Manfred von Richthofen

All right.

On this day in 1916, World War I flying ace, the Red Baron of the German...

How do you pronounce that? Luftstreitkraft...

World War I era German Air Force.

Baron von Richthofen, I don't know why they haven't put that there, but the Red Baron, von Richthofen, wins his first aerial combat near Cambrai in France.

He went on to win dozens, wasn't he? Dozens and dozens of aerial combats, but in the end, right near the end of the war, was himself shot down and killed.

Von Richthofen.

A normal army general came to Richthofen once and said, how have you won dozens and dozens and dozens of aerial combats? When usually people go up and they might win one or two by chance, but it's such a chaotic thing that even the best of the best only survive a few before someone else gets them.

PREFACE Some time ago a naval officer who was engaged on particularly hazardous duty was discussing calmly the chances that he and his like had of surviving the war, assuming that it continued for several more years and that his particular branch of it increased its intensity.

He wound up his remarks by saying, "...the chief reason why I particularly want to survive the finish is that I'm so keen on comparing notes with our opposite members in the German Navy." That is the answer to those who ask, as an important official gentleman asked recently, why this English translation of Rittmeister von Richthofen's book should be published.

It gives our flying people an opportunity of comparing notes with one of Germany's star-turned fighting pilots, just as that excellent book by contact gives the Germans the chance of gathering the atmosphere of the Royal Flying Corps as it was in 1916 and 1917.

The Red Battle Flyer has evidently been carefully censored by the German authorities.

there is perhaps little to learn of immediate topical interests but there is much that explains things which were rather difficult to understand in the past and the understanding of such points gives one a line of reasoning which should be useful to our active service aviators in the future when one makes due allowance for the propagandist nature of the book which gives one the general impression of the writing of a gentleman prepared for publication by a hacked journalist one forms a distinctly favourable mental picture of the young rittmeister baron von our old friend froissart is credited with the statement that in his age of chivalry it was always impossible to inculcate into the german knights the true spirit of knightliness which seems to indicate that the practical german mind of those days could not understand the whimsicalities of the latin ideas of chivalry which for example made a knight against whose shield an opponent break his spear haul off out of the fight till the lanceless enemy unsheathed his sword and drave into combat again Probably the Hun of those days proceeded to stick his opponent in the midriff, wherever it may be, and so finish the fight.

In the same true spirit of knightliness an Englishman knocks a man down and then stands back so that he can get up and have another chance, whereas a more practical person would take excellent care that his opponent never got up till he had acknowledged himself beaten.

it is all a matter of the point of view and largely no doubt a matter of education however making due allowance for the point of view one finds surprisingly little hunnishness in von richthofen's manners or methods as set forth in print it is one of the accepted facts of war that the german aviators have displayed greater chivalry than any other branch of the german services it was a common occurrence for their pilots to fly over our lines in the course of their business and by way of variety from that business to drop packets containing letters from captured british aviators for the personal belongings of the dead one gathers that these acts of courtesy have become less frequent of late owing to the intensification of aerial warfare but it seems that captured or killed aviators still received full courtesies of war from the german aviators whatever may be the fate of prisoners in other hands afterwards It is not surprising, therefore, to find that, taking him all round, Rittmeister von Richthofen conveys to one the general impression that, mutatus mutandus, he is very like an English public schoolboy of good family.

His egotism, as one finds it in the book, is the egotism of a young man who is frankly pleased with himself, but is more elated by his good luck than by his cleverness.

Good thing he didn't go up no building, man.

They would have shot him down with, you know, Baron Von Richthofen or whatever.

I don't see anything.

Are you related to that white girl