Who killed MvR

there are a few things i'm not all that clear on. maybe someone can help shed some light on the subject.
1. brown made a firing pass from the left and banked away.
* *what good did that do? knowing wop may was a rookie, what would be the point of flying in, squeezing off a few rounds and leaving? as far as that goes, he could have just as well stayed out of it, for all the good he was doing may. wouldn't he keep following, trying his best to get richthofen off mays tail? did he see bullets hit the cockpit and, thinking he had hit richthofen, turned to re-enter the fight above?

2. richthofen looked around and saw brown.
* *if, being hit, he turned to see who fired on him, wouldn't he bank away and head for the lines? *if he wasn't hit, but still looked around to see who fired on him, wouldn't he turn and get on the tail of brown? wouldn't he at least have kept an eye on brown, who was banking away? why would he look around, see brown, and ignore him?

3. why would he be so intent on getting may, knowing he was over enemy territory and flying that low? did he think he was invincible? could the headaches he was still suffering from impair his judgement? had he been hit by brown and, knowing it was fatal, became dead set on getting may before he himself died?



* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * thanks,



leon

[Graeme]

Barrett and Wayne:

I thought you called destroyers "cans"?

What with aeroplanes being called airplanes, planes, kites, grids and Lord knows what else, small wonder we have trouble understanding one another on the Forum at times.

Best to not get started on Cockney rhyming slang - we'd spend the rest of this year trying to explain it all.

Leon:

The whole MvR episode is full of contradiction; Brown, being charged with the safe keeping of his patrol as an entity, might have made only a single pass at MvR IF he believed that he had got his man and could then leave May to get home alone. Otherwise, knowing that the others were more experienced than May, he could have left them a little longer and concentrated on assisting the tyro.

As for the evidence that MvR banked his machine or twisted around in the cockpit being based upon a discredited article, I would say that any fighter pilot who didn't do either of these things periodically, especially in the combat zone, was dead meat. MvR had been around long enough to know to keep a sharp look out.

All we have today is circumstantial evidence, there is nothing to directly link any of the claimants with the bullet that killed MvR. However, I would echo Wayne's comment that Popkin was probably the best located of those on the ground.

I still like to think that MvR was brought down by another fighter pilot, but deep down I know it is extremely unlikely that he did.

Graeme

It has been theorized that MvR was surely directionally challanged at the time and thought, he was in fact over his own lines.

[Barrett]

There's room for argument as to whether MvR (or any other experienced fighter pilot) would've taken valuable time to look in the direction of gunfire close enough for him to hear it. To do so allows the shooter--who must be assumed hostile--to continue tracking when seconds are EXTREMELY important. It would make more sense to turn into the threat, especially since May (or whomever was in front of the "shootee") must remain a neutral factor for the next umpteen seconds.

BUT: MvR was tired, maybe disoriented, and obviously not on top of his game.

Again: everybody read Franks' book, then we can all sing from the same sheet.

[Cigogne]

I'm sure he did look around usually, but not at the instant of gunfire. That statement about Brown "seeing the glint of the big goggles" is pure journalistic hocum. If Brown's shot was the fatal shot there would've been a jerk and down he went. It has already been stated numerous times in print that the Triplane had to be flown every minute. A seriously wounded Richthofen couldn't have flown it for as long as he did after Brown's pass. He wouldn't have kept on pursuing May. May was flying so low above the Somme in some reports (May himself said he was tempted to crash his plane into the river) that he wouldn't have been able to look around. I don't buy May's report.

[WFS]

I have read medical opinions relating to the physiological reactions caused by a wound like the one that killed MvR.
There would be a sharp uncontrollable muscle contraction. *This was evidenced by the reports that the triplane made a steep climb before it crashed. (Brown missed that and reported that the tripane "went down vertical") *

Blood from the lungs would gush from the mouth and nose causing the victim to begin drowning in his own blood. *There was a large quantity of blood down the front of MvR's flight suit and even some on his boot tops.

Death would follow very quickly. *There wasn't any way that von Richthofen could have continued to chase May if Brown had caused the wound. *

Wayne *

If I remember right,there was another
red triplane that went down near MvR's
Maybe Brown saw that one going down.
Maybe thats the one Brown shot at.
One things for sure,May couldn't
have seen what was going on behind
him good enough for him to be a
creditable witness

[Graeme]

Wayne:

There was an article written by Walter V Powell JD PhD that appeared in Over The Front Volume 1 Number 4. The final paragraphs read:

"Some writers have argued that it was medically impossible or at least highly unlikely that the Baron could have continued flying for 45 to 60 seconds if Brown had indeed hit him when he said he did. Bruce M Cameron, MD, in his article, “Who Really Shot the Red Baron?” (Houston Chronicle, 30 April 1978) cites the opionion of the world-renown heart specialist, Denton A Cooley, that a penetrating heart wound such as the Baron received is not necessarily a cause of instant death. In spite of such wounds, many people have continued to function for a time and indeed, recover. Therefore, Dr Cameron believes that Richthofen could have continued to chase May in a dying effort to shoot him down. Then as he began to lose his physical strength and as his consiousness ebbed away, he throttled back and instinctively glided to an almost perfect landing. The first persons on the scene agree that the aircraft had appeared to land with the pilot in control. When they approached the cockpit they found the Baron dead with his hand still on the control column.

Although the cause of the Red Baron’s death is still a subject of great dispute amongst World War I aviation buffs, officially, the Australian Army gave credit to their ground gunners; the RAF gave credit to Roy Brown. However, I am inclined to believe the reports of the Red Baron’s intended 81st victim, Lt W R May and his rescuer, Capt A Roy Brown."

Barrett:

While MvR would not necessarily have looked and then turned, he would instinctively turned his machine (with or without banking) to put off his attacker's aim. While performing this manoeuvre, he would take the time to find out where his attacker was - either just turning his head or twisting the whole of his upper body.

Like I say, it's all down to the relative timing of events and nobody has been able to establish exactly who did what and when.

Cigogne:

May never said he saw Brown attack and shoot down MvR. He stated that the Triplane did a spin and a half and went down to crash. Looking up, May saw another Camel directly behind, joined up with it and returned to the "airport". The 209 Sqn record book shows Brown and May as returning at 11:05, both having been in the air for 90 minutes.

Three Triplanes were claimed, one each by Brown, Mackenzie and Mellersh at roughly the same time, 10:45. Brown's combat report quotes only a map designation (62D Q 2), Mackenzie quotes Cerisy but says because of the pain of his own wound he didn't hang around to see the Fokker crash - this machine was said to have had a brown fuselage and blue spots on the wings and was last seen on its back; Mellersh confirms the location as Cerisy and says the machine he shot down was red with a blue tail.

Only Brown and May make reference to an all-red machine (or, if you like, fail to mention any other colour).

May might not have been a credible witness, but the same could not be said about Capt O C LeBoutillier whose combat report reads, in part, "Also fired on a red triplane which was shot down by Captain Brown and crashed our side of the lines."

So, Brown claims to have shot at an all-red Triplane that went down to crash; May says he saw an all-red machine crash and Brown's machine was the only one close enough to have done the deed; Mellersh also saw the Fokker crash and stated Brown's was the only machine nearby and LeBoutillier confirmed "seeing" Brown attack and bring down an all-red Triplane inside the Allied lines.

Sounds like an open and shut case to me. But, then there's the conspiracy theory.......

Graeme

Graeme,

>Sounds like an open and shut case to me.

You could look at it another way, one aircraft fired on MvR during one pass, how many hundreds of ground troops had a crack with their rifles, and how many ground gunners fired? Brown would have fired with one pattern in a small burst. With the infantry that was in that area there would have been a consistent barrage of bullets from all angles, all directions and from infantry that had probably been in combat for many years and had good time to practise deflection shooting against anything that flew too low across the lines.

Of the 2 Sqn AFC DH5 aircraft brought down by enemy fire, 8 were to ground fire and 1 shot down by Enemy aircraft, though 4 returned damaged. The groundifre statistic doesnt include the DH5's that crashed on landing from sustained damage or were sent to the ASD as they were wrecks. The DH5's did a lot of work in the same altitude that MvR was flying around in. For the squadron's service with SE5a's it is different as the SE5a's were used predominantly for altitude patrol until the latter part of the war. Hard for infantry to shoot accurately with rifles when you are patrolling at 12,000 ft.

If 2 Sqn AFC's statistics for low altitude work are indicitive of the most likely source for the fatal bullet, then it was ground fire. Major W Rees wrote that you should never cross the lines at under 3,000 ft, sounds like good advice.

So who got MvR?, one plane firing one burst, or several hundred infantry with rifles and machine guns blasting away over an extended period?


cam

[Cigogne]

Graeme,

The statement you posted,"Also fired on a red triplane which was shot down by Captain Brown and crashed our side of the lines." does not say anything about "Boots" LeBoutillier WITNESSING it. This could have been written after conferring with both Brown and May and agreeing.

Too bad Perry Mason couldn't have had a crack at them.

In a similar case Carl August von Schoenebeck states that Lothar von Richthofen shot down Ball.

He wrote "...we stare at this match over life and death. Their banking fight goes ever higher. It still seems that neither wants to be successful in sitting on the other's tail. but now things were going too far for Lothar. Suddenly he tore his machine around in order to come at the opponent from the front. He flies at Captain Ball in a split second. Only a brief moment. Both fire. Almost simultaneously Ball's machine rears up, goes into a spin, crashes into the earth-dead!"

Now, we all know that events didn't happen like he von Schoenebeck said. The evidence points otherwise. Brown's angle of attack from the left and the bullet wound don't jibe. As much as it would be cool to say that an airman got him, I am puzzling over that wound.

Another factor to be considered, if Richthofen was being shot at from the ground, there would've been some sort of audible report from the guns, right? Could he have heard Brown's guns over the din from below and known the difference? The engine noise of his aircraft would've drowned out much of the noise. Brown's gunfire might have blended into the rest of the din from below. Audible, yes, but maybe blended in with the rest of the gunfire. That to me is another factor of why PERHAPS he didn't turn around in the cockpit. Just throwing some thoughts around. I am not a passionate proponent of either view, but from what I've read tend to favor the ground fire approach.

Graeme, thanks for bringing this discussion topic up!