Sorting Myth from Fact- The Aces.

[RussGannon]

SCMc & Catfish

The evidence - 'engine full on' and the 'German Arty report', comes from Bean's excellent appendix on the death of MvR in the Official Australian history printed 1937 - in my view still the best accounting. Everything afterwards is just feeding on the crumbs!

And for the record I'm no Germanophobe - I'm just fed up with Germanophile hero worship, which always cluthes at the straws of denial when its comes to the demise of their heroes! I'm also fed up with their pettines and shabby tactics in regards non-Germanophiles. I for one, will not take a backward step when I'm insulted by their attack dogs.

Just for interest, one of my side projects for example is running up a data base on German Panzer Division operations - Poland- France- Balkans- Russia- the Western Desert - Normandy - NW Europe - even running up a list of Panzer aces! Hardly the pass time of a Germanophobe!!!!!!!!!

Cheers to all open minded enthusiats.

[Billy_Bishop]

Although a few people have been rather, "unpleasant" towards one another, it's not really out of control. This happens from time to time. And I'm sure everyone will get over it....eventually.

[AROTH]

Well said.........I usually do not inject my input to things such as this, but I enjoy coming here for the lively discussions and different points of view. Being involved in this interest for over 40 years, I still learn things every day. Differences of opinion will occur in everything in this world - they make us think and consider other ways of thinking -, so let us all not take these opinions as insults or slams again each other.


I already got over it.

[RussGannon]

'Whose side are you on, anyways?' MID editor OTF Vol 17#3

A bit like Martin Luther when he nailed his 'Protestia' to the door of the Wittenberg churck, I will sate my position clearly so people know where I'm coming from and why I have an axe to grind with those who call themselves Germanophiles:

1. Germanophiles need to realise that the WW1 airwar is not their exclusive feifdom,

2. Germanophiles are welcome to their convictions, but if they cannot stand up to critism, or worse still are placed above critism, then they remain convictions and cannot be forced upon the WW1 air war community as the accepted wisdom,

3. I, like most other non-Germanophiles, enjoy well written articles on German airmen, units & aircraft, but those within in the OTF orbit who are want to promote a unilateral Germanophile perspective of the operational conduct of the WW1 airwar, surrender any claims to credibility as object researchers - wars are fought by two sides and the only truly objective research takes into account both sides of the hill.

RG

[Catfish]

Hello Russ (if i may adress you that way),

i think you have made your point quite clear, and i got a glimpse of what you mean. But may i say in your postings you seem (!) to represent the "anglophile side", not a neutral one. I may be wrong. But even if, you have every right to be anglophile, but again why should you then criticize others for different points of view? True for all, i know ...

As i slowly find out from archives (like the new, now united "Bundesarchiv"), which only slowly re-assemble after the reunification of Germany, the situation before and during WW1 was not how i learned at school. This indeed incorporates the danger to comfortably switch to the other side and take a "germanophile" view without seeing the bad - only because you heard about "Germany alone is to blame for all this" all your life, and just can't hear it anymore. Hope you understand what i mean.

However it slowly turns out there was no dark and no white side in WW1. The "innocence" of any belligerent faction was gone by day one of this war, if not before it. This statement is not even from me, but it is very true.

Germany was as right or false to fight this war, as France and England or everyone else was. It does not make Gemany better in any respect, but WW1 was definitely not a war between the good and the evil, not even close to WW2. The atrocities of the 2nd world war hide the situation. I wrote a lot about this in another thread about the U-boat war in WW1, which is not so off topic as it seems to be, because then all actions were initially decided at sea.

It does not make things better that certain historical books, texts or photos appear all over the world e.g. in eBay, other auctions or trade, and end their existence in private hands. Those documents belong to public museums, and archives, and made available for everyone. Every real historian should, at least at some time, make those documents available, at least as a copy. Believe me, working in a museum i know what i write about .

The existing situation of (not only german) papers or photo albums torn apart and appearing all over the world fragmented typically leads to the situations experienced here. Some person is reading some original record or witness report, and another one reads about the same event seen from the other side, which may certainly contradict each other: By real reasons, like the way the event was personally experienced, or by (maybe inserted later) propagandistic reasons. Both sides claim credibility, but are not willing to compare the material, and accuse each other for being xxx..."phile".

"Feeding from the crumbs" becomes a whole new meaning here. Additionally, even what we read in early books from the 1920ies and 30ies is often, if not always, subject to propaganda - it did not stop after the war.
::Propaganda and World War One::
Did World War One and British government propaganda affect the culture of publishing during the War?

"Germanophile" lol, i did not even know this word existed until i found this forum. But I can certainly understand what you mean. Only for what i read here (e.g. from a person called "Ginger.") made me believe there is not even a glimpse of friendly , or understanding, or even some neutral point of view towards the Germany of 1914. So i was wrong (?).

Thanks and greetings,
Kai

[alex_revell]

Catfish,
I think you'll find that Russ is not denigrating the GAF itself, merely those - who he has named 'Germanophiles' - who in their woeful ignorance of the subject have denigrated the pilots and observers of the RFC and therefore give a totally false and onesided picture of the air war of 14-18, perhaps to people coming new to the study of the war.
As to my remark of 'coming from' in respect of Rammjaeger. This is in no way libelous or slanderous. It is merely a colloquial English expression meaning one knows the reason behind an individual's statements and his motives for making them. There are various little clues in such statements if one knows what to look for.
I think you will find that the postings from Ginger are made with a very large tongue in his cheek. He's just having a little ironical fun, which is why no-one takes offense. :-)

[Thomas Trauner]

I took me some time to try to answer to the topic. Normally I try to avoid any commentary on "private wars" on forums.
But in this case I cannot resist, mainly due to the fact that Russ´s and Rammjäger´s opinion about each other is not restricted to this threat.
I think you both are victims of circumstances. Both are right, both are wrong.

I think all the fuss has to do with the development the historical writing took over the years.
It took a lot of time in Germany to get over the picture of the “bad Germans”, seeing the WWI nothing but as a prelude to WWII. Any sort of looking into details of German deeds, if it’s army, navy, or the Fliegertruppen was considered as “war-loving”, doing nothing more as following right-wing propaganda. Names like Richthofen, Udet etc. where definitely out, due to the fact that this WWI soldier´s names where used to a shameful degree by the NS-regime.

So much about the German deeds during WWI was learned through British/U.S. or French sources in Germany after WWII.
And the different nations, well, had very different approaches to this theme. Especially the British sources seem to love the former foes. This is really remarkable. They love their own misfortunes and are really, really interested in the opposite side. I think there are no more books on the Zulus, the Boors, the Germans on WWI and WWII as on the English-written market.
Reasons for this may be a lot. But one is for certain - the respect and fairness with which they treat the former foes.
For me it seems that the US tent a little more to: “Make your beaten foe big. Then your victories are bigger…” So the German forces also became a matter of real interest in the US, even if they are often depicted as the dangerous “Huns” flying nothing but red Tripes, marked with skull and bones, shooting like mad at anything they get in front of there Spandaus.
But anyway…
The result of this German hesitation, the British fairness and the US approach seems to result in a real “Germanophile” point of view concerning WWI aviation.
Another thing is, very simple, the “interesting” appearance of the German planes. At the first glance every (Fighter)Plane seems to be different, not like the booooring PC 10 RFC/RAF crates or the always-the-same camouflaged US/French machines. The results are long discussions on nearly every known single Fliegertruppen-plane. Compared to this the questions on RFC/RAF/US/French planes are, well, rather….. seldom.
Added to the points above it is no wonder, that someone can come to the conclusion that the history of WWI aviation is dominated by German topics.
But I think this is not the case in reality. If you look on the models, paintings, books etc you find alone in this forum, you see rather quick that allied themes are also popular.
And discussions on topics like “greatest, biggest and so on ….” ...they never lead to anything.
First – we have the advantage of hint-sight, even if our sources are incomplete.
Second – how shall we judge? Numbers of E.A. brought down? How many of them proofed? Heroism? Sheer luck? Good leadership?
How can you compare an untrained US-guy in a N. 28, eager to fight, to a German guy flying a D VII, fighting since 36 months, but sick of it?
How to you judge Fritz Röth´s balloon victories when you know that he prayed every time the observer will survive, compared to those who “had fun to bomb the Russian cavalry” (MvR own words) ?
So – please, Russ and Rammjäger, there is no result of your private war, but high blood pressure and waste of energy.
Both sides suffered, both sides had heroic deeds, and the Central powers lost because they where beaten.

To the end: I know that I´ m anything but neutral. I have my heroes, too. Gabriel, because he stood against the last JG 1 leader, Röth, Dallas, Arigi, only to name a few. A rather romantic point of view is always with us, but we should not fight about it.

Best regards from Nuernberg
Thomas Tr.

Please excuse my rusty English

[alex_revell]

Well said, Thomas. You summed it up very nicely.
Regards
Alex

[Catfish]

Hello,

first again to Russ - thanks for your explanation, i guess i see what you mean. And i forgot to say thanks for posting your source of MvR's engine running. I must say i doubt every official document, especially "official" ones from this time. I habe reread the parts of Franks and Bennet's book "The red baron. His last flight", who come to a different conclusion, and where i read about it first.

No quotes, but a summary:

MvR in his DR1 tried to turn back to the frontline, maybe because he realized how far he was in enemy territory, or because his right MG had stuck (internal lock broken). It was in that situation of a right turn in which he received the deadly shot, from the right to the left, a bit upwards (7.5 cm), and most probably from the ground. At that time Brown was at least 1.6 km, or maybe a mile, away.

Immediately after being hit MvR must have felt he was seriously wounded. He immediately tried to land, turned the plane left into the wind and stopped the engine, which was observed and heard by Captain Turner and Lieutenant Wood. After MvR had turned off the magneto the propellor acted as an air brake and the plane went down quickly and steep, even a bit sideways, to shorten the time of the descent, and to use the field for landing. At treetop level MvR stopped the descent, and brought the plane into landing position for the glide.

The soldiers Elix and Newell even thought the plane would graze them, and ducked away (it is thus doubtful whether someone still shot at the plane at that time, maybe - i don't think so).

Now the pilot seems to have lost some control, or the power in his arms. While the plane was in a straight landing descent, he did not pull up in time, but the wheels hit the ground hard, and the rear was pressed against the ground, making the plane jump up for some 4 meters, losing the rest of its speed. This was not corrected by the pilot, " ... and thus followed the classic landing of a beginner, with the effect of a broken wing. ...". When the aircraft stood in the air, the propellor stopped windmilling and came to a full stop. During the following nose down, glide and crash the wheels were turned outward when the rubber bumpers came loose. The soldered fuel and oil tanks broke and the liquid poured out, but not under pressure. Again the pressure valve of the tank had been opened before, a common practice in emergency situations to prevent a fire. When the triplane finally hit the ground it made 1 and a half turns to the left. The rear pointed upwards and the nose pointed to the city of Bonnay, to the west. The plane had stopped a meter in front of a sugar beet shed.

During the short descent the engine had cooled off enough not to ingnite the leaking fuel. One blade of the propellor was broken, but the engine was unharmed, all cylinder heads intact, and according to the soldiers who came running the plane would have been easily repaired.

Ernest Twycroft, who had been ordered to capture the pilot, and being one of the first soldiers to reach the plane, heard the blood-stained pilot murmur three words before he died, something like "...war es" und "kaputt", most probably meaning "Das war es"/"That was it", and "(all) broken/smashed up", and then he died.

The second person to reach the plane was Sergeant Symes, who said "I looked the pilot straight in the face. A good-looking lad, despite his wound in the forehead. Beside the dead man in the cockpit lay a rough-folded parachute. I grabbed it and ran to the headquarter with it. I do not make a draft on anything. I did not shoot at him, i had not even my pistol with me."

The numerous wounds MvR had suffered including the mentioned head wound happened due to MvR being unstrapped, again a common practice when a gun had failed, and the pilot leaning forward trying to get it to work again.

This was it according to Frank and Bennett - again they also fed on crumbs, but looking through the book they collected quite a few.

They also write that it was believed in Australia, that the soldiers Buie and Evans had shot MvR from the ground. But then four publications would decide on the theme for a long time: "The Red Knight of Germany" and "My Fight with Richthofen". In Australia the "Official History of the war" entered the market, and in England appeared the "British Official History of the War in the Air". The lines were drawn, and the battle began.



To Alex, Hello,

i think i do now understand what Russ means, and i accept it. Thank you for your friendly answer in spite of my rough post, i have obviously misunderstood the meaning of yours, and apologize - please bear with me. With Ginger ... well i guess i will look at one of Monty Python's films before again judging his posts lol .

To Thomas Trauner,
I could not have said it better !


Thanks and greetings from Hannover,
Kai

[rexee]

"But then four publications would decide on the theme for a long time: "The Red Knight of Germany" and "My Fight with Richthofen". In Australia the "Official History of the war" entered the market, and in England appeared the "British Official History of the War in the Air". The lines were drawn, and the battle began."

Catfish
Franks and Bennetts book also references Dale Titler's book"The Day the Red Baron Died" published in 1960. An excellent book. The last chapter is an interview with Oliver "Boot" LeBoutillier, a Camel pilot with 209, who saw Browns attack on MvR from the best advantage point...above. He clearly stated that he saw Browns tracers hitting around the cockpit and shortly thereafter he saw the Triplane on the ground.The Australians,on the other hand, denied seeing a second Camel attack MvR and one went so far as to call Brown a liar!
Roy Brown absolutely believed to the day he died he had killed Richthofen but chose to never talk about it publicly or privately[according to family members]thus fueling the controversy and speculation that still burns ninety years later.