Man Moment Machine MVR. Let's count the mistakes

bristol scout · 26 June 2009, 04:00 AM

AMEN! And as an atheist---i hardly ever use that word!

Dave.

FliegerJG1 · 26 June 2009, 07:24 AM

High In The Empty Blue would be a great book to own and/or read however it has become extremely expensive and nearly impossible to obtain. It is very hard to find in libraries as well. Only those with deep pockets can now benefit from the valuable information within. It's such as essential work that I hope it will be reprinted sometime.

FliegerJG1

Ginger. · 26 June 2009, 09:34 AM

When I got my copy from 'Midland Counties Bookstore' it was in the half price section. Don't tell Alex... he'll have me transferred back to the trenches!

Stephan · 26 June 2009, 05:22 PM

Er, did I not state I was up for reading the book? & incidentally, that's not the only site that reports he died that way. Is no one going to answer the questions I posed. Jeez, like being tarred & feathered for what others have written.

& I don't believe I ever stated I believed everything that is on the web. No need for a lecture there.

alex_revell · 27 June 2009, 02:06 AM

Stephan,
No one is lecturing, but if, as you say, you don't believe everything you read on the web, then it would be best if you didn't use it to perpetuate its errors.

Stephan · 27 June 2009, 02:40 AM

Let's be clear, I didn't "USE IT" to perpetuate it's errors. I wasn't aware that there was an error in that commonly reported story of his death.

& for while we're at it, YOU haven't answered my questions & therefore DONE anything to clarify said errors.

alex_revell · 27 June 2009, 03:18 AM

Stephan,
Of course you perpetuated it. You posted it on a public forum. If you want to find out more and have your questions answered, then I suggest you read the books you've been recommended. And please don't shout at me.
Ginger,
I'm only too pleased you got

HITEB for that price. Good luck to you. The prices that copies are going for now I wish I had bought up all the remaining copies!

JFM · 27 June 2009, 04:46 AM

FYI, grabbed mine here in January:

high in the empty blue - AbeBooks

Expensive? Perhaps. Worth it? Absolutely.

Otis Glenn · 27 June 2009, 02:42 PM

Afternoon all:

In regards to Richthofen's final flight, I had always tended toward agreeing with the opinion stated by JFM, GMU and others. He did not "target fixate" as others had suggested and he was not mentally distraught. Fatigued, most likely, but not to the point it would hinder his judgement. If you look at his kills during the March - April timeframe it seemed that he was back to his old form.

I think the problem stems from the amount of time spent in many biographies going over the details of Richthofen's final flight. In a literary sense, it gives the reader the impression that the events took longer than they actually did. When I was a young boy reading about Richthofen, that was always the impression I came away with. In actuality, an explanation of the flight that may take fifteen minutes to read only took meare moments in real time. If you think about it in terms of actual time, the events happened very quickly and there was no hesitation or fixation in Richthofen's decisions. In the end, the war finally caught up with him. He was in the wrong place iat the wrong time through no misjudgement of his own, and it happened to many others, no matter what their skill or experience.

One thing that I did hear in one documentary that has always bothered me. NOVA did the documentary called Who Shot Down the Red Baron. This documentary had something in it that no other biography that I have read claimed. According to NOVA, Richthofen was still alive in the cockpit when the first Australian troops reached him. He was alive just long enough to say something in German to one soldier, then pass away from his wound. Has anyone else seen this documentary, or seen a refrence to this? Just curious.

Glenn

bristol scout · 27 June 2009, 03:56 PM

Hi Otis,

I've heard that one --it started a long time ago i believe (not exactly a 'new' theory, although that is probably to strong a word for it).

Came about perhaps because of a dis-belief that their leader could be dead (in the immediate aftermath)---coupled with the knowledge that the Triplane had made a relatively good crash landing.

Canadian troops got the blame, if i remember this one correctly!

It puzzled me when i first picked up the story some years ago--because the bullet that killed him is believed to have done so very quickly....ergo, could'nt have been

Roy Browns because he flew on after that attack---but if it was ground fire and yet he was still alive ---to be murdered--that is what was claimed when i read it---on landing, well how did he stay alive long enough to land and still need 'murdering'??? Might as well go right back to Roy Brown as victor---because the 'could'nt have lived long enough to bring of a good forced landing' now seems questionable.

Truth, for me, is we will never know --beyond all doubt---who fired the fatal shot---but my BELIEF is that he was'nt 'murdered on the ground by Canadians.

Will it never end--this quest for understanding

Dave.

EDIT--I have'nt seen the Documentary Otis---but anyway, don't have all that much time for T.V. history---mostly, though there are exceptions. Part of the title of this thread is 'let's count the mistakes'----I'll take my chances with any book by a reputable author and live with minor errors compared to what you would get from 9out of 10 so called 'history' programmes on T.V.