to Andrew P., G'Day

Andrew,
I've been away for a while, and therefore have not had a chance to reply to your jibe in the most recent round of "Baron, Baron, Who Shot the Baron."

I do not live in a fantasy world. I live in New Jersey. I do not claim that there is evidence when, in fact, it is in dispute. I have no axe to grind against Sargeant Popkin and the other brave Australian soldiers, quite the contrary. I also have no particular connection to Captain Brown. However, you must admit that there is no credible evidence that Rittmeister von Richthofen was shot through the heart. He lived too long after he was hit. Nor is there any proof that his chest wound was an entry wound. There are claims that he was alive after the Dreidecker crash-landed!

Captain Brown fired on him, and hit the aircraft, if his report is to be trusted. He broke off, and von Richthofen crashed before the attack could be renewed.

In the meantime, the Aussies on the hill were blazing away to beat the band. Somebody hit him.

Please explain the "99%" certainty that Sargeant Popkin killed von Richthofen. Does it have any basis in fact other than that it's the result you hope happened so an Australian can beat a Canadian?

The whole truth will never be known this long after the fact. That's what makes this forum fun.
This wasn't a battle between Australia and Canada. Both the RAF and the Australian Forces won the day. It was the Germans who lost.

You Ally,

Tom

An eyewitness statement is every bit as much evidence as is a physical object.

Physical evidence, of which there is little in this particular case, is considered more reliable.

If there was much physical evidence available, it would be subject to dispute by both sides as well.

All evidence is subject to at least some dispute.

Because it can be disputed or is being disputed does not mean it does not exist.

If that were the case, there would be very little evidence for anything, ever.

Is there any 'proof' that MvR's right side wound is the entry wound? That depends on the standard of proof.

The statements of all surgeons present that the wound on the right side was the entry wound, and the descriptions of the entry and exit wounds given, while they may, like any evidence, be disputed, are 'evidence' enough to convince me that the bullet entered the right side of MvR and exited on his left side.

regards,

MDD

Firstly
Michael, your postings on this forum topic have been very knowledgable and based in fact

Secondly
Tom, I've got nothing against Canadians and if Cedric Popkin was Canadian and Brown was Australian,I would be arguing the same case as I am now!

Anyway
The reasons I believe that Richthofen was shot from the ground were firstly that
Brown attacked MvR from MvR's left. The entry wound was in Richthofen's right armpit.
People in favour of Brown have argued that MvR turned right around in his cockpit to get this wound, conviently forgetting the fact that when his plane crashed he was still fully strapped into the cockpit.

The many eyewitnesses on the ground saw Brown attack MvR and fly away, meanwhile MvR was still chasing May, following his every move and firing his machine guns. The many eyewitnesses on the ground saw and verified this despite Mosby's contention that they got it wrong.
Meanwhile when the chase was going on the third plane was seen, but it was by now over 1200yards away and hundreds of feet higher over Corbie.

I have been in contact with Dr Geoffrey Miller who knows more about this subject than you, me and most likely anyone on this forum. I will copy his response out to me for your interest.

">Andrew,
>I researched this subject from the medico-historical aspect and I agree
>that you are quite correct, Brown did not shoot down MvR, he was shot down
>by Australian small arms anti-aircraft fire, and most likely by Sgt. Cedric
>Popkin, firing a Vickers machine gun.
>
>I wrote an article on this, it was published by Sabretache, the Journal of
>the Australian Military Historical Society in June 1998 and it is
>reproduced
>in the WW1 Archives. http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi Click on
>'Special
>Projects' and you will find 'The Death of Manfred von Richthofen, who fired
>the fatal shot?' about halfway down the list of articles, listed in
>alphabetical order.
>
>Incidently, since writing the article, I have been in correspondence with
>Alan Bennett, the co-author, with Norman Franks, of the most recent book,
>"The Red Baron's Last Flight", Grub Street 1997. These authors point out
>that Brown attacked MvR from MvR's left. Brown therefore could not
>possibly have fired the fatal shot as the entry wound was in the right
>armpit!
You referred to a "lucky shot from the ground". >This, of course, cannot be excluded but Popkin fired at MvR twice and, although he admits he >missed the first time, he fired a carefully aimed burst at MvR as the Triplane was turning >away from Gunner Buie's fire. This second burst from Popkin was a carefully aimed one and it was >certainly not a lucky shot.
>With regards,
>Geoffrey Miller"

Hope this clears up your confusion and if you still want to live in fantasy land, oops sorry, New Jersey then it's your right.

Cheers mate

Brown attacked MvR from the Left?

I don't think so, I think it was from BEHIND. He may have been slightly on the left side of Behind, but he no doubt attacked from a predominantly rear angle.

Also, i'm wondering how much a guy can turn in his seat while buckled in? Was MvR the type of guy to not buckle in very tight? (He was not an aerobatic flyer, maybe buckling in just enough to not fall out was good enough)

I'll wade in here with my two cents worth.
Guys, have you ever flown a repo WW1 a/c? Ask anyone who has and they will tell you that you strap in TIGHT. If you have guns up front, even fibre glass ones, they will give you a nasty dose of 'Fokker face' or 'Camel face' if you have a rough landing. In some a/c it does'nt matter how tight the straps are, you're in deep, deep trouble if you have any problem landings even with padding on the ends of the guns.
In mho, MvR, being the experienced pilot that he was, would not fly combat with loose belts.
I'm not sure how far he could turn around when straped up tight in a DR1, but, I think it was Collishaw who said that the average man could not turn and see what was behind him when flying the Sopwith Camel.
Also, McCarthy lost the bullet in floods that ravaged Queensland at that time.
No-one seems to have looked at the nature of the Baron's wound. The effect would have been immediate. Carisella states that there was a large dent on one of MvR's vertebrae indicating that a bullet had hit it. Having studied a cross section of the human torso at Sydney Uni,(yes, they have a human body, cut up into half inch slabs from head to foot and preserved in resin - weird huh?) I have come to the conclussion that if what Carisella said is true, then MvR must have been hit either a glancing blow or a direct hit to the heart. Probably both lungs were punctured as well. This is not something that you would keep flying with. He would have gone into traumatic shock immediately. There would be no way he could fly and fire for a further 30 sec to a minute after being wounded like this.
Interesting, isn't it?
And to all that are interested, yes I am an Aussie and no, I really could'nt give a brass stuff who killed him. I also think that this thread, which reappears with a regular monotony, has been thoughly done to death and I just wish it would lie down and die.
Les

Maybe it wouldn't be such a bad subject(yes it is interesting, if overdone), if people could refrain from posting in such offensive, higher-than-thou tones.

Richthofen's face did hit the gun butts, and hard given that they were padded. The photo of his face taken after his death shows bleeding and wounds from the impact.

So perhaps he wasn't strapped in so tightly after all. While the risk of your face hitting the guns was very real, so was the risk of being shot in the back if you couldn't watch your six.

I'm Canadian and I don't even buy Brown's story!!!
As for myself the kill shot came from the ground, as for who (God only knows).

There are too many gapping loop holes in Brown's claim.........
1) he attacked Mvr at a low alt ....but was seen to disengage and allow Mvr to pursue his old high school and childhood friend W May.....great friend!
2) Brown was seen at a substantial alt and fair distance away when Mvr crashed, 1 minute would not allow for that kind of alt gain!
3) a military medic could spot a fatal shot through the heart, no autopsy so Brown must have done it!!!(love this insane logic)
4) AA fire on MVR and if Brown was to rear of MVR and W May in front... this would be strong evidence for a court marshall of any AA gunner for they would have endagered Brown's/May's plane/s.
5) Brown's descriptions of MVr's movements, this one really bothers me for I suspect that Brown being a pilot didn't even write up his own report. Maybe some officer from the propaganda core with very little or no flight knowledge........

just my 2 cents

The 2 most conclusive items of evidence against Brown are the angle of the entry/exit wounds, and the reports of some (not all) Aussie gunners that the Baron was still firing after Browns attack. Anyone wishing to make a case for Brown must attempt the difficult task of refuting this evidence. Arguments can be made, although even I will admit that some of them require a bit of a stretch.

Everything else, irrespective of the blather on this site, is the type of evidence that would be laughed out of a court-room (i.e. the "lost" bullet, the "assumed" heart-wound, the "hearsay" hole in the fuselage, the conflicting evidence of the ground witnesses as to where Brown was or was not, etc, etc). The flight path of the Baron after Browns attack is not inconsistent with either side of the argument.

Anyway, that's my take, for what its worth

I'll confess to a problem with the ground witnesses who either didn't see Brown in the area at all or stated that he was far away; this just doesn't seem logical to me even if Brown didn't fire the fatal shot. Brown, although burning out as a fighter pilot, was an experienced fighter and no coward. We accept that Brown left the fight to save May from the triplane. He made an attack from above, which is good tactics. I just don't buy that he would fire from some long distance and then turn away and leave; or even loiter at a distance to see what happened. Surely he would not quit the combat until he saw that Richthofen was turning away from May and he had successfully saved him? And he wouldn't quit firing until he was almost on top of the Fokker and forced to turn to avoid running into him?

I don't trust the accuracy of the eyewitnesses on the ground in this regard, to be honest.