“The Red Battle Flyer”
Von Richthofen’s Brilliant Career in the Air an Offset to His Failure as a Uhlan
The cheery egotism of a man fully assured within himself that he merits his own good opinion is the dominant note of Captain Baron Manfred Freiherr von Richthofen’s account of his experiences as a flyer. It is not an offensive egotism; you do not resent it; though you may smile, wondering that a spirit so entirely valiant could so lock arms with that quality of juvenile vanity commonly described as “cockiness.” Von Richthofen was a remarkable fellow, the most debonair as well as the most redoubtable of the German aviators and really entitled to exemption from the opprobrious terms of “Hun” and “Boche.” Though a resolute foe he did not forget that he was a gentleman, an aristocrat, and he played the game on that level. He was easily the foremost of aviators—as far as official recognition can determine priority—at the time of his death, April 21, 1918. He then had a record of 80 downs—70 aeroplanes and 10 observation balloons. His nearest rival at that time was Major Raymond Collishaw, the British Ace, with a record of 77.
Von Richthofen was shot down on the Amiens front, over the Somme, April 21st, and his machine, a new and elaborate triplane of the Fokker type, recently presented to him—its speed was 140 miles an hour and it could climb 15,000 feet in 17 minutes—fell in the British lines. The esteem in which he was held by those who had so often sought to shoot him down was attested in his burial with full military honors and the tributes of genuine admiration heaped on his grave. In the fifteen months of his active flying he became the favorite of the Kaiser and the idol of the Germany Army. Some one has said, perhaps not too extravagantly, that the fall of Amiens, then besieged, would not have compensated Germany for the loss she sustained in the death of the greatest and most beloved of her heroes of the air.
Von Richthofen belonged to the country gentry, of noble family. He entered the Cadet Corps when he was eleven years old. In 1911 he entered the Army. At the outbreak of the war he was a lieutenant of Uhlans. He went to the Western front with his regiment. His first experience with whistling bullets was when he and his company of Uhlans, out to ascertain the strength of the enemy in the forest near Virton, were caught in a trap. They fled in wild disorder, not without casualties. He was in the trenches before Verdun and found it “boresome.” When off duty he sought amusement shooting game in the forest of La Chaussée. So passed several months. Then one day he rebelled against inactivity. It was not the thing for which he went to war. He made his plea to the higher powers. With much grumbling his prayer was granted. He joined the Flying Service in May, 1915. He made his first flight the next day as an observer. Of that experience he wrote in his book: