Blasphemy!

Rittm;
I'am ok, just brused and battered a bit.
Jeni

The Old Baron did shot down a lot of two seaters, however did you ever consider that the single seat boys that had speed may have 180'd the the first sign of that all Red aircraft and went to find easier prey themselves. The fact that the majority of kills were against two seaters proves nothing. As for the battle against Hawker, true the Albatros was a more powerfull aircraft but the DH2 seems to have some ability to turn due to a rotary engine. If tinkering with RMII the DH2 seems to be pretty nimble even if underpowered. I think Manfred was an able pilot, maybe not the best flyer, I think Voss was better! I also think that he understood his limitations and flew using the best tactics to take advantage of his abilities. The bottem line is he shot down 80 enemy aircraft before making a mistake that killed him!

And for the record I'm a bigger fan of the Triplane and Voss then the Baron!

[Reinout]

Some messages for some people.

Stephen: not much fireworks from me.... While I agree with most of what you said, I do feel that the over-educated people you refer to are more the product of their own personality than of the universities they attended. But it is true that nowadays there are many people of such doubtable characters around.
Revisionist history isn't always bad and if it is done good it will acknowledge the quality of the first-hand original works. For instance, Edward Gibbon wrote an enormous volume about the Imperium Romanum during the second half of the 18th century. For well into this century it was the standard work on Roman society/culture/military etc., but now that has ended. Due to new evidence and revisionist history, it was discovered that Gibbon had used relatively few primary sources - the basis of any historical work! People still acknowledge the fact that he wrote in a wonderful and captivating style, but his work is no longer in use as a historical reference source.
Likewise revisionist history allows us to dispel the slanderous things written about for instance Germany and discern the truth.

Jim Ace: well Jim, you say that facing insurmountable odds makes a man a hero. MvR was given a way out from years of almost continuous combat, he refused. Even when he was convinced he wouldn't live through the war he didn't request a transfer away from the front. At any moment he could have stepped up to the High Command and say:"I don't think I am going to live if I continue flying, remove me from the front!" The High Command would have been elated to see their #1 pilot retire from hazardous combat. This and the longevity he had, makes him a hero. Insurmountable odds? Try surviving for as long as he did in the same circumstances. Bishop was ordered away from the front, what would have happened to this man had he gone on: more fame or death (you would use the word failure)? Rickenbacker saw combat for 8 months you say? Well, MvR started in 1914 or 1915. Do you know what the odds are for surviving that long? Personally I consider Boelcke the best of the breed. But MvR was ONE of the best and I think it is a damn shame -as well as quite sad- to see that there are people who will stoop at nothing to debunk this man. The arguments some people use..., well I think Stephen has said some of the best things about that.

Grube: some of the arguments you use are not exactly valid. You see it isn't his fault if the RFC bring out massive numbers of two-seaters (I'm not going into the debate about the alleged ease with which two-seaters can be shot down), flown by 18 year-olds. Picking on stragglers? First I don't know whether each or perhaps most of his victories were rookies who had left the fray, up to you to prove that. Second it is a target which is just as much a target as a plane shot down during a dogfight; it is a good tactic to remove the stragglers if combat odds are unfavourable for you. Please Grube, tell us what evidence there is for your arguments and what do those arguments prove exactly? I have reasons to be suspicious here (cannot reveal them now), so the challenge stands.

Some of this may seem as harsh language and/or judgment. Please do not be fooled by the appearance, I mean no harm, especially not personally.

Kind regards,

Reinout

[Rittm]

Stephen, Reinout,

Thank you. You have restored my faith that there are still people out there who give a damn. We need real heros in this country. I say this coming from a place where I went to University where the football players and other sportsmen are worshiped and fawned over and allowed to get away with rape. What does that tell our young men of this country? You can play a ball game, get lots of money for doing it, get an easy ride in college by receiving full scholarships and not having to do real college level work, and then you can break the law and get away with it. This also happens in the big schools too. This country is almost devoid of heros. If you look hard you might find them a few in places like the fire departments and they don't complain about doing their job. They want to be there.
Rittm

[Rittm]

Dear Jeni,
If you need someone to "vent" to, you can cry on my email address. Please feel free to do so.
With all earnesty,
Rittm

[PeterL]

Steven and Reinout, would either of you, or possibly both of you, consider marrying me?

Peter L

Rittm;
Thanks, but our E-mail hasn't been working. Withour going into details, I went to a movie with a brute. Later he decided I owed him, and when I said no, he got mad and tried to take it. He didn't get what he wanted because the second time he hit me in the abdoman, I threw up on him and got away. All my clothes including my underware were torn, and I'am brused, but ok. It's my self-esteem that's destroyed right now.
Jeni

Jeni,
Sorry to hear of your plight, something similar happened to someone who is very close to me a long time ago. The perpetrators of such acts should be castrated without benefit of anesthetic!

VBR,
Jim

Stephen, Reinout, Peter, et all,
I want to go on record here and now stating that I am not an elitist arrogant snob. I am a realist and the only reason I have responded to these previous threads, is that apart from my interest in early air warfare, I see a trend in hero worship that idolizes the individual and makes them bigger than life. For example Wyatt Earp, some writers and historians portray him as a do gooder all of the time, this is not actually the case as he was in trouble with the law in later years. But he is my hero for what he stood for during the gunfight at the OK Corral, which was not letting a gang of thieves and murderers dictate how the people and the town of Tombstone would live. I look at and evaluate the actions of the man (whomever it is) in both the positive and negative aspects to achieve my objective assessment of that individual. If people want to have MvR as their hero, than by all means...DO SO! But don't try and get me to believe as you do, because firstly that denies my right of individuality, secondly you feel the necessity to have to prove you're ideology every time. My hero's (Boelke and Rickenbacker) might not have achieved MvR's score but they each overcame more difficult trials in my estimation. Boelke brought form to air combat where there was none! Rickenbacker had to basically start from scratch, as the English weren't very forthcoming on fighter tactics, and I don't think he spoke fluent French. He also started out flying an inferior airplane to what the German's were flying at the time, he started out in a Nieuport 28 whose top wing had a tendency to shed it's covering in a steep dive. He started out at a time when there were a heck of a lot more experienced German combat pilots than any American ones. Sure the odds are stacked against you making it through four years of war, but if you have the best equipment (ie. aircraft) and more experienced flyers teaching you, your chances for survival are a lot better than someone who started out like Rickenbacker did. The American Industry didn't make any fighter aircraft, so the AEF had to use what it could beg off of the French (normally the worn out planes that were barely airworthy was what they got). They finally had to go to the higherarchy of the AEF to put pressure on the French to get the new SPAD XIII. Boelke started running up his tally when there were fighter squadrons that were in their infancy out trying to learn the techniques of air combat. Richthofen took something that Boelke formulated and just made a few improvements. But Boelke's dicta is still taught today, and it is Boelke that is known as the Father of Aerial Combat Tactics, not Richthofen. So what does that leave us with, that MvR was a good leader, that he had the most confirmed kills, and that he started the first Jadgeschwader. He was a man, not above doing things that were thought to be unchivalrous, but what he accomplished while he was alive was remarkable for that time. However in my view, if you add in the things that aren't so positive about the man, and form your own objective view of the man, then it makes him a little more real and brings him a little bit closer to our own lives. You can say that I'm full of crap if you want, but I have found throughout my travels around this earth, people all have commonalities that make them human. They all have their strengths and faults. Yes Stephen everyone needs a hero to try to emulate, but some such as myself look at the real man and choose carefully which strengths they want to emulate. I wouldn't want to be any of my hero's, I like me just as I am.
VBR,
Jim

[Rittm]

Well Jeni my love,
This is unfortunately another symptom of a dying society. We live in a place where honor is the last thought and you are lucky if you can find an individual who knows the value of friendship. Please know very well that you are in no way to blame. The heathen that you were with obviously had no culture, class, honor, or self dignity to know that a lady's wishes are an order when coming to things of a sexual nature. A man that has to forcefully steal something that a woman would offer him for free because she likes him is trash. Remember that Jeni. He is the trash to be swept away.
Take care of yourself,
Rittmeister

To Everyone,

Hello again. I am the guy who started this thread.
Its been enlightening to hear all the dialog. However, don't confuse opinion from fact as I heard one writer suggest. I will not provide a bibliography for you to cross reference..Get thee to a library!! Read it for yourself!
My design was to open a discussion on the Red Baron, actually one of my favorite subjects! I am not anti-Red baron, I'm pro education....on any subject! For those of you who fancy yourselves as students of aerial combat, go do your homework and see past the enigma. MvR is a facinating study, and I am actually a closet groupie myself. Prove it you say? I don't think any of you have as much time, effort, and money invested into this subject as I do. How many of you own a REAL triplane........I do!

Best Regards
C.Grube,..............please finish this thread!