TOMORROW is a red letter day in the history of military aviation ... literally!
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It is the 100th anniversary of the death of arguably the most famous of all fighter pilots, Baron Manfred von Richthofen. Or to give him his British nickname ‘The Red Baron’.
And devotees from around the world will gather at his burial site in the village of Bertangles, near the French city of Amiens, to pay homage to the legendary flyer.
In his time, with the primitive aircraft made of wood and fabric, a pilot who managed 20 kills in dogfights with the enemy was regarded as a legend.
So what does that make von Richthofen, whose final tally was 80? And don’t forget he was shot down and killed in his prime.
On 21 April, 1918 von Richthofen followed the Sopwith Camel flown by an inexperienced young Canadian RAF pilot Wilfred ‘Wop’ May as it veered away from a dog-fight involving around 40 aircraft.
As the Red Baron chased May, the Canadian’s squadron leader Capt Roy Brown chased the German.
Australian war photographer Hubert (later Sir Hubert) Wilkins witnessed the final moments.
Wilkins was on his way to the front to take photos of the action when he saw the battle overhead and stopped his car to watch.
He recalled seeing May try to shake off the German air ace by putting his plane into an almost vertical dive. Miraculously, nearing the ground May pulled out of the dive and disappeared from Wilkins’ view over a hill. The Red Baron, in hot pursuit, also pulled out of his dive.
Suddenly, there was a crackle of a single machine gun and the Red Baron’s Fokker triplane seemed to go out of control and sideslip. It, too, disappeared from view.
By the time Wilkins arrived on the scene of the crash, the German hero’s body had already been taken to British RAF headquarters.
Wilkins never saw von Richthofen’s body but took a series of shots of the mangled wreck of the famous red aircraft.
There has always been a dispute over who actually shot down the Red Baron. The Canadians were convinced it had been Brown.
But Aussie Diggers in an Australian machine-gun emplacement also claimed credit. Wilkins a world renowned aviator himself always believed it was the Diggers who had made the fatal blow.
The following day, von Richthofen was buried at Bertangles with full military honours by the allies.
The propeller of his downed aircraft was fashioned into a memorial cross on his last resting place.
There was also a truce to enable German pilots to fly across the area and drop wreaths of flowers onto the grave. Wars were different back then!
The mutual respect remains to this day – and all countries involved in action that day will be represented tomorrow at Bertangles.
FOOTNOTE: Several mementoes from the Red Baron’s crashed aircraft are on permanent display at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra and the RAAF Museum at Point Cook in Victoria.
