Manfred von Richthofen remains one of the greatest legends of aviation. Born in a part of Germany that is now Poland, Richthofen was the son of an aristocratic Prussian family. A far better athlete than scholar, he wanted to become a calvary officer, but the changing nature of war had eliminated the need for calvary, so, he turned to the “new calvary,” aviation. When World War I began, Richthofen joined the Fliegertruppe as an observer in order to get into combat more quickly. After just 24 hours of flight training, he made his first solo flight. He crashed trying to land. By 1916, he was a combat pilot, and scored his first confirmed victory on September 17. On November 23 of the same year, he shot down the British ace Major Lanoe Hawker, his eleventh kill. On January 4, 1917, Richthofen shot down his 16th plane, making him the top living German ace at the time.
He recieved the Orden Pour le Mrite (a.k.a. the “Blue Max”), one of Germany’s highest honors. Given command of Jasta 11, he began to paint his aircraft red, so that he could be easily identified. However, it was also said he did this because of the color of his old Uhlan calvary regiment. To show solidarity with their commander, the pilots of Jasta 11 begin to put some red on their planes. Later, British pilots would paint the noses of their planes red, to show they were hunting this “Red Baron.” In April 1916, Richthofen wrote an angry letter to Berlin, complaining about the tendency of a biplane’s lower wing to break off during flight. This resulted in a visit from the legendary plane designer Anthony Fokker, and his design of the Dr.I triplane, which the Red Baron became famous for flying. After “Bloody April,” in which Richthofen shot down 21 Allied planes, he was ordered on leave, during which time he left command of Jasta 11 to his brother Lothar and met with Kaiser Wilhelm II.
When he returned, it was in command of a new squadron, the elite Jagdgeschwader 1 (Fighter Wing 1), also known as JG1, which gathered some of Germany’s best aces, including Hermann Gring and Lothar von Richthofen. The next month, he was wounded in combat, and the German government, realizing the propaganda boost his death would give to the Allies, forbade him to fly unless absolutely neccessary (a loophole he used often). On April 21, 1918, a disheartened Manfred von Richthofen who had watched so many of his comrades and friends die followed a Sopwith Camel deep into enemy territory, even though he himself had wrote in the German air doctrine that “one should never obstinately stay with an opponent which, through bad shooting or skillful turning, he has been unable to shoot down while the battle lasts until it is far on the other side.” Wilfred May, the pilot of the Camel, said it was his erratic, untrained piloting which saved him, until the Red Baron was killed by a bullet fired either by Australian gunners on the ground or by the Canadian pilot Arthur “Roy” Brown. His body was recovered by the British, and buried with full military
