are several unpublished, or only partly published documents, in the Bean Papers, these have either been omitted or only partly quoted in Volume V of the Official History, and the originals of these documents cast new light of the events of that day. From the Bean Papers, and the Carisella accounts, it is now possible to advance the following description of what actually happened.
There is no doubt that von Richthofen followed a Sopwith Camel, flown by a relatively novice Canadian pilot, Lt Wilfred May, down from a dogfight that occurred when two British photographic reconnaissance R.E. 8 aircraft were attacked by von Richthofen’s Jasta west of Hamel. Carisella and Ryan describe the attack in detail quoting from a letter to the authors from Lieutenant Banks, (10) the observer and gunner aboard the second R. E. 8. The presence of the German triplanes was seen by a formation of eight Sopwith Camels, led by Captain A Roy Brown, DSC, a Canadian flying with the newly formed Royal Air Force.
Lieutenant May, who had been told by Brown that he should observe any action, but should run for home if attacked, was seen by von Richthofen and pursued. According to his instructions May dived away and flew low over the Australian lines, flying down the valley of the Somme, closely pursued by Richthofen. Captain Brown saw the chase and dived from behind on von Richthofen’s triplane at about 11 AM.
Brown's combat report, written after his return to Bertangles airfield, is partly quoted in Bean but fully quoted in Carisella and Ryan (11). According to them, Brown wrote:
At 10:35 A. M. I observed two Albatross burst into flames and crash. Dived on large formation of fifteen to twenty Albatross scouts D. V.’s and Fokker triplanes, two of which got on my tail and I came out. Went back again and dived on pure red triplane which was firing on Lt. May. I got a long burst into him and he went down vertical and was observed to crash by Lieutenant Mellersh and Lieutenant May. I fired on two more but did not get them.”
Carisella refers to a five part article entitled “My Fight with Richthofen” which was published in the late 1920s and attributed to Brown. Brown was quoted as having said:

I was in a perfect position above and behind. ... neither plane, (Richthofen or May) was aware of me ... I had dived until the red snout of my Camel pointed fair at his tail. My thumbs pressed the triggers. Bullets ripped into his elevator and tail planes. The flaming tracers showed me where they hit. A little short! Gently I pulled back on the stick. The nose of the Camel rose ever so slightly. Easy now, easy. The stream of bullets tore along the body of the all-red tripe. Its occupant turned and looked back. I had a flash of his eyes behind the goggles. Then he crumpled - sagged In the cockpit ... Richthofen was dead. The triplane staggered, wobbled, stalled, flung over on its nose and went down. The reserve trenches of the Australian infantry was (sic) not more than 200 feet below. It was a quick descent. May saw it. I saw it as I swung over. And Mellersh saw it."
Carisella and Ryan are disparaging about this article and stated that Brown was not the author. In fact they stated that it was: “Dramatic copy but obviously so much humbug. Brown was not a professional writer; the above report is written in the colourful slick manner of the hackwriter of the period.”
There is a reference in the Bean Papers to this article. Bean wrote to Brown in Canada on the 14 October, 1935 drawing attention to Richthofen flying for a considerable distance and still firing at May, “according to an article in a newspaper, the Chicago ‘Sunday Tribune’ of 22 April 1928".
Brown replied in a letter of 7 November 1935 that he had never read the account and wrote: “It is impossible for me to state how accurate the article had been” and referred Bean to the Official History of the RAF.
Although Bean had researched, and corresponded, widely in preparing his appendix on Richthofen, there is very little supportive evidence for Brown’s report in the Bean Papers. Indeed there is only one witness who suggests that Captain Brown shot down the red Fokker triplane, and even this is an indirect statement. 2nd Lt Mellor, RFC was quoted in the Melbourne Herald newspaper of 26 February 1930 and the clipping is in the Bean papers:

...Captain Brown seeing May’s predicament, followed the red Fokker and closing up to a range of about 100 yards, fired a long burst from both guns. I could see his tracer hitting the cockpit of the Fokker. The German machine zoomed, banked steeply and obviously crippled glided down to land between the Allied and German lines. He landed under control so the machine was not damaged.... The Australian Lewis gunners certainly hit the machine but their bullets hit about two inches behind the pilot’s seat.”
The only reference to 2nd Lt Mellor in the voluminous literature on the death of von Richthofen is a footnote to Bean’s Official History (12) . Bean wrote:

A Lieutenant Mellor wrote to the Melbourne Herald on 26th February 1930, giving as an officer of No. 200 Squadron a similar account. Efforts to confirm his account by reference to the Squadron’s records in London have, however proved fruitless despite a search kindly made by the authorities there.”
Lieutenant Mellersh, who was flying with Brown, was a witness to the crash of the triplane but he did not see Brown engage the Fokker. His account, printed in Titler, describes Mellersh as having engine problems and “...I was forced to spindive to the ground and return to our lines at about 50 feet. Whilst so returning a bright red triplane crashed quite close to me and in looking up I saw Captain Brown’s machine.”
Despite Brown’s statement that the triplane crashed after he had fired on it, von Richthofen did continue to follow May down the Somme valley at a low altitude. He appeared to be completely absorbed in his chase and, as he came within range, he came under fire from Australian anti-aircraft machine guns. In particular there was a Vickers heavy machine gun, under the command of Sergeant Cedric Popkin, which was situated about 1000 yards west of the village of Vaux on the northern bank of the Somme River, and the 53rd and 54th Batteries of Lewis guns, on anti-aircraft pole mountings, on the eastern slope of a shallow hill about 1000 yards east of Bonnay.
(The diagram below is based on that in Bean's Official History of Australia in the War of 1914-1918. Published by permission of the Australian war Memorial.)

As he came to the hill, Lieutenant May, hugging the ground contours, rose to clear the rise and flew on in a straight line after passing it. The red triplane, still following May, also rose to clear the hill but then came under Lewis gun fire from the 53rd and 54th Batteries. It then performed an Immelman turn to return back to the German lines. This aspect of the fight was observed by Gunner George Ridgway, from Lang Lang in Victoria, who was on top of the Heilly brick stack near the Bray-Corbie road and who had an excellent view. Part of Ridgway’s statement is in Bean, (13) the full statement, taken by the Lang Lang correspondent of the Melbourne Herald, after being rejected by his newspaper editor, was sent to Bean. It is available in the Bean Papers. The full text is as follows:

He states that he was about 200 feet from the ground. The first plane passed to the right and rapidly began to climb. As soon as it was out of danger the machine gunners opened out on the German. Von Richthofen, he claims, came within 200 feet of the ground and to save himself he swerved to the left and immediately banked at an angle of 75 degrees. He was sitting upright in the cabin and could be seen plainly at the controls. All this occurred within 100 yards of the Heilly chimney stack.
The first plane having reached a safe altitude, the German plane provided an excellent target for the machine guns who were in a circle around him at Vaux-sur-Somme, Bonney (sic) and Corbee (sic) and thousands of rounds were fired at him, to use Gunner Ridgway's words, "A rain of death bespattered him."
The plane seeking frantically to escape only rose about 500 feet when it turned over to its left, and crashed to the ground.“Gunner Ridgway, who still retains the number plate of the machine was one of the first at the scene. On the number plate are the words: “Militar Fluzzeug (sic) Fokker DR. 1525/17". (14) He is emphatic that the Baron was alive when he banked after the other planes had gone . The nearest plane to him was at least half a mile away. He states that there was plenty of evidence to show that Captain Brown did not get him and hopes that the official War History will be amended even at this late date.
A. W. Madge
Lang Lang correspondent.”
However, although an indirect quotation, Ridgway’s reported statement is confirmed by Lieutenant G. M. Travers MC who wrote a report that is partly quoted in Bean (15) and is continued in the Bean Papers. Travers was observing near 11th Brigade HQ when he heard planes approaching from the direction of 26 central, and heard a Vickers gun firing from the ground. He wrote:

April 1918.
The first plane that came into view was one of our own, and less than 20 paces behind him was an enemy plane painted red. The red plane was overhauling our plane fast and both were flying so low that they almost crashed into trees at the top of the hill. Almost directly over the spot where I was lying the enemy plane swerved to the right so suddenly that it seemed almost to turn over. Our plane went straight on, from that moment the enemy plane was quite out of control and did a wild circle and dashed towards J.19.b.34 where it crashed. I went over with other officers and had a look at the plane and also the driver, who was dead, a machine gun bullet had passed from the left side of his face and near bottom of jaw and came out just behind the right eye (16)...The Vickers gun mentioned was the only gun firing at the time the driver first lost control of his machine. I made enquiries and found the gun was handled by No. 424 Sergt. Cedric Basset Popkin, 24 Australian Machine Gun Company.
G. M. Travers Lieut
Company 52nd Bat AEF
Further confirmation that Ridgway’s story is correct also came from Lieutenant J. A. Wiltshire, MC who wrote a letter to Bean on 9 June 1934. This is only partly reproduced in Bean and the relevant parts of the original letter (17) are as follows:

Dr C. E. W. Bean
Dear Sir,
In reference to Richthofen’s death. Standing on a ‘Farm Track’ close to the Mericourt, Corbie road about two kilos almost due south of Heilly.
Looking east I saw a fight in progress in the air. Three planes, two British and one German dived out of the fight. The German on both their tails, (18) one British plane dived out towards the Somme, the other with the German on his tail, continued toward the ground out of my sight. Within minutes, from the east, they appeared over the rise and flying about 40 feet from the ground. Passed almost over head.
The British plane was flying up and down the German flying to imitate and giving quick bursts with his gun. The German pilot seemed to crouch forward as he gave each burst. The British plane had apparently no tail gun as he did not reply.
The British plane steeplechased a group of trees and swooped down over the Ancre and continued his course between Bonnay and Heilly to the rear lifting over the trees the German plane gave up the chase and banking to his left straightened his plane toward his line and commenced to climb. He now came under machine gun fire from the ground. His plane would be just about overhead of the artillery. The plane seemed to steady and then headed slowly for the ground. Landing on the Somme side of the high ground...”
Sergeant Popkin’s Vickers gun position was situated at the foot of the hill at Bonnay, one kilometre to the south-east of the Lewis gun battery manned by Gunners Buie and Evans, and just to the south of the German triplane’s flight path. Popkin was ideally situated to fire on von Richthofen when he turned to the right away from the fire of the Lewis gun battery on the hill.

Popkin wrote a letter to Bean (19) on the 16 October 1935:

The planes would be travelling in a North East direction straight towards my gun position. I opened fire immediately the British plane left my gun sights and followed the fritz around. He would be perhaps 100 to 120 yards in front of me when I opened fire and about 200 to 400 feet in the air. He would be below the top of the ridge which is about 500 to 600 feet high. I opened fire the second time at the peak of his turn marked X. I dont think that I was firing so long the second time as the first. I would be firing at him the second time while he was travelling the line between the two crosses (20).
I would be firing about half to three-quarters a minute each time.
I reached the plane just when they were about to place a guard on it.
A chap named Marshall my No. 3 on the gun at the time who was afterwards killed got a bullet off Richthofen’s body which had just penetrated his clothes and half sticking in his skin right on his belt line.
Yours faithfully
C B Popkin
From Popkin’s letter it is apparent that Popkin missed when he first opened fire. The German triplane was heading towards him when this happened. He then fired for the second time and was firing as the pilot of the triplane was going away from him whilst banking. This is quite consistent with Popkin firing a bullet that entered von Richthofen’s body at the ninth rib in the posterior axillary line. The angle of Popkin’s fire was quite consistent with the trajectory of the bullet that killed von Richthofen, that is to say it was in a line from behind the midline of the pilot’s trunk and from below,
Further confirmation of Popkin’s letter is available from a letter from Popkin’s commanding officer, Captain F R Watts, in the Bean Papers:

19 11 29.
Sergeant Popkin allowed the British plane to pass and then fired at Richthofen who made a right swing and then came back to the gun and this time at a lower height when Popkin fired about 200 rounds at him and Richthofen swung round to the right and just managed to clear the ridge and crashed. I can assure you that there was no-one else had a chance to bring him down because there was no other guns close enough except mine.”
GUNNER BUIE’S CLAIM
Dale Titler wrote his book to support the claim of Gunner Buie that it was he who shot down Richthofen with his Lewis gun as the triplane approached the eastern slope of the shallow hill about 1000 yards east of Bonnay. Titler has quoted a statement attributed to Buie (21) as follows:

We were free to fire at any time without command, but as the planes neared us barely 50 feet off the brow of the ridge I was prevented from firing immediately as the two machines were almost in line, with Lt. May's plane blocking my line of fire.
Major Beavis and Lieutenant Doyle were on my right and left respectively, near Evan’s gun position, about 30 yards away. Lieutenant Ellis, on slightly lower ground at my centre, observed the oncoming planes from the flank and shouted, ‘Fire on that plane, Buie!’ But I still could not, owing to Lieutenant May's position.
I was swivelling my gun to follow the red machine, and Snowy Evans, manning the other gun on the opposite flank, got first clearance. He opened up at a range of slightly more than 300 yards. The triplane flew steadily on, still firing short bursts at the Camel it was now barely 20 yards behind and 10 feet above May. Very close indeed. I was at the ready with my finger on the trigger, waiting the clearance.
It came.
I can still remember seeing Richthofen clearly. His helmet covered most of his head and face and he was hunched in the cockpit aiming over his guns at the lead plane. It seemed that with every burst he leaned forward in the cockpit as though concentrating very intently on his fire. Certainly he was not aware of his dangerous position or of the close range of our guns. His position was much as a strafing attack would appear, and had he not been so intent upon shooting down Lieutenant May, he could easily have manoeuvred his machine and fired upon us, had he been so inclined. Richthofen and his men frequently strafed our trenches to the east.
At 200 yards, with my peep sight directly on Richthofen's body I began firing with steady bursts. His plane was bearing frontal and just a little to the right of me and after 20 rounds I knew that the bullets were striking the right side and front of the machine, for I clearly saw fragments flying.
Still Richthofen came on firing at Lieutenant May with both guns blazing. Then just before my last shots finished at a range of 40 yards Richthofen's guns stopped abruptly. The thought flashed through my mind —I've hit him! — and immediately I noticed a sharp change in engine sound (22) as the red triplane passed over our gun position at less than 50 feet and still a little to my right. It slackened speed considerably and the propeller slowed down although the machine still appeared to be under control. Then it veered a bit to the right and then back to the left and lost height gradually coming down near an abandoned brick kiln 400 yards away on the Bray-Corbie road.
I looked to my gun. It was empty. I had fired a full pannier....
Buie also commented on the bullet wounds sustained by Richthofen:

A guard was placed over the body and after awhile it was brought to our position. Major Beavis claimed the body for the 53rd and it was placed on a nearby stretcher. There I saw it. In the crash Richthofen's face was thrown against the gun butts and suffered minor injuries. Blood had come from his mouth which indicated at first glance that a fatal bullet had pierced a lung.
According to the popular version, death came from a single bullet which had entered his back and passed forward through the chest.
This was not true.
Richthofen was struck in the left breast, abdomen and right knee. (23) I examined these wounds as his body lay on the stretcher. His fur-lined boots were missing, as were his helmet and goggles and other personal effects, these having been taken before his body arrived at the battery. He was wearing silk pajamas under his flying clothes.
The wounds were all frontal. Their entrances were small and clean and the exit points were slightly larger and irregular in the back. Later, Colonel Barber of the Australian Corps and Colonel Sinclair of the Fourth Army, both medical officers, made separate examinations of the body and their reports agreed that the chest wound was definitely caused by ground fire. (24)
Interestingly there is also a very similar statement, also said to be told to Titler by Buie, published in a magazine in 1959. (25) However this differs from the statement published in Titler’s book in minor, but appreciable, detail. Although it was stated by Titler, in both publications, that this was Buie’s story, as told to him, the variation in the text of the two versions suggests that Buie’s story was not published verbatim but was, at least, edited by Titler.
CONCLUSIONS
Who shot Baron Manfred von Richthofen? There can only be four possible answers.
1. Richthofen was shot by Captain Brown.
The postmortem examinations revealed entrance and exit wounds from a bullet which must have entered the body from the right, from the side, from behind and from below the body as it was sitting in the cockpit. Such a track means that the bullet would have passed through Richthofen’s heart. Although Captain Brown did approach from Richthofen’s right, it is difficult to see how, firing as he did from above, he could have inflicted such a wound unless Richthofen was steeply banking his triplane at the time that he was shot. For what it is worth, the newspaper article in the Chicago ‘Sunday Tribune’, attributed to Captain Brown, did not mention such a bank. In this article Brown referred to Richthofen looking back at him when Brown fired at him and a steep bank therefore seems most unlikely.
Be that as it may, there is ample evidence from eye witnesses that Richthofen continued to pursue Lieutenant May along the Somme valley for about a minute, firing his gun and concentrating on his target. This would have been impossible if Richthofen had been shot through the heart by Brown.
2. He was shot by Gunner Robert Buie.
Again the track of the bullet makes it very unlikely that Buie could have shot Richthofen. From the statement attributed to Buie by Titler, Buie was firing when the triplane: “was bearing frontal and just a little to the right of me” and he could not have inflicted the wound that entered the body from behind. Buie stated: ‘Still Richthofen came on firing at Lieutenant May with both guns blazing. Then just before my last shots finished at a range of 40 yards Richthofen's guns stopped abruptly...” Therefore at no time did Buie fire at Richthofen from behind.
3. He was shot by Sergeant Popkin.
Bean and Carisella both came to this conclusion and this is supported by abundant eye witness evidence and by the track of the bullet Popkin first fired when Richthofen was approaching him from the Somme valley but he failed to stop Richthofen. After coming under fire from Buie and Gunner Evans, at the Lewis gun emplacement, the German aeroplane turned away from the gunfire and it was then, when the triplane was flying away from Popkin, that he opened fire with his Vickers gun for the second time. (26) Popkin continued to fire while the triplane completed the turn, and actually flew towards the Vickers gun, but there is no doubt that Popkin could have inflicted a bullet wound that entered Richthofen from below, from the side and slightly behind, just as was found at the postmortem examination. Neither Captain Brown nor Gunner Buie could have inflicted such a wound and it is therefore more probable than not that it was indeed Popkin who fired the fatal shot.
I say “more probable than not” because it is impossible to exclude the fourth possibility.
4. Richthofen was shot by an unknown Australian soldier who fired his rifle at the triplane as it flew over him and who scored a lucky hit.
This can never be disproved as the .303 rifle bullet was used by the Lee-Enfield Service rifle as well as the Lewis gun and the Vickers machine gun.
All that we can be sure of is that the entry and exit wounds on von Richthofen’s body meant that the bullet passed through the heart, or great vessels, and he could not have remained conscious for more than about thirty seconds after being hit. The fatal bullet had therefore to have been fired at von Richthofen at the end of the pursuit and this is likely to have been at the time when the triplane was observed to turn away from the hill where the Lewis gun batteries were situated.
SUMMARY
The Official post mortem examination report is, in all probability, flawed and it is most likely that the bullet track was along a line joining the entrance and exit wounds. In other words the bullet came from behind, below and lateral to von Richthofen. There is little doubt that the bullet penetrated his heart and was fatal. Neither Captain Brown nor Gunner Buie could have inflicted such a wound.
The only known gunner that could have done so was Sergeant Popkin when he opened fire for the second time when Richthofen was turning away from him. Richthofen then lost control of his aeroplane and crashed, he was dead when his aeroplane hit the ground.
From the evidence of the postmortem examination and from eyewitnesses it was therefore most probably Sergeant Popkin who fired the fatal shot, although a lucky shot from an unknown soldier firing his rifle can not be excluded.
________________________________________
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.
I must thank all those who gave me advice and support in writing this article and in particular I must make special mention of Mr Bill Bacon Jr of Canyon, Texas, USA, who not only gave invaluable advice but also made available photostats of many of the articles referred to in the text and even sent me his copy of Carisella & Ryan.
I also thank the Australian War Memorial for permission to publish the original documents in the Bean Papers and the staff of the research section of the Australian War Memorial who were so helpful in making these available to me on the one day that I could be there.

NOTES and REFERENCES
1. C. E. W. Bean, Official History of Australia in the War of 1914 - 1918 Angus & Robertson, Vol. V. 1935, Appendix No. 4, ’The death of Richthofen’
2. Philip Markham, “The Events of 21 April, 1918", Over the Front; Vol. 8, Number 2, 1993, pp. 123 - 137.
3. Dale M. Titler, The Day the Red Baron Died. Ian Allan , London, 1973.
4. P. J. Carisella and James W. Ryan, Who Killed the Red Baron, Paperback Edition, Avon Books, New York, 1979; originally published by Daedalus Publishing Company, 1969.
5. Australian War Memorial Archives; AWM 38 30RL, 606 Item 270 (1). Richthofen Papers.
6. Dennis Newton, “The Spectre of the Red Baron, Part 2”, Journal of the Australian War Memorial; No. 9, 1986, p. 47.
7. Bean, ibid: p. 699.
8. William J. O’Dwyer, “Post-Mortem: Richthofen”, Cross & Cockade Journal; Vol 10, No. 4, Winter 1969. P. 289.
9. It is worth mentioning that, even though there is no evidence that the bullet was deflected by the vertebral column as stated by Dr Sinclair, if that event had happened the bullet would still have passed through the heart or great vessels and consciousness would still have been lost in 20 to 30 seconds. The difference between the opinions on the bullet’s track relates to the angle that the bullet made to the axis of the body, rather than the severity of the wound.
10. Carisella & Ryan, ibid; p. 77.
11. Carisella & Ryan, ibid. pp. 122 and 123.
12. Bean, ibid; p. 694.
13. Bean, ibid; p. 694
14. There was a hand written notation in the margin: “Note to Dr Bean that this was the number of the plane Richthofen was flying when he brought down his 79th and 80th victories.”
15. Bean, ibid; p. 696.
16. This statement about von Richthofen’s head wound was not confirmed by any of the doctors who examined the body. The postmortem injuries to von Richthofen’s face, caused by the gun sights, may have been mistakenly attributed by Travers to a gunshot wound.
17. Bean Papers.
18. This is incorrect, the red German triplane was chasing Lt May and was attacked by Captain Brown who dived on von Richthofen’s tail.
19. Bean Papers.
20. The reference to the X and the two crosses applies to a sketch map that Popkin attached to his letter. Unfortunately It was not possible to reproduce this sketch as photostat reproductions were not permitted by the Australian War Memorial Archives section; however the sketch indicated that Popkin opened fire as Richthofen was flying away from him at the beginning of Richthofen’s turn and continued firing as von Richthofen continued to turn and came towards Popkin. He then stopped firing and the triplane then crashed.
21. Titler, ibid.; pp. 229-230.
22. The change in sound of the triplane’s engine may have been a Doppler effect causing a change in pitch as the aeroplane passed over.
23. This was not confirmed by the postmortem medical examinations
24. Only Dr Barber made such a statement.
25. Robert Buie, as told to Dale Titler, “I Killed Richthofen!”, The Cavalier Magazine; December 1959.
26. Popkin’s letter to Bean in the Bean Papers.

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Fighting the Red Baron - Recreating WWI Missions | History Documentary | Reel Truth. History
Join Andy and Mark, two modern day, highly skilled Red Arrow Pilots as they try to recreate a number of missions that haven't been attempted since World War I.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFzpKmhYmNg

Images:
1. Richthofen wears the Pour le Mérite, the 'Blue Max', Prussia's highest military order, in this official portrait, c. 1917.
2. Richthofen's Albatros D.V after forced landing near Wervik.
3. Officers and NCOs of the 24th Machine Gun Company in March 1918. Sergeant Cedric Popkin is second from the right in the middle row.
4. Richthofen (center) with Hermann Thomsen, German Air Service Chief of Staff (left) and Ernst von Hoeppner, CG of the Air Service (right) at Imperial Headquarters in Bad Kreuznach

Background from {[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manfred_von_Richthofen]}
Manfred von Richthofen From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Manfred von Richthofen
Birth name Manfred Albrecht von Richthofen
Nickname(s) "Red Baron"
Born 2 May 1892 at Breslau, Province of Silesia, Kingdom of Prussia, German Empire (present-day Wrocław, Poland)
Died 21 April 1918 (aged 25) near Morlancourt, France

Place of burial South Cemetery, Wiesbaden
( 50.060260°N 8.265810°ECoordinates: 50.060260°N 8.265810°E)

Allegiance German Empire
Service/branch Prussian Army (1911–1915)
Luftstreitkräfte (1915–1918)
Years of service 1911–1918 †
Rank Captain
Commands held • Jasta 11
• Jagdgeschwader 1

Battles/wars World War I
• Western Front
• Spring Offensive
• Battle of the Lys †

Awards • Pour le Mérite
• Order of the Red Eagle
• House Order of Hohenzollern
• Iron Cross

Manfred Albrecht Freiherr von Richthofen (German: [ˈmanfreːt fɔn ˈʁɪçthoːfn̩]; 2 May 1892 – 21 April 1918), known in English as Baron von Richthofen, and most famously as the "Red Baron", was a fighter pilot with the German Air Force during World War I. He is considered the ace-of-aces of the war, being officially credited with 80 air combat victories.
Originally a cavalryman, Richthofen transferred to the Air Service in 1915, becoming one of the first members of fighter squadron Jagdstaffel 2 in 1916. He quickly distinguished himself as a fighter pilot, and during 1917 became the leader of Jasta 11 also known as the Red Squadron and later the larger fighter wing Jagdgeschwader 1, better known as "The Flying Circus" or "Richthofen's Circus" because of the bright colours of its aircraft, and perhaps also because of the way the unit was transferred from one area of Allied air activity to another – moving like a travelling circus, and frequently setting up in tents on improvised airfields. By 1918, Richthofen was regarded as a national hero in Germany, and respected by his enemies.
Richthofen was shot down and killed near Vaux-sur-Somme on 21 April 1918. There has been considerable discussion and debate regarding aspects of his career, especially the circumstances of his death. He remains one of the most widely known fighter pilots of all time, and has been the subject of many books, films, and other media.

Name and nicknames
Richthofen was a Freiherr (literally "Free Lord"), a title of nobility often translated as "baron".[1][2] This is not a given name nor strictly a hereditary title, since all male members of the family were entitled to it, even during the lifetime of their father.[a] Richthofen painted his aircraft red, and this combined with his title led to him being called "The Red Baron" ( "der Rote Baron" (help·info)), both inside and outside Germany.[1] During his lifetime, he was more frequently described in German as Der Rote Kampfflieger, variously translated as "The Red Battle Flyer" or "The Red Fighter Pilot". This name was used as the title of Richthofen's 1917 autobiography.[3]

Early life
Richthofen was born in Kleinburg, near Breslau, Lower Silesia (now part of the city of Wrocław, Poland), on 2 May 1892 into a prominent Prussian aristocratic family. His father was Major Albrecht Philipp Karl Julius Freiherr von Richthofen and his mother was Kunigunde von Schickfuss und Neudorff.[4] He had an elder sister, Ilse, and two younger brothers.
When he was four years old, Manfred moved with his family to nearby Schweidnitz (now Świdnica, Poland). He enjoyed riding horses and hunting as well as gymnastics at school. He excelled at parallel bars and won a number of awards at school.[5] He and his brothers, Lothar and Bolko,[6][b] hunted wild boar, elk, birds, and deer.[7]
After being educated at home he attended a school at Schweidnitz before beginning military training when he was 11.[8] After completing cadet training in 1911, he joined an Uhlan cavalry unit, the Ulanen-Regiment Kaiser Alexander der III. von Russland (1. Westpreußisches) Nr. 1 ("1st Emperor Alexander III of Russia Uhlan Regiment (1st West Prussian)") and was assigned to the regiment's 3. Eskadron ("No. 3 Squadron").[9]

Early war service
When World War I began, Richthofen served as a cavalry reconnaissance officer on both the Eastern and Western Fronts, seeing action in Russia, France, and Belgium; with the advent of trench warfare, which made traditional cavalry operations outdated and inefficient, Richthofen's regiment was dismounted, serving as dispatch runners and field telephone operators.[10] Disappointed and bored at not being able to directly participate in combat, the last straw for Richthofen was an order to transfer to the army's supply branch. His interest in the Air Service had been aroused by his examination of a German military aircraft behind the lines,[11] and he applied for a transfer to Die Fliegertruppen des deutschen Kaiserreiches (Imperial German Army Air Service), later to be known as the Luftstreitkräfte. He was falsely reported to have written in his application for transfer, "I have not gone to war in order to collect cheese and eggs, but for another purpose."[12] His request was granted,[11] and Manfred joined the flying service at the end of May 1915.[13]
From June to August 1915, Richthofen served as an observer on reconnaissance missions over the Eastern Front with Feldflieger Abteilung 69 ("No. 69 Flying Squadron").[11] In August 1915, he was transferred to a flying unit in Ostend, a coastal city in Belgium.[14] There he flew with a friend and fellow pilot Georg Zeumer, who would later teach him to fly solo.[15] On being transferred to the Champagne front, he is believed to have shot down an attacking French Farman aircraft with his observer's machine gun in a tense battle over French lines;[16] he was not credited with the kill, since it fell behind Allied lines and therefore could not be confirmed.

Piloting career
"I had been told the name of the place to which we were to fly and I was to direct the pilot. At first we flew straight ahead, then the pilot turned to the right, then left. I had lost all sense of direction over our own aerodrome! ... I didn't care a bit where I was, and when the pilot thought it was time to go down, I was disappointed. Already I was counting down the hours to the time we could start again."
John Simpson, quoting Richthofen's own description of his first flying experience.[17]
Manfred von Richthofen had a chance meeting with German ace fighter pilot Oswald Boelcke[18] which led him to enter training as a pilot in October 1915.[18] In February 1916, Manfred "rescued" his brother Lothar from the boredom of training new troops in Luben and encouraged him to transfer to the Fliegertruppe.[19] The following month, Manfred joined Kampfgeschwader 2 ("No. 2 Bomber Squadron") flying a two-seater Albatros C.III. Initially, he appeared to be a below-average pilot. He struggled to control his aircraft, and he crashed during his first flight at the controls.[18] Despite this poor start, he rapidly became attuned to his aircraft. He was over Verdun on 26 April 1916 and fired on a French Nieuport, shooting it down over Fort Douaumont[18]—although he received no official credit. A week later, he decided to ignore more experienced pilots' advice against flying through a thunderstorm. He later noted that he had been "lucky to get through the weather" and vowed never again to fly in such conditions unless ordered to do so.[20]
Richthofen met Oswald Boelcke again in August 1916, after another spell flying two-seaters on the Eastern Front. Boelcke was visiting the east in search of candidates for his newly formed Jasta 2, and he selected Richthofen to join this unit, one of the first German fighter squadrons.[21] Boelcke was killed during a midair collision with a friendly aircraft on 28 October 1916, and Richthofen witnessed the event.[21]
Richthofen scored his first confirmed victory when he engaged Tom Rees in the skies over Cambrai, France, on 17 September 1916.[22] His autobiography states, "I honoured the fallen enemy by placing a stone on his beautiful grave."[23] He contacted a jeweller in Berlin and ordered a silver cup engraved with the date and the type of enemy aircraft.[c] He continued to celebrate each of his victories in the same manner until he had 60 cups, by which time the dwindling supply of silver in blockaded Germany meant that silver cups could no longer be supplied. Richthofen discontinued his orders at this stage, rather than accept cups made from base metal.[d]
His brother Lothar (40 victories) used risky, aggressive tactics, but Manfred observed a set of maxims known as the "Dicta Boelcke" to assure success for both the squadron and its pilots.[24] He was not a spectacular or aerobatic pilot like his brother or Werner Voss; however, he was a noted tactician and squadron leader and a fine marksman. Typically, he would dive from above to attack with the advantage of the sun behind him, with other pilots of his squadron covering his rear and flanks.

On 23 November 1916, Richthofen shot down his most famous adversary, British ace Major Lanoe Hawker VC, described by Richthofen as "the British Boelcke".[25] The victory came while Richthofen was flying an Albatros D.II and Hawker was flying the older DH.2. After a long dogfight, Hawker was shot in the back of the head as he attempted to escape back to his own lines.[26] After this combat, Richthofen was convinced that he needed a fighter aircraft with more agility, even with a loss of speed. He switched to the Albatros D.III in January 1917, scoring two victories before suffering an in-flight crack in the spar of the aircraft's lower wing on 24 January, and he reverted to the Albatros D.II or Halberstadt D.II for the next five weeks.
Richthofen was flying his Halberstadt on 6 March in combat with F.E.8s of 40 Squadron RFC when his aircraft was shot through the fuel tank, quite possibly by Edwin Benbow, who was credited with a victory from this fight. Richthofen was able to force land without his aircraft catching fire on this occasion.[27] He then scored a victory in the Albatros D.II on 9 March, but his Albatros D.III was grounded for the rest of the month so he switched again to a Halberstadt D.II.[28] He returned to his Albatros D.III on 2 April 1917 and scored 22 victories in it before switching to the Albatros D.V in late June.[25]
Richthofen flew the celebrated Fokker Dr.I triplane from late July 1917, the distinctive three-winged aircraft with which he is most commonly associated—although he did not use the type exclusively until after it was reissued with strengthened wings in November.[29] Only 19 of his 80 kills were made in this type of aircraft, despite the popular link between Richthofen and the Fokker Dr. I.[30] It was his Albatros D.III Serial No. 789/16 that was first painted bright red, in late January 1917, and in which he first earned his name and reputation.[31]
Richthofen championed the development of the Fokker D.VII with suggestions to overcome the deficiencies of the current German fighter aircraft.[32] He never had an opportunity to fly the new type in combat, as he was killed before it entered service.

Flying Circus
Richthofen received the Pour le Mérite in January 1917 after his 16th confirmed kill, the highest military honour in Germany at the time and informally known as "The Blue Max".[33] That same month, he assumed command of Jasta 11 which ultimately included some of the elite German pilots, many of whom he trained himself, and several of whom later became leaders of their own squadrons. Ernst Udet belonged to Richthofen's group and later became Generaloberst Udet. When Lothar joined, the German high command appreciated the propaganda value of two Richthofens fighting together to defeat the enemy in the air.[34]
Richthofen took the flamboyant step of having his Albatros painted red when he became a squadron commander. His autobiography states, "For whatever reasons, one fine day I came upon the idea of having my crate painted glaring red. The result was that absolutely everyone could not help but notice my red bird. In fact, my opponents also seemed to be not entirely unaware [of it]".[35] Thereafter he usually flew in red-painted aircraft, although not all of them were entirely red, nor was the "red" necessarily the brilliant scarlet beloved of model- and replica-builders.
Other members of Jasta 11 soon took to painting parts of their aircraft red. Their official reason seems to have been to make their leader less conspicuous, to avoid having him singled out in a fight. In practice, red colouration became a unit identification. Other units soon adopted their own squadron colours, and decoration of fighters became general throughout the Luftstreitkräfte. The German high command permitted this practice (in spite of obvious drawbacks from the point of view of intelligence), and German propaganda made much of it by referring to Richthofen as Der Rote Kampfflieger—"the Red Fighter Pilot."

During a visit to her home, the Baron’s mother asked him why he risked his life every day and he said “For the man in the trenches. I want to ease his hard lot in life by keeping the enemy flyers away from him."[36]
On 6 March, Richthofen was attacked by Edwin Benbow and forced to land near Hénin-Liétard with a damaged engine, spraying fuel from holed tanks, and nearly close to being on fire, although his engine quit, stopping the risk.[37] Richthofen led his new unit to unparalleled success, peaking during "Bloody April" 1917. In that month alone, he shot down 22 British aircraft, including four in a single day,[38] raising his official tally to 52. By June, he had become the commander of the first of the new larger "fighter wing" formations; these were highly mobile, combined tactical units that could move at short notice to different parts of the front as required. Richthofen's new command, Jagdgeschwader 1, was composed of fighter squadrons No. 4, 6, 10, and 11. J.G. 1 became widely known as "The Flying Circus" due to the unit's brightly coloured aircraft and its mobility, including the use of tents, trains, and caravans, where appropriate.
Richthofen was a brilliant tactician, building on Boelcke's tactics. Unlike Boelcke, however, he led by example and force of will rather than by inspiration. He was often described as distant, unemotional, and rather humorless, though some colleagues contended otherwise.[39] He was cordial to officers and enlisted men alike; indeed, he urged his pilots to remain on good terms with the mechanics who maintained their aircraft.[40] He taught his pilots the basic rule which he wanted them to fight by: "Aim for the man and don't miss him. If you are fighting a two-seater, get the observer first; until you have silenced the gun, don't bother about the pilot."[41]
Although Richthofen was now performing the duties of a lieutenant colonel (a wing commander in modern Royal Air Force terms), he was never promoted past the relatively junior rank of Rittmeister, equivalent to captain in the British army.[42] The system in the British army was for an officer to hold the rank appropriate to his level of command, if only on a temporary basis, even if he had not been formally promoted. In the German army, it was not unusual for a wartime officer to hold a lower rank than his duties implied; German officers were promoted according to a schedule and not by battlefield promotion. It was also the custom for a son not to hold a higher rank than his father, and Richthofen's father was a reserve major.

Wounded in combat

Richthofen sustained a serious head wound on 6 July 1917, during combat near Wervik, Belgium against a formation of F.E.2d two seat fighters of No. 20 Squadron RFC, causing instant disorientation and temporary partial blindness.[38] He regained his vision in time to ease the aircraft out of a spin and execute a forced landing in a field in friendly territory. The injury required multiple operations to remove bone splinters from the impact area.[43] [e]
The Red Baron returned to active service against doctor's orders on 25 July,[46] but went on convalescent leave from 5 September to 23 October.[47] His wound is thought to have caused lasting damage; he later often suffered from post-flight nausea and headaches, as well as a change in temperament. There is a theory (see below) linking this injury with his eventual death.

Author and hero
During his convalescent leave, Richthofen completed an autobiographic sketch, Der rote Kampfflieger (The Red Fighter Pilot, 1917). Written on the instructions of the "Press and Intelligence" (propaganda) section of the Luftstreitkräfte (Air Force), it shows evidence of having been heavily censored and edited.[48] There are, however, passages that are most unlikely to have been inserted by an official editor. Richthofen wrote: "My father discriminates between a sportsman and a butcher. The latter shoots for fun. When I have shot down an Englishman, my hunting passion is satisfied for a quarter of an hour. Therefore I do not succeed in shooting down two Englishmen in succession. If one of them comes down, I have the feeling of complete satisfaction. Only much later have I overcome my instinct and have become a butcher".[49] In another passage, Richthofen wrote "I am in wretched spirits after every aerial combat. I believe that [the war] is not as the people at home imagine it, with a hurrah and a roar; it is very serious, very grim." An English translation by J. Ellis Barker was published in 1918 as The Red Battle Flyer.[23] Although Richthofen died before a revised version could be prepared, he is on record as repudiating the book, stating that it was "too insolent" and that he was no longer that kind of person.[50]
By 1918, Richthofen had become such a legend that it was feared that his death would be a blow to the morale of the German people.[51] He refused to accept a ground job after his wound, stating that "every poor fellow in the trenches must do his duty" and that he would therefore continue to fly in combat.[52] Certainly he had become part of a cult of officially encouraged hero-worship. German propaganda circulated various false rumours, including that the British had raised squadrons specially to hunt Richthofen and had offered large rewards and an automatic Victoria Cross to any Allied pilot who shot him down.[53] Passages from his correspondence indicate he may have at least half-believed some of these stories himself.[54]

Death
Richthofen received a fatal wound just after 11:00 am on 21 April 1918 while flying over Morlancourt Ridge near the Somme River, 49°56′0.60″N 2°32′43.71″E. At the time, he had been pursuing, at very low altitude, a Sopwith Camel piloted by novice Canadian pilot Lieutenant Wilfrid "Wop" May of No. 209 Squadron, Royal Air Force.[55] May had just fired on the Red Baron's cousin Lt. Wolfram von Richthofen. On seeing his cousin being attacked, Manfred flew to his rescue and fired on May, causing him to pull away.[56] Richthofen pursued May across the Somme. The Baron was spotted and briefly attacked by a Camel piloted by May's school friend and flight commander, Canadian Captain Arthur "Roy" Brown. Brown had to dive steeply at very high speed to intervene, and then had to climb steeply to avoid hitting the ground.[55] Richthofen turned to avoid this attack, and then resumed his pursuit of May.[55]
It was almost certainly during this final stage in his pursuit of May that a single .303 bullet[f] hit Richthofen though the chest, severely damaging his heart and lungs; it would have killed Richthofen in less than a minute.[57][58] His aircraft stalled and went into a steep dive at 49°55′56″N 2°32′16″E in a field on a hill near the Bray-Corbie road, just north of the village of Vaux-sur-Somme, in a sector defended by the Australian Imperial Force (AIF).[55] The aircraft bounced heavily, and the undercarriage collapsed and fuel tank were smashed, before the aircraft skidded to a stop.[59] Several witnesses, including Gunner George Ridgway, reached the crashed plane and found Richthofen already dead, and his face slammed into the butts of his machine guns, creating contusions on his nose and face.[58][g]

Australian airmen with Richthofen's triplane 425/17 after it was dismembered by souvenir hunters
No. 3 Squadron, Australian Flying Corps was the nearest Allied air unit and assumed responsibility for the Baron's remains.
His Fokker Dr.I 425/17 was soon taken apart by souvenir hunters.
In 2009, Richthofen's death certificate was found in the archives in Ostrów Wielkopolski, Poland. He had briefly been stationed in Ostrów before going to war, as it was part of Germany until the end of World War I. The document is a one-page, handwritten form in a 1918 registry book of deaths. It misspells Richthofen's name as "Richthoven" and simply states that he had "died 21 April 1918, from wounds sustained in combat".[65]

Debate over the identity of the individual who fired the shot that killed Richthofen
Controversy and contradictory hypotheses continue to surround who fired the shot that actually killed Richthofen.

The RAF credited Brown with shooting down the Red Baron, but it is now generally agreed by historians, doctors, and ballistics experts that Richthofen was actually killed by an AA machine gunner firing from the ground.[58][60][66] Richthofen died following an extremely serious and inevitably fatal chest wound from a single bullet, penetrating from the right armpit and resurfacing next to the left nipple. Brown's attack was from behind and above, and from Richthofen's left. Even more conclusively, Richthofen could not have continued his pursuit of May for as long as he did (up to two minutes) had this wound come from Brown.[58] Brown himself never spoke much about what happened that day,[h] claiming, "There is no point in me commenting, as the evidence is already out there."
Many sources have suggested that Sergeant Cedric Popkin was the person most likely to have killed Richthofen, including a 1998 article by Geoffrey Miller, a physician, and historian of military medicine, and a 2002 edition of the British Channel 4 Secret History series.[58][60] Popkin was an anti-aircraft (AA) machine gunner with the Australian 24th Machine Gun Company, and he was using a Vickers gun. He fired at Richthofen's aircraft on two occasions: first as the Baron was heading straight at his position, and then at long range from the plane's right. Given the nature of Richthofen's wounds, Popkin was in a position to fire the fatal shot when the pilot passed him for a second time.[58][60] Some confusion has been caused by a letter that Popkin wrote in 1935 to an Australian official historian. It stated Popkin's belief that he had fired the fatal shot as Richthofen flew straight at his position. In this respect, Popkin was incorrect; the bullet which caused the Baron's death came from the side (see above).
A 2002 Discovery Channel documentary suggests that Gunner W. J. "Snowy" Evans, a Lewis machine gunner with the 53rd Battery, 14th Field Artillery Brigade, Royal Australian Artillery is likely to have killed von Richthofen.[61] Miller and the Secret History documentary dismiss this theory because of the angle from which Evans fired at Richthofen.[58][60]
Other sources have suggested that Gunner Robert Buie (also of the 53rd Battery) may have fired the fatal shot. There is little support for this theory.[58][60] In 2007, a municipality in Sydney recognised Buie as the man who shot down Richthofen, placing a plaque near his former home.[67] Buie died in 1964 and has never been officially recognised in any other way.[citation needed]
No. 3 Squadron AFC's commanding officer Major David Blake initially suggested that Richthofen had been killed by the crew of one of his squadron's R.E.8s, which had also fought members of Richthofen's unit that afternoon. This claim was quickly discounted and withdrawn, if only because of the time factor. Following an autopsy that he witnessed, Blake became a strong proponent of the view that an AA machine gunner had killed Richthofen.

Theories about last combat
Richthofen was a highly experienced and skilled fighter pilot—fully aware of the risk from ground fire. Further, he concurred with the rules of air fighting created by his late mentor Boelcke, who specifically advised pilots not to take unnecessary risks. In this context, Richthofen's judgement during his last combat was clearly unsound in several respects.[68] Several theories have been proposed to account for his behaviour.
In 1999, a German medical researcher, Henning Allmers, published an article in the British medical journal The Lancet, suggesting it was likely that brain damage from the head wound Richthofen suffered in July 1917 played a part in his death. This was supported by a 2004 paper by researchers at the University of Texas. Richthofen's behaviour after his injury was noted as consistent with brain-injured patients, and such an injury could account for his perceived lack of judgement on his final flight: flying too low over enemy territory and suffering target fixation.[69]
Richthofen may have been suffering from cumulative combat stress, which made him fail to observe some of his usual precautions. One of the leading British air aces, Major Edward "Mick" Mannock, was killed by ground fire on 26 July 1918 while crossing the lines at low level, an action he had always cautioned his younger pilots against. One of the most popular of the French air aces, Georges Guynemer, went missing on 11 September 1917, probably while attacking a two-seater without realizing several Fokkers were escorting it.[70][71]
There is a suggestion that on the day of Richthofen's death, the prevailing wind was about 40 km/h (25 mph) easterly, rather than the usual 40 km/h (25 mph) westerly. This meant that Richthofen, heading generally westward at an airspeed of about 160 km/h (100 mph), was travelling over the ground at up to 200 km/h (125 mph) rather than the more typical ground speed of 120 km/h (75 mph). This was considerably faster than normal and he could easily have strayed over enemy lines without realizing it.[68]
At the time of Richthofen's death, the front was in a highly fluid state, following the initial success of the German offensive of March–April 1918. This was part of Germany's last opportunity to win the war. In the face of Allied air superiority, the German air service was having difficulty acquiring vital reconnaissance information, and could do little to prevent Allied squadrons from completing effective reconnaissance and close support of their armies.

Burial
In common with most Allied air officers, Major Blake, who was responsible for Richthofen's body, regarded the Red Baron with great respect, and he organised a full military funeral, to be conducted by the personnel of No. 3 Squadron Australian Flying Corps.
The body was buried in the cemetery at the village of Bertangles, near Amiens, on 22 April 1918. Six of No. 3 Squadron's officers served as pallbearers, and a guard of honour from the squadron's other ranks fired a salute.[i]
Allied squadrons stationed nearby presented memorial wreaths, one of which was inscribed with the words, "To Our Gallant and Worthy Foe".[72]

A speculation that his opponents organised a flypast at his funeral, giving rise to the missing man formation,[73] is most unlikely and totally unsupported by any contemporary evidence.
In the early 1920s, the French authorities created a military cemetery at Fricourt, in which a large number of German war dead, including Richthofen, were reinterred.[j] In 1925 von Richthofen's youngest brother, Bolko, recovered the body from Fricourt and took it to Germany. The family's intention was for it to be buried in the Schweidnitz cemetery next to the graves of his father and his brother Lothar von Richthofen, who had been killed in a post-war air crash in 1922.[74] The German Government requested that the body should instead be interred at the Invalidenfriedhof Cemetery in Berlin, where many German military heroes and past leaders were buried, and the family agreed. Richthofen's body received a state funeral. Later the Third Reich held a further grandiose memorial ceremony at the site of the grave, erecting a massive new tombstone engraved with the single word: Richthofen.[75] During the Cold War, the Invalidenfriedhof was on the boundary of the Soviet zone in Berlin, and the tombstone became damaged by bullets fired at attempted escapees from East Germany. In 1975 the body was moved to a Richthofen family grave plot at the Südfriedhof in Wiesbaden.[76]

Number of victories
Main article: List of victories of Manfred von Richthofen
For decades after World War I, some authors questioned whether Richthofen had achieved 80 victories, insisting that his record was exaggerated for propaganda purposes. Some claimed that he took credit for aircraft downed by his squadron or wing.
In fact, Richthofen's victories are unusually well documented. A full list of the aircraft the Red Baron was credited with shooting down was published as early as 1958[77]—with documented RFC/RAF squadron details, aircraft serial numbers, and the identities of Allied airmen killed or captured—73 of the 80 listed match recorded British losses. A study conducted by British historian Norman Franks with two colleagues, published in Under the Guns of the Red Baron in 1998, reached the same conclusion about the high degree of accuracy of Richthofen's claimed victories. There were also unconfirmed victories that would put his actual total as high as 100 or more.[78]
For comparison, the highest-scoring Allied ace, the Frenchman René Fonck, achieved 75 confirmed victories[79] and a further 52 unconfirmed behind enemy lines.[78] The highest-scoring British Empire fighter pilots were Canadian Billy Bishop, who was officially credited with 72 victories,[80] Mick Mannock, with 61 confirmed victories,[81][82] Canadian Raymond Collishaw, with 60,[83] and James McCudden, with 57 confirmed victories.
Richthofen's early victories and the establishment of his reputation coincided with a period of German air superiority, but he achieved many of his successes against a numerically superior enemy, who flew fighter aircraft that were, on the whole, better than his own.[77]

Orders and Decorations, Tributes, and Relics

Orders and Decorations
In order of date awarded

German Empire / German Federal States]
• Prussian Military Pilot Badge
• Honour Goblet for the Winner in Air Combat
• Iron Cross, 1st Class (10 April 1916), 2nd Class (23 September 1914)
• Duke Carl Eduard Medal with Sword Clasp (9 November 1916)
• Knight's Cross of the Royal House Order of Hohenzollern with Swords (11 November 1916)
• Pour le Mérite (12 January 1917)
• Knight's Cross of the Military Order of St. Henry (16 April 1917)
• Order of the Red Eagle, 3rd Class with Crown and Swords (2 April 1918)
• Knight's Cross of the Saxe-Ernestine House Order, 1st Class with Crown and Swords
• Bavarian Military Merit Order, 4th Class with Crown and Swords
• Knight's Cross of the Württemberg Military Merit Order
• Hessian Bravery Medal
• Cross for Faithful Service
• Lippe War Merit Cross, 2nd Class
• Cross of War of Honour for a Heroic Deed
• Brunswick War Merit Cross, 2nd Class
• Wound Badge, 3rd Class (1918)
• Hanseatic Crosses of the Tree Hanseatic Cities of Bremen, Hamburg, and Lübeck
Austro-Hungarian Empire
• Order of the Iron Crown, 3rd Class
• Austro-Hungarian Military Merit Cross, 3rd Class with War Decorations
• Field Pilot Badge
Ottoman Empire
• Iron Crescent
• Silver Imtiyaz Medal
• Silver Liakat Medal

Kingdom of Bulgaria
• Military Order for Bravery, 4th Class (12 June 1917)

Tributes
At various times, several different German military aviation Geschwader (literally "squadrons"; equivalent to Commonwealth air force "groups", French escadrons or USAF "wings") have been named after the Baron:
• Jagdgeschwader 132 "Richthofen" (1 April 1936 – 1 November 1938)—Wehrmacht aviation unit
• Jagdgeschwader 131 "Richthofen" (1 November 1938 – 1 May 1939)—Luftwaffe
• Jagdgeschwader 2 "Richthofen" (1 May 1939 – 7 May 1945)—Luftwaffe
• Jagdgeschwader 71 "Richthofen" (from 6 June 1959)—the first jet-fighter unit established by the post-World War II German Bundeswehr ("federal defence force"); its founding commander was the most successful air ace in history, Erich Hartmann.
In 1941 a newly launched Kriegsmarine (German navy) seaplane tender received the name ''Richthofen'' [de].
In 1968 Richthofen was inducted into the International Air & Space Hall of Fame.[84][85]
"Red Flag", the US Air Force's counterpart to TOPGUN, was an outgrowth of Project Red Baron, which happened in three phases (c.  1966 to c.  1974) during the period of the Vietnam War.

Relics
Captain Roy Brown donated the seat of the Fokker triplane in which the German flying ace made his final flight to the Royal Canadian Military Institute (RCMI) in 1920.[86] Apart from the triplane's seat, the RCMI, in Toronto, also holds a side panel signed by the pilots of Brown's squadron. The engine of Richthofen's Dr.I was donated to the Imperial War Museum in London, where it is still on display. The museum also holds the Baron's machine guns. The control column (joystick) of Richthofen's aircraft can be seen at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra. The Australian National Aviation Museum has what is suspected to be the fuel tank of Richthofen's Dr.I, however there is no conclusive proof.

Published works
• Richthofen, Captain Manfred Freiherr von (July 1918). The Red Battle Flyer. Translated by Barker, T. Ellis. preface and notes by C. G Grey, editor of The Aeroplane. New York: Robert M. McBride & Co – via Project Gutenberg.

References

Notes
1. ^ For example, his brother Lothar also used it.
2. ^ Not to be confused with Bolko von Richthofen the archaeologist, a distant cousin
3. ^ Similar cups had been officially awarded to some earlier pilots on their first victories, although the practice had been discontinued by this time.
4. ^ Burrows has suggested that he was simply bored with the procedure and that this was an excuse to discontinue it.
5. ^ The air victory was credited to Captain Donald Cunnell of No. 20,[44] who was killed by German anti-aircraft fire a few days later (12 July 1917) near Wervik. Cunnell's observer Lt. A. G. Bill successfully flew the aircraft back to base.[45]
6. ^ The actual bullet lodged in Richthofen's clothing. It was apparently recovered, but it has not been preserved for examination by modern historians. It was apparently a normal ball round, as fired by all British rifle- calibre arms, and thus would not be any help in resolving the controversy of who fired it.
7. ^ Gunner Ernest W. Twycross,[60] and Sergeant Ted Smout of the Australian Medical Corps later claimed that Richthofen was still alive and tried to say something, with the only understood last or only word being "kaputt", before he died.[61] This has been disputed by accounts which state that Richthofen was already dead and the nature of his wound, as well as his broken nose and teeth. The definition of "kaputt" is often in contention.[62][63][64]
8. ^ Sensational accounts have been systematically discredited by several writers, even though they describe the attack in great detail and are allegedly given by Brown.
9. ^ The official caption of the photograph on the right reads The funeral of Rittmeister Baron M. Von Richthofen. Firing party presenting arms as the coffin passes into the cemetery, borne on the shoulders of six pilots of No. 3 Squadron A.F.C. Bertangles, France 22nd April 1918. The Padre is Captain Reverend George H. Marshall, M.A., D.S.O.
10. ^ Among other reasons to protect the graves from vandalism by disgruntled villagers, understandably resentful of former enemies being buried among their own relatives.

Citations
1. ^ Jump up to:a b Kilduff, p. 6.
2. ^ "Freiherr". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 16 July 2010.
3. ^ Richthofen, Manfred von. Der Rote Baron (The Red Baron).Archived 4 December 2012 at the Wayback MachineNorderstedt, Germany: BOD, 2008 (reprint). ISBN 978-3-8370-9217-2.
4. ^ Stars and Strips Forever: "Von Richthofen's mother, actress Fern Andra meet"; 14 November 1954 Kuningunde von Richthofen and Fern Andra Retrieved 17 November 2016
5. ^ Wright 1976, p. 31.
6. ^ Burrows 1970, p. 36.
7. ^ Burrows 1970, pp. 37–38.
8. ^ Wright 1976, p. 30.
9. ^ Preußen 1914, p. 400.
10. ^ Von Richthofen 2007, pp. 49–51.
11. ^ Jump up to:a b c McAllister 1982, p. 52.
12. ^ Von Richthofen 1969, p. 24.
13. ^ Von Richthofen 2007, p. 51.
14. ^ Von Richthofen 1969, p. 31.
15. ^ Von Richthofen 1969, p. 37.
16. ^ McAllister 1982, pp. 53–54.
17. ^ McAllister 1982, pp. 52–53.
18. ^ Jump up to:a b c d McAllister 1982, p. 54.
19. ^ Kilduff 1994, p. 41.
20. ^ McAllister 1982, pp. 54–55.
21. ^ Jump up to:a b McAllister 1982, p. 56.
22. ^ Swopes, Bryan (17 September 2013). "This Day in Aviation — September 17, 1916". The Red Baron Archives. Retrieved 4 June 2014.
23. ^ Jump up to:a b von Richthofen, Manfred et al. Der rote Kampfflieger.Deutscher Verlag (Ullstein), 1933.
24. ^ English 2003, p. 62.
25. ^ Jump up to:a b Burrows 1970, p. 103.
26. ^ McAllister 1982, p. 57.
27. ^ Guttman 2009, p. 64
28. ^ Guttman 2009, pp. 64–65
29. ^ Grey and Thetford, 1970, p. 100.
30. ^ "Richthofen." Theaerodrome.com. Retrieved: 10 August 2010.
31. ^ Guttman 2009, p. 63.
32. ^ Baker 1991
33. ^ "The Blue Max." American History, Volume 38, No. 1, April 2003, p. 9. ISSN 1076-8866.
34. ^ Richthofen, The Red Knight of the Air, (n.d.) pp. 164–165.
35. ^ Der rote Kampfflieger, open.cit., (n.d.) p. 120.
36. ^ Kilduff 1994, p. 73.
37. ^ Kilduff, p. 79.
38. ^ Jump up to:a b McAllister 1982, p. 59.
39. ^ Bodenschatz 1998
40. ^ Kilduff, p. 77.
41. ^ McAllister 1982, p. 61.
42. ^ "Germany's 'Red Baron' dies". UPI. Retrieved 12 July 2020.
43. ^ McAllister 1982, p. 60.
44. ^ Guttman, 2009 pp. 86–88
45. ^ Guttman & Dempsey (2009), pp. 88–89.
46. ^ Burrows 1970, p. 154.
47. ^ Burrows 1970, pp. 160–163.
48. ^ Burrows 1970, pp. 162–163.
49. ^ Richthofen 2008, p.177
50. ^ Johnson, Karl (Contributing Editor for WTJ). "'The Red Fighter Pilot' by Manfred von Richthofen (online edition)". The War Times Journal. Retrieved: 27 May 2007.
51. ^ Burrows 1970, p. 152.
52. ^ Burrows 1970, p. 163.
53. ^ Burrows 1970, p. 131.
54. ^ Franks and Bennett 1997, p. 126.
55. ^ Jump up to:a b c d McAllister 1982, p. 63.
56. ^ Franks & Bennett (1997)
57. ^ McAllister 1982, p. 64.
58. ^ Jump up to:a b c d e f g h Miller, Dr. Geoffrey. "The Death of Manfred von Richthofen: Who fired the fatal shot?" Sabretache: Journal and Proceedings of the Military History Society of Australia, vol. XXXIX, no. 2, 1998.
59. ^ Robertson 1958, p. 118.
60. ^ Jump up to:a b c d e f Dogfight – The Mystery of the Red Baron, Channel 4, Secret History, 22 December 2003. US broadcast as "Who Killed the Red Baron? Explore Competing Theories." Pbs.org, (Public Broadcasting Service) Nova, 7 October 2003.
61. ^ Jump up to:a b Unsolved History: Death of the Red Baron, 2002, Discovery Channel
62. ^ "Synonym für gestorben – Synonyme | Antonyme (Gegenteile) – Fremdwörter von gestorben." google.com, 17 May 2009. Retrieved: 13 June 2009.
63. ^ "kaputt" – via The Free Dictionary.
64. ^ "Definition: Kaputt." Ego4u.com, German-English dictionary, 22 April 2009. Retrieved: 13 June 2009.
65. ^ "Polish historian finds death certificate of WWI German flying ace 'Red Baron'." Daily News (New York). Retrieved: 8 December 2009.
66. ^ "Richthofen - World War I Document Archive". wwi.lib.byu.edu.
67. ^ Day, Mark. "Unsung No.1 with a bullet." The Australian, 7 April 2007.
68. ^ Jump up to:a b Franks and Bennett 1997
69. ^ Allmers, Dr. Henning. "Manfred Freiherr von Richthofen's medical record—Was the "Red Baron" fit to fly?" The Lancet, 354 (9177), 7 August 1999, pp. 502–504. Published online by anzacs.net. Retrieved: 23 September 2007.
70. ^ "Georges Guynemer: Beloved French Ace, 53 victories."acepilots.com. Retrieved: 2 July 2009.
71. ^ Guttman, Jon. "Georges Guynemer: France's World War I Ace Pilot." historynet.com. Retrieved: 2 July 2009.
72. ^ "A Gallant and Worthy Foe: The Death of the "Red Baron"". http://www.thursdayreview.com. Retrieved 14 December 2017.
73. ^ "Histories: The Missing Man Formation." Archived 21 November 2000 at the Wayback Machine aiipwmia.com. Retrieved: 11 March 2010.
74. ^ "Biography: Lothar Freiherr von Richthofen." Frontflieger.de. Retrieved: 13 June 2009.
75. ^ Burrows 1970, p. 196.
76. ^ Franks and Bennett 1997, p. 9.
77. ^ Jump up to:a b Robertson 1958, pp. 150–155.
78. ^ Jump up to:a b Franks and Bailey 1992
79. ^ Ordre de la IVe Armée, n°1599, 23 January 1919
80. ^ "Distinguished Flying Cross Citation", London Gazette, 3 August 1918.
81. ^ "Mannock". The Aerodrome.com. Retrieved: 13 April 2009.
82. ^ Franks et al 1993, pp. 255–256.
83. ^ Shores et al. 1990, pp. 115–116
84. ^ Sprekelmeyer, Linda, editor. These We Honor: The International Aerospace Hall of Fame. Donning Co. Publishers, 2006. ISBN 978-1-57864-397-4.
85. ^ "Manfred von Richthofen". San Diego Air and Space Museum. Retrieved 21 April 2021.
86. ^ "Toronto Feature: Royal Military Institute". The Canadian Encyclopedia. Retrieved 1 September 2019.

Bibliography
• Baker, David. Manfred von Richthofen: The Man and the Aircraft He Flew. McGregor, Minnesota: Voyageur Press, 1991. ISBN 1-871547-06-7.
• Bodenschatz, Karl. Hunting With Richthofen: Sixteen Months of Battle with J G Freiherr Von Richthofen No. 1. London: Grub Street, 1998. ISBN 1-898697-97-3.
• Burrows, William E. Richthofen: A True History of the Red Baron. London: Rupert Hart-Davis, 1970. ISBN 0-15-177172-3.
• English, Dave. The Air Up There: More Great Quotations on Flight. Chicago, Illinois: McGraw-Hill Professional, 2003. ISBN 0-07-141036-8.
• Franks, Norman; Bailey, Frank W.; Guest, Russell. Above the Lines: The Aces and Fighter Units of the German Air Service, Naval Air Service and Flanders Marine Corps, 1914–1918. Grub Street, 1993. ISBN 0-948817-73-9, ISBN 978-0-948817-73-1.
• Franks, Norman and Frank W. Bailey. Over the Front: A Complete Record of Fighter Aces and Units of the United States and French Air Services, 1914–1918. London: Grub Street, 1992. ISBN 978-0-948817-54-0.
• Franks, Norman, Hal Giblin and Nigel McCrery. Under the Guns of the Red Baron: Complete Record of Von Richthofen's Victories and Victims. London: Grub Street, 2007, First edition 1995. ISBN 1-84067-145-9.
• Gibbons, Floyd, The Red Knight of Germany: The Story of Baron von Richthofen, German's Great War Bird. New York: Doubleday, Page & Company, 1927.
• Grey, Peter and Owen Thetford. German Aircraft of the First World War. London: Putnam, 2nd ed., 1970. ISBN 0-933852-71-1.
• Guttman, Jon. Pusher Aces of World War 1 (Aircraft of the Aces #88). Oxford, UK: Osprey Publishing Co, 2009. ISBN 978-1-84603-417-6.
• Kilduff, Peter.The Red Baron: Beyond the Legend. London: Cassell, 1994. ISBN 0-304-35207-1.
• McAllister, Hayden, ed. Flying Stories. London: Octopus Books, 1982. ISBN [login to see] .
• O'Connor, Neal W. The Aviation Awards of the Grand Duchies of Baden and Oldenburg Foundation of Aviation World War I: Aviation Awards of Imperial Germany in World War I and the Men Who Earned Them – Volume VI. Stratford, Connecticut: Flying Machines Press, 1999. ISBN 0-7643-1626-5.
• Preußen, Kriegsministerium, Geheime Kriegs-Kanzlei. Rangliste der Königlich Preußischen Armee und des XIII. Berlin: Ernst Siegfried Mittler und Sohn, 1914.
• Robertson, Bruce (ed.) von Richthofen and the Flying Circus. Letchworth, UK: Harleyford, 1958.
• Robertson, Linda R. The Dream of Civilized Warfare: World War I Flying Aces and the American Imagination. Minneapolis, Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 2005. ISBN 978-0-8166-4271-7.
• Shores, Christopher; Norman Franks; Russell Guest. Above the Trenches: A Complete Record of the Fighter Aces and Units of the British Empire Air Forces 1915–1920. Grub Street, 1990. ISBN 0-948817-19-4, ISBN 978-0-948817-19-9.
• Von Richthofen, Manfred. The Red Baron. Norderstedt, Germany: BOD, 2008 (reprint). ISBN 978-3-8370-9217-2.
• Von Richthofen, Manfred. Red Fighter Pilot: The Autobiography of the Red Baron. St Petersburg, Florida: Red and Black Publishers, 2007 (reprint). ISBN 978-0-9791813-3-7.
• Von Richthofen, Manfred. The Red Baron. Translated by Peter Kilduff. Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1969.
• Wright, Nicolas. The Red Baron. London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1976. ISBN 0-283-98298-5.

Concerning death
• Allmers, Dr. Henning. "Manfred Freiherr von Richthofen's Medical Record: Was the "Red Baron" fit to fly?" Lancet 1999, 354: pp. 502–504.
• Day, Mark. "Unsung No.1 with a bullet – World War I ace Manfred von Richthofen seems to have met his match in an Australian gunner." The Australian News Corporation, 30 April 2007. Retrieved: 30 April 2007.
• Franks, Norman and Alan Bennett. The Red Baron's Last Flight: A Mystery Investigated. London: Grub Street, 2007, First edition 1997. ISBN 1-904943-33-0
• Miller, Geoffrey. "The Death of Manfred von Richthofen: Who fired the fatal shot?" Sabretache: Journal and Proceedings of the Military History Society of Australia, Vol. XXXIX, No. 2.
• Titler, Dale. The Day the Red Baron Died. New York: Ballantine Books, 1970. ISBN 0-345-24923-2.
FYI LTC John Shaw 1SG Steven ImermanGySgt Gary CordeiroSMSgt Tom BurnsSgt Jim BelanusSGM Bill FrazerSGT Randell Rose[SGT Denny EspinosaA1C Riley SandersSSgt Clare MaySSG Robert WebsterCSM Chuck StaffordPFC Craig KarshnerSFC Bernard WalkoSPC Nancy GreenePVT Mark Zehner Lt Col Charlie BrownSP5 Dennis Loberger SSG Robert Mark Odom 1LT Peter Duston