Who killed the Red Baron?

[PETERn]

This was in todays 'Sydney Morning Herald" reprinted from the Washington Post.
While not exactly refering to how this thread started as opposed to what it turned into it is nevertheless interesting.

Red Baron's bravado shot down
September 22, 2004

Doctors call it perseveration, a brain dysfunction that causes people to persist in a task when they know rationally that the chosen strategy is doomed and may even be deadly dangerous.

A new analysis suggests that perseveration caused by a head wound is what led Manfred von Richthofen, World War I's "Red Baron", to chase a British pilot into enemy airspace on April 21, 1918, allowing aircraft and ground fire to cut his red Fokker triplane to ribbons and kill him with a bullet through the chest.

For 80 years the Royal Air Force maintained that a Canadian pilot, Roy Brown, fired the fatal bullet but in 1997 research indicated that credit should go to a ground-based machine gunner from the Australian Imperial Force, probably Sergeant Cedric Popkin.

The German "had target fixation and a mental rigidity", said a University of Missouri clinical psychologist, Daniel Orme. "He flew into a shooting gallery, violating all kinds of rules of flying - rules from the manual that he himself wrote."

In a paper published in Human Factors and Aerospace Safety, Dr Orme and Thomas Hyatt of Cincinnati's Veterans Administration Medical Centre, describe how von Richthofen's behaviour changed after a British bullet dug a groove in his skull during a dogfight nine months earlier.

The authors, both retired air force clinicians, say von Richthofen clearly suffered "traumatic brain injury". He brooded, behaved boorishly in public, and pulled childish stunts completely out of character for the careful predator whose 80 kills eclipsed those of all other World War I pilots.

"He said he had headaches, got sick when he flew and suffered fatigue," Dr Orme said. "Today the air force would have made him DNIF - Duties Not to Include Flying. DNIF is the last thing any pilot wants to hear," Dr Orme said.

"His friends knew he was different, his mother complained he was different, even he complained he was different. They didn't have the regulations we do now and there were loopholes around what they had. However, he never should have been allowed back in that plane."

The Washington Post

["Junior"]

There you go, nutty as a fruitcake then

[silverback]

http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/science....ap/index.html

Phil Schenfeld

(QUOTE) Today 03:37 AM
PETERn This was in todays 'Sydney Morning Herald" reprinted from the Washington Post.
While not exactly refering to how this thread started as opposed to what it turned into it is nevertheless interesting.

Red Baron's bravado shot down
September 22, 2004... (QUOTE/)

Very interesting piece, Peter. I appreciate your sharing that. As one who has devoted a great amount of time to the study of medicine, there's never been any doubt in my mind that the Great Man's head wound lead to his behavioral changes... and ultimately, his death. And like the doctor, I too cannot stand when, on film the actor/actress gets "grazed" in the head and then gets right back up and carries on! (Getting "grazed" by a large caliber bullet traveling at 800 - 1000 feet per second, especially if its tumbling, is like getting hit in the head by a lead baseball bat!) Its true... In reality it doesn't work that way!

[Scottie]

Obviously the whole planet is running this story....'tis in today's edition of "The Daily Telegraph", page 3, complete with a very poor attempt at a colour rendered image of the famous picture of "425/17"....allegedly.

[Alan]

Originally Posted by silverback

http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/science....ap/index.html

Phil Schenfeld

A most excellent article.

Originally Posted by PETERn

This was in todays 'Sydney Morning Herald" reprinted from the Washington Post.
While not exactly refering to how this thread started as opposed to what it turned into it is nevertheless interesting.

Red Baron's bravado shot down
September 22, 2004
The Washington Post

Sounds like a frontal lobe injury. What part of his head was injured again?

[Jim Bruton]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6073290/