GERMAN AIR ACE

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 542, 27 May 1933, Page 2

GERMAN AIR ACE

BARON R1CHTHOFEN . MYSTERY OF MAN WHO BROUGHT HIM DOWN. RECENT INVESTIGATIONS. , Connictpig clai.ms as to who secured -the. , great Baron von Richthofen's scalp, in 1918, will probably never be satisfactorily settled. . The British official communique of the day, in. a sh'ort crisp sentence, announc\ng t|he downMl i'of IGePmany's air champion, stated that he had been shot down in air comhat with Captain R. Brown, R.A.F. (a Canadian). Richthofienls . death fcjractically sounded the death-knell of Germany's great fighting squadrons, as with the exception of Udet, their star men were quickly accounted for, and Richthofen's own jagdstaffel (squadron), the command of which was given to Goering (now Ilitler's Nazi Chief of Police), suffered a marked loss of morale. The new chief was a poor fighting- pilot. Perhaps the hest description of life in Richthofen's squadron, when it was at its peak, is given by Tony Fokker, . the world-famous constructor of the war-time fighting 'planes, and designer of the monoplanes which to-day bear his name. ~ Fokker recently wrote: — Watching the Fights. "For three weeks I livedj with the Richthofen jagdstaffel, located at the time on the Ypres front. Some 10 or 12 officers were living together in a pretty little Belgium country place. This was only a short time before Richthofen was killed. "Artillery 'spo.tting' sites were only about 15 kilometres behind the lines, and so when the circus was scheduled to go aloft, I would start >an hour or so ahead for the artillery advance posts and watch the air fights through their powerful rangefinders. "As a rule the fights were not more than nine or 10 miles off and two to three miles in the sky. "Spending hour after hour at the artillery range, I saw battle after battle in the air; staffel after staffel would leave its airport, cirele for height, proceed to the apopinted rendezvous in the sky and form the "circus" before cruising along the front in search of Allied squadrons. "Richthofen would he fiying out in front, the lowest 'plane in an ech'elon of V's, like a flock of immobile geese, fantastically coloured and flashing like mirrors in the sun. "Out of the western skies would eome a tinier flight of V's — Allied 'planes; then another and another, until the blue sky was etched with streaking flight. . "Round and pound, diving, zooming, looping, with motors roaring full out, these wasps spat lethal death through the glittering propeller's disc. "Comet-like projectiles missed each other by, inches in the whirlpool of sound and fury. Death in the Air. "Suddenly out of nowhere, two 'planes in; 125 m.p.h. flight, dived at each other — too late to loop, dive or swerve. "CRASPI! They merged, tangling wings, clasping each other like friends long separated, before gravity pulled them reluctantly apart and they hegan a crazy descent to bury themselves eight feet in the earth, miles below. "Perhaps I alone noticed them. The tapt pilots in the dogfights were taking in sensations with' express-train speed — fiying, fighting automatons at the highest pitch of skill and nerve in the fronzy of killing. "Richthofen gained the tail of an enemy. The tracer bullets were spitting out death, when an enemy's engine stopped, and the 'plane went into a qpick spin, and only levelled out for a landing quite close to where we were watching the whole battle. We quickly motored over. "The Baron had already returned to the front, after having landed and shaken hands with the officer he had shot down. A bullct had pierced the 1 Englishman's " pocket, ruining a pac- j ket of cigarettes, travelling dovm through his sleeves,. punctured his Sam Browne helt, and gone out without injury. We looked over his coat that might ,so easily have heen his . shroud. !E5asy Victory. ( "For several days I followed Richthofen's fights. Many of his victories were easy, especially when he attacked the clumsy two-seaters. His usual technique was to dive in their rear, zoom under the tail, and sh'oot from. very close range. He handled his 'plane with the utmost skill and seldom did he use more than a quarter ; of his ammunition on an enemy. "I think that one of the reasons why the Baron survived so long was his ability to keep guarding himself when attacked. Many other aces were shot down during a fight unexpectedly as they were training their guns on an enemy. Richthofen would fight very close to his wing man, and not to shift until it was a real dogfight, when the whole air was in confusion, would he release his formation to oermit every pdlot to *hift for himself."