Question #147598. Asked by
elvislennon.
Last updated Apr 22 2020.
Originally posted Apr 22 2020 6:20 PM.
"On April 21, 1918 Richthofen flew off with nine other planes from the airfield at Cappy, France. Soon the German fliers were in combat with a squadron of RAF Sopwith Camels led by the Canadian pilot Arthur Roy Brown. At some point during this battle Richthofen was pursuing a plane piloted by a novice Canadian pilot named Wilfrid May. When Richthofen flew across the British lines at low altitude, he was struck by a single bullet and fatally wounded. Before he died, he managed to land his red Fokker Dr.1 triplane just north of the village of Vaux-sur-Somme, in a sector controlled by Australian forces. Still intact, the Red Baron's bright red plane was soon dismantled by souvenir seekers."
It was in a Fokker Dr.I that Manfred, Freiherr von Richthofen was killed on April 21st, 1918. The controversy of his death on his last flight and fight, has never been resolved. It is not known if he was killed by an [Australian] anti-aircraft gunner on the ground or by Canadian flyer Arthur "Roy" Brown. This has not been due to lack of witnesses, but of conflicting evidence given by witnesses on the ground and in the air. It has been reported that after WW I, Richthofen's airplane became part of Germany's aeronautical collection. This aircraft and others from the collection were evacuated before the serious air raids on Berlin took place in 1944. The aircraft were sent to Pomerania and other "safe" locations, now part of Poland. One inhabitant recalled as a small child seeing a red fuselage and wings in a dance hall. During a severe cold spell, he remembered sawing up the wings for firewood. According to Prof. Steinle of the Deutsches Technik Museum Berlin, there is every reason to believe that this is how Richthofen's Dr.I 425/17 airplane met an ignominious end.http://www.aviation-history.com/fokker/dr1.html
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