Trivia - The Red Baron was shot down 100 years ago today

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BrazosBendHorn
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10:24a, 4/21/18
100 years ago today, 21 April 2018, Manfred von Richthofen, the famed Red Baron of Germany, was shot down near Amiens, France. With 80 confirmed kills, he was the leading ace of World War I. He was buried with full military honors by the Royal Flying Corps in the local cemetery in Bertangles, France. After the war, his remains were moved to a larger cemetery for German servicemen in Fricourt, France. In 1925, the Baron's remains were transported to Berlin, and interred in the Invalidenfriedhof cemetery. In the 1960s, part of the Berlin Wall was constructed within a few meters of the Baron's grave. In 1975, his remains were moved (for the last time) to the family grave at the local cemetery in Sdfriedhof, near Wiesbaden.

Stars & Stripes article

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Corporal Punishment
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7:47p, 4/22/18
AG
And his little brother Lothar was no slouch either with 40 credited victories. They were WWI's version of Joe and Dom DiMaggio.
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BrazosBendHorn
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In reply to Corporal Punishment • 6:21a, 4/23/18
Corporal Punishment said:
And his little brother Lothar was no slouch either with 40 credited victories. They were WWI's version of Joe and Dom DiMaggio.
True that. Lothar scored 40 kills in only 77 days of combat. (He spent a good chunk of flying career recuperating in hospital wards, having been seriously injured on 5/13/17, 3/13/18, and 8/13/18.)

They were two siblings with very different personalities and approaches to aerial combat. Manfred was very methodical (gain position, stalk, attack, disengage. Repeat), whereas Lothar's method could be described as "hell-bent-for-leather."

"If my brother does not have at least one success on every flight he gets tired of the whole thing."
~ Manfred von Richthofen
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Sapper Redux
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7:29a, 4/23/18
He's also making innovations in the frozen pizza market.

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Corporal Punishment
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7:32a, 4/23/18
AG
You think the von Richthofen estate sees any royalties on that? I suspect Manfred never ate pizza once. Probably more of a blood sausage kind of guy.

By the way, you can watch his funeral ceremony on YouTube. One night I was bored and found his crash site on Google Maps. Need to track that down again...
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Sapper Redux
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In reply to Corporal Punishment • 7:53a, 4/23/18
Corporal Punishment said:
You think the von Richthofen estate sees any royalties on that? I suspect Manfred never ate pizza once. Probably more of a blood sausage kind of guy.

By the way, you can watch his funeral ceremony on YouTube. One night I was bored and found his crash site on Google Maps. Need to track that down again...


I imagine since they don't use his birth name and the nickname was not trademarked, they don't see a dime.
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Corporal Punishment
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8:04a, 4/23/18
AG
Pull off the road on D1 between two small villages and that's all there is:
crash site
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BrazosBendHorn
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In reply to Corporal Punishment • 8:59a, 4/23/18
Corporal Punishment said:
Pull off the road on D1 between two small villages and that's all there is:
crash site
Well, the sign is fancier and more informative than the standard Texas Historical Marker, so there's that ...
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BrazosBendHorn
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In reply to Sapper Redux • 9:09a, 4/23/18
Dr. Watson said:
He's also making innovations in the frozen pizza market.
For many years Schwans Food Co. sponsored a Red Baron Aerobatic Team. It was disbanded in December 2007.



Last flight of the Red Baron squadron
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BrazosBendHorn
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In reply to Sapper Redux • 9:42a, 4/23/18
Dr. Watson said:
Corporal Punishment said:
You think the von Richthofen estate sees any royalties on that? I suspect Manfred never ate pizza once. Probably more of a blood sausage kind of guy.

By the way, you can watch his funeral ceremony on YouTube. One night I was bored and found his crash site on Google Maps. Need to track that down again...


I imagine since they don't use his birth name and the nickname was not trademarked, they don't see a dime.
He wasn't called "The Red Baron" by the Germans, in any case. In Germany his nickname was Der Rote Kampfflieger (the Red Fighter Pilot).

Oh well, there are worse things than having your English nickname appropriated to sell factory-made frozen pizzas ... I'm just grateful that a certain well-known hot dog restaurant didn't do something with his name or image ...

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Corporal Punishment
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10:12a, 4/23/18
AG
Brutal accent on that "German" guy.
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Gardening Ag
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8:39p, 4/28/18
Hard to believe he was only 25 when he died.
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JABQ04
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10:28p, 4/28/18
AG
I heard Snoopy May have had something to do with this.

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BrazosBendHorn
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In reply to JABQ04 • 10:34p, 4/30/18
JABQ04 said:
I heard Snoopy May have had something to do with this.

Did Charles M. Schulz ever get any royalties on that song?

Oh wait, I just remembered that Google is good for this sort of thing ...

Quote:
The song was written by Phil Gerdhard and Dick Holler and inspired, obviously, by a Peanuts strip (first published in October 1965) where Snoopy first imagines himself as a daredevil wartime fighter pilot. Unfortunately, having recorded the song, the band had neglected to ask Charles M Schulz for permission to use the Snoopy name, with the result that Schulz (and his publisher, United Features Syndicate) sued and won all publishing royalties from the tune (an alternate version entitled "Squeaky Vs The Black Knight" briefly appeared in Canada).
I found it on the internet so it must be true
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Bregxit
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In reply to JABQ04 • 5:19p, 5/4/18
AG
JABQ04 said:
I heard Snoopy May have had something to do with this.



The Snoopy v Red Baron Christmas song is better.

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BrazosBendHorn
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8:17p, 5/4/18
Quote:
The Snoopy v Red Baron Christmas song is better.
Between Snoopy vs. The Red Baron, The Return of the Red Baron, and Snoopy's Christmas, the Royal Guardsmen milked that novelty song genre for all it was worth ...
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titan
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In reply to Sapper Redux • 9:10a, 5/5/18
S
Dr. Watson said:
He's also making innovations in the frozen pizza market.

And those pizzas are really good for the price!

It is completely baffling though how a German noble ace of World War I got associated with American pizzas. The downstream connection to Snoop the dog in Peanuts does seem the most likely.

Did opinion settle on which agent damaged his plane fatally --- whether it was the ground batteries?
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BrazosBendHorn
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11:13a, 5/5/18
Quote:
Did opinion settle on which agent damaged his plane fatally --- whether it was the ground batteries?
His plane wasn't damaged enough to cause the crash. The Baron suffered one fatal bullet wound that pierced his lungs and nicked his heart. He probably had 90 seconds of consciousness, just long enough to make a crash landing on the Allied side of the lines. (Souvenir-hunting ANZAC troops literally picked the triplane to pieces later on.)



It will never be known for sure who fired the bullet that killed the Baron. The general consensus was that it was most likely ground fire, given the path of the bullet (entering the lower right back and exiting the left breast); probably occurred when the Baron was making a 180-degree turn at low altitude in an attempt to make it back to the German lines. Keep in mind that Roy Brown only made one pass at the Baron, coming from behind and above. Witnesses on the ground said that Brown went past the Baron, then regrouped with May (who the Baron had been chasing) and then the two of them headed for home. That's when the Baron went into a highly banked turn to the east, and then into a steep descent and crash landing.

PBS had an excellent show about this a few years ago.

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titan
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6:36p, 5/7/18
S
That was a great video and post. Thanks. What was particulary interesting was chronically the development and the visual difference of the aircraft over time reminding how just in the four years the aircraft had vastly changed, maybe more than realized. The close role of the Flying Circus in protecting recon planes was also interesting in that it pointed out that von Richthofen had violated one of his own rules in making that pursuit. A sobering example of a master's rules generally apply, and their formulator is not exempt from them.

It was dramatic the way the novice was trying to escape the Baron and actually had greater speed, but wasn't able to use it. The way it describes it does seem very likely it had to be ground fire because the Red Baron's plane had not changed course after Brown's run. The other factor being that he had to have been hit just some 20 odd seconds before. Even allowing for some longer time alive as these things can be unpredictable -- the decisive clue seems to be that the sharp turn was made when it seemed that Brown's plane was not firing and was a bit away. It does seem to be Cedric. What an impressive reconstruction.

I must confess I found it poignant to hear the final irony --- "The Red Baron may never have lost a dogfight" -- that record is actually restored by this outcome.

Thanks.
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