Who shot down the Red Baron?

[PeterL]

Reinout asks...

>>Whom of you feels this thread was just an attempt to "troll"?<<

Absolutely, but a particularly poor one. It failed because of the shere impossibilty of the premise and , I hope, because we've all learned a thing or two recently.

cheers

Peter L

Al

VR was a great pilot but it is totally inconceivable that even he would have been able to, with a wound in the region of the heart be able to follow Lt May for a mile, closely following the moves of the airman and attempting to shoot him. Certainly no one who watched from the ground could ever believe that Richthofen was shot from the air.
So that is why I said that the only thing that could be ruled out is that the fatal shot came from the air!
But if you want to hang on to your belief that he 'might' have been shot from the air, well that's your choice.

Tha autopsy of mvr revealed that he had teeth marks around his ankle. This leads us ti the conclusion that Snoopy should receive credit for the victory. Arf!

FIDO

[Billy_Bishop]

I don't know why it's so hard to believe that someone shot in the chest can keep going for a short time. I've known first hand of at least two such cases. And in both cases, we didn't know they'd been hit where they were, until they dropped dead several minutes later.

Not everyone reacts to kinetic energy poisoning in the same way. So who's to say who or WHERE MvR was hit??? Certainly not I.

VBR,

Al Lowe

This Stephen is a troll. But it is amazing that every 4 to 6 months this topic can get everyone going again.

Bottom line - if you haven't read the Franks book then do so. All questions are answered as far as is ever going to be possible by a sifting of ALL available evidence. Answer - Popkin did it w/ a very lucky shot.

Regards,
Barkhorn.

Is it certain that the bullet that killed him and the bullet that shot him down were one and the same? I have read of claims of a second wound that might have caused him to land; ground troops firing as he did so could have provided the fatal shot. This could explain the apparent contolled flight and landing of a not too stable airplane with an apparently dead pilot. I know I really shouldn't post this without reading the Franks book.

[Billy_Bishop]

Don't bother about it, wait a few years and someone else will write a book saying that May turned around and shot MvR with his pistol.

VBR,

Al Lowe

Ref: Who killed the Red Baron?
The medical evidence of MvR has been the subject of a recent review by Dr. Geoffrey Miller. A leading historian and medical proctitioner. His whole paper is available at www.anzacs.net
Along with this there is a review of MvR's medical
history by Dr. Henning Allmers of Dortmund, Germany who poses the question "Was MvR fit to fly? These papers and other evidence (some animated) is presented and available at this site for consideration.
One thing is very certain and that is encapsulated in this summary from Dr. Miller:
Dr. M. Geoffrey Miller in his thorough re-examination of the evidence in the Australian War Memorial makes the following statement about the path of the fatal bullet...."one is drawn to the conclusion that the fatal bullet must have passed directly through the chest from its entry wound at the posterior axillary line (the back of the armpit, right side) at the level of the 9th rib (that is at about five inches below the lower level of the outstretched arm). As there is no real evidence that the bullet hit the vertebrae the most probable trajectory of the bullet would have to be along a line joining the entrance and exit wounds. Such a line indicates that the bullet was fired from the side, behind and below the pilot’s body, notwithstanding his position in the cockpit.

As the exit wound was about three-quarters of an inch external to the left nipple this means that the bullet would have passed through the heart and would have been rapidly fatal. von Richthofen would have lost consciousness within 20 to 30 seconds, and certainly could have not continued to fly his aeroplane and fire on Lt. May for over a minute.

It is possible to correlate the medical evidence with that of the eyewitnesses of the last flight. Fortunately, as the events took place at low altitude, directly over the Australian lines, the chase and crash were witnessed by many eye witnesses".
A voice track from an eye-witness who was only a few yards from Buie is also on the site and this is presented from historical interest. Buie claimed that he shot him frontally and the eye witness supports this. The nature of the wound is such that this was impossible. Brown's approach to the Fokker Dr1 is also examined and it now seems that this approach was from the left.
The only claimant in a position to administer the fatal bullet was Cedric Popkin or an unknown soldier with a Lee-Enfield .303
Strangely enough, a poll on my site asking visitors to vote on who they thought did it brings Brown to the lead by a head. VERY strange!

In what way is it relevant to ask who shot down the Baron, if there was no more 'honor' left in doing so. I read somewhere (and correct me if I'm wrong) that he received a head wound as result of a crash earlier, and that this probably affected his aerial performance (including flying too low to the ground) in his final days. A simple double chase, puts all the romance out of a dogfight, doesn't it? BTW if his death was, as you all say, controversial, shouldn't the stats in The Aerodrome be adjusted accordingly and not be favored to some view?

Al

On this point I think we agree to disagree.

I have wondered for a while if the machine gunner was not Australian but American whether there would still be this 'confusion' over the truth.

Cheers

Andrew