Like the Kennedy assassination, the death of Manfred von Richthofen is clouded
by dozens of often conflicting eyewitness accounts and has inspired a mountain
of speculative theories. NOVA's "Who Killed the Red Baron?" is based partly on
a notable recent investigation of those theories, The Red Baron's Last
Flight, by Norman Franks and Alan Bennett. Another important recent book,
The Many Deaths of the Red Baron, by Frank McGuire, surveys the
literature supporting the competing claims. Below is a brief sampler of the
many versions of the events of April 21, 1918, discussed in detail by these two
sources.
Mortally Wounded in Air Combat?
The Royal Air Force (RAF) gave official credit for the Baron's death to No. 209
Squadron's Captain Roy Brown, whose combat report gives only the barest outline
of the action: "Went back again and dived on pure red triplane which was firing
on Lieut. May. I got a long burst into him and he went down vertical and was
observed to crash by Lieut. Mellersh and Lieut. May."
In 1927, after gaining access to British Air Ministry files, Floyd Gibbons
published a vivid account of Brown's victory in his best-selling popular book,
The Red Knight of Germany. That same year, a first-person narrative of
the action, "My Fight With Richthofen," was published in Liberty
magazine. Although supposedly in Brown's own words, the article was clearly
influenced by Gibbons and embroidered by Liberty's copywriters.
While these popular accounts of Brown's attack are of doubtful value, his claim
is supported by testimony from another 209 Squadron Captain, O. C.
LeBoutillier, and from a few key eyewitnesses on the ground. However, most
recent analysts conclude that the attack came at least a minute before the
Baron's final crash, probably too early to have inflicted the fatal wound.
Murdered On the Ground?
In 1925, a New York-based magazine called The Progressive published an
article titled "Richthofen Was Murdered." The article reported rumors
circulating in Germany that Richthofen had landed unscathed and that
Canadian soldiers had jumped from their trenches and killed the Baron before he
could climb out of his triplane. The rumors may have begun when German pilots
from the Baron's "circus" reported witnessing the triplane's relatively smooth
crash landing; at first, this fueled hopes that the Baron had been captured
alive, and later, the speculation that he had been murdered. However,
eyewitness accounts by the first ground troops to reach the crash site make
this highly implausible.
Chasing Two Sopwith Camels?
In accounts collected in the 1930s, at least three eyewitnesses claimed that
the Baron was pursuing two Sopwith Camels at the time he was brought
down by ground fire. One of the most detailed of these claims was by Sergeant
A. G. Franklyn, who was in charge of an Australian antiaircraft battery and
claims to have shot down the Baron with his Lewis gun. Subsequent research has
suggested that Franklyn probably confused the Red Baron's demise with his
battery's downing of a German airplane the day after the Baron's death in a
slightly different location.
Shot Down by a Two-Seater?
On the morning of April 21, 1918, the crew of two RE8 observation planes of the
Australian Flying Corps' No. 3 Squadron reported a skirmish with two red-nosed
Fokker triplanes. The squadron's commanding officer, Major D. V. J. Blake,
submitted his squadron's report with other details implying that one of the
attackers was Richthofen and that fire by an RE8 observer had brought the
Baron down. However, the attack was at too high an altitude and too early to
have been connected with the Baron's death. One explanation is that a pair of
triplanes from the Baron's "circus," perhaps including the Baron himself,
briefly dived on the two RE8s prior to encountering the Sopwith Camels of RAF
No. 209 Squadron.
An Unknown Rifleman on the Ground?
P. J. Carisella and James W. Ryan's popular book Who Killed the Red
Baron?, published in 1969, includes an account by Lieut. R. A. Wood of the
51st Battalion asserting that an unknown gunner from his unit brought down the
Baron. "As soon as the planes had passed overhead my platoon opened up with
rifle fire, and two sets of [Vickers] machine or Lewis guns on my left opened
fire. Richthofen was seen to crash soon after one of these bursts." Another
eyewitness interviewed in detail in 1975, Private V. J. Emery of 40th
Battalion, supported Wood's claim. Emery believed that an unknown rifleman from
Wood's platoon was in a better position to have fired the fatal shot than any
of the other gunners in the area.
Shot Down by a Machine Gunner on the Ground?
NOVA's program focuses on the two best-known claims attributing
Richthofen's death to machine gun fire from the ground. These were made by two
different Australian antiaircraft crews who were stationed on the Morlancourt
Ridge. In 1956, Gunner R. Buie, a Lewis gunner of the 53rd Battery, wrote to
Australian newspapers about how he and Gunner W. J. Evans had opened fire on a
German plane chasing a British one toward their position. "I started firing at
the body of the German pilot directly through my peep sight," Buie wrote.
"Fragments flew from the plane and it lessened speed. It came down a few
hundred yards away." Most researchers reconstruct Buie and Evans' firing
position as facing the oncoming triplane, making it unlikely that either could
have fired the side-on shot that killed the Baron.
Sergeant C. B. Popkin, a Vickers gunner with the 24th Machine Gun Company, was
in a more plausible position had he fired, as he claimed, when the Baron gave
up chasing May and turned back toward the German lines. According to Popkin's
statement recorded soon after the event: "As it came towards me, I opened fire
a second time and observed at once that my fire took effect. The machine
swerved, attempted to bank and make for the ground, and immediately crashed.
The distance from the spot where the plane crashed and my gun was about 600
yards."
While Popkin's position seems the best match for the evidence of the Baron's
wound, the long range and wide deflection angle required has led some to doubt
the plausibility of his claim. Even Popkin himself had doubts; he told the
Brisbane Courier in 1964 that "I am fairly certain it was my fire which
caused the Baron to crash but it would be impossible to say definitely that I
was responsible...As to pinpointing without doubt the man who fired the fatal
shot the controversy will never actually be resolved."
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Who put the fatal bullet into the Red
Baron as he closed in on Canadian Wilfrid May along the Somme River on April
21, 1918? Theories abound.
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Various Allied gunners on the ground
claimed to have shot the Baron down. To whom that honor truly belongs will
likely never be known.
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The Somme River valley today, 85 years after
the Baron's demise there launched decades of speculation into his true
killer
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