MovieChat Forums > Der Rote Baron (2008) Discussion > Red Baron shot down by..

Red Baron shot down by..

posted 16 years ago by landownunderoz
15 replies | jump to latest

-a very short bloke with a really big nose & floppy ears & a squint?
There was a Docu shown on Cable recently & the suggestion was made to Family Members of the Red Baron & they were quite ardament that it was Canadian Roy
Brown who shot their famous relo down. & why? He was an AirMan, shot down by a fellow AirMan, is why..to be shot down at random, from Ground Fire, mere Foot sloggers in the Trenches, would be demeaning to the Red Barons illustrious career! As an Aussie, I'd like to think, & pretty much believe that an Aussie Digger, did shoot him down(I met several WW1 Aussie Diggers, still alive in the '70s & not one of 'em, didn't try & make out, that they shot at a Red 'plane, flying overhead! No matter, where they were in France!!)but, I reckon Canadian Roy Brown, filled his Triplane full of holes, as well. Whose to say that a Bullet from Brown's MG, didn't bounce off, a wheel below & then deflect back up? Typical aussies, but..tearing his plane to shreds, afterwards
for Souveniers!!
Shame they didn't take advantage of the unique situation in New Zealand, recently, where no less than 7 Replica DR1-Triplanes in Jasta 11 colours were flying in formation at a local Airshow for some great footage, rather than CG
images...
I still reckon, the BEST looking "Red Baron" was played by "Vivian" in "Black Adder"!!!
BAJ

[–] mads-26 16 years ago

Actually the landing and low level flights where the most dangerous for WW1 airmen and Germany, England and France lost several aces during low level flights. Since their hull wasn't armoured and alot of airsites on the ground would shoot at them, the reason for the change in history that it was a Airman that killed the Red Baron (and others actually) was the notion of honour amongst airmen (Yes i know it sound silly but during WW1 there was honour amongst them, they even praised enemies they had battled). I think that even though it was a huge blow to Germany that their highest scoring ace fell, it was also a huge blow to the airmen of the allies, they refused to believe that their greatest nemesis and hero was killed by a chance fire from ground personnel.

In the end it didnt really matter who killed him, he is still dead, and he got a royal ceremonial burial by the allies with honour guard and everything.
Why his family rather will believe that it was a fellow airman and not a soldier that killed him, well you can hardly blame them, they are a pilot family (remember that there was also a Richthofen that flew in WW2, and they probably found more comfort in the knowledge that he was killed in a air duel, and that is their choice. We all remember heroes and family in other light that reality, that is our way of finding the great in people and to make the remarkable, there is nothing wrong in that, it is human nature.

To the claim that it was a Aussie diggger.. i am not aware of the slang "digger" but i guess you mean anti air crew, Because they where, with their Wickers machine guns, the only persons that had any possibility to kill him, and it is suggested that at least one, but maybe as many as 3 different antiair sites opened fire on him, any one of them could have killed him, just as the attacking plane also could have made the killing shot.
So in the end ask yourself is it worth it, to find out which of the 4 possible persons that killed him? does it change anything that his family believes that it was the ace and not the antiair sites? no, of cause it will not change anything, so why not let sleeping gods lie?

Well the aussies that did claim to open fire was Sergeant Cedric Popkin, Gunner W. J. "Snowy" Evans and Gunner Robert Buiem, but only Cedric Popkin is confirm for the firing and is suspected to might have fired the killing shot.

[–] Cinna_Mini_Me 16 years ago

By ALL accounts, it was a SINGLE, well-placed bullet that killed von Richthofen. The British Army doctor who performed the autopsy, stated in his report that the bullet entered under von Richthofen's right arm pit and exited from the front of his chest on the left side. By extant descriptions of the Baron's last battle, the only way that fatal shot could have entered his body at that angle, was from ground fire. None of Brown's rounds were ever proven to have even hit the Baron's red triplane. Brown ALWAYS refused to talk about the encounter after the war, even though he was officially credited with the kill. Perhaps because he KNEW it wasn't his victory to claim. I am neither an airman nor a member of the von Richthofen family, but if I were one or the other, or both, I would think being killed by a single, VERY lucky shot, fired from the ground, would be a fitting end to the war's greatest fighter pilot. Why? My take on it is that there was never a pilot of greater skill capable of killing him in one-to-one combat.

[–] TakuyaAus 16 years ago

Cinna Mini Me Perfect answer i totally AGREE!!!

Gallipoli is one great flick
so is Mad Max
and Romper Stomper
oh and Chopper ahaha

[–] moif-1 16 years ago

[–] klondike6 16 years ago

Ein geschlossener Verstand ist ein einfacher Verstand. Betrachten Sie den historischen Beweis.

[–] Cinna_Mini_Me 16 years ago

Sehr gut! Ich glaube das auch! ;-0)

[–] lima-2 16 years ago

My German is a little rusty, but I recognized the word "simpleton" from klondike's post. If I didn't know better, I think somebody was just insulted.

[–] simonkevnorris 12 years ago

"Ein geschlossener Verstand ist ein einfacher Verstand. Betrachten Sie den historischen Beweis."

according to google translate

"A closed mind is a simple reason. Consider the historical evidence."

"Sehr gut! Ich glaube das auch"

according to google translate

Very good! I think so too

[–] SinisterCreep 16 years ago

Unless you were there, then its all speculation and political gesturing. Biplane combat takes place in three dimensions and a bullet can and would enter an aircraft from any direction during a dogfight. I've seen all the evidence and the conclusion is simply inconclusive. There is no way to know who actually killed the Red Baron. Suffice to say he died in combat.

I've seen a very convincing documentary that used lasers to work out all the angles etc and it was very convincing and seemed to prove that it couldn't have been Brown who shot him down.

Spielbergs WOTW is an insult to HG Wells and Russell T Davies is the worst ever Dr Who writer!

[–] Jabberdau 16 years ago

I think I have seen that documentary as well. Quite convincing.

[–] aforandy 16 years ago

Unless you were there, then its all speculation and political gesturing.

there's a lot of physical evidence, a ton of documentary stuff, and several eye-witness accounts that do not disagree. This includes negatives which exclude certain possibilities. The exact time and place can be demonstrated, not least because Richthofen spoke his last words to a British signals engineer who was the first to approach the downed triplane. This man revisisted the site as an old man in the early 1970s. It seems Richthofen died 30 seconds after being hit, in which time he managed to bring his aircraft to earth. As a result his remains and his aircraft were more-or-less intact.

Biplane combat takes place in three dimensions and a bullet can and would enter an aircraft from any direction during a dogfight. I've seen all the evidence and the conclusion is simply inconclusive. There is no way to know who actually killed the Red Baron. Suffice to say he died in combat.

A neat little clincher is that Richhotfen wasn't in aerial combat when he was killed, nor had he been for some time beforehand. At the moment of his death Brown was several miles away, having broken off his own action. The Australian machine-gunner admitted that he felt it most unlikely he shot Richthofen; he didn't want the incident investigated since this would have exposed that only one of his guns was manned -- the one he was firing -- because his men were not "on duty" or "standing to" as they should have been, a fact for which he was responsible.

There are no likely candidates and only one plausible one, which is that Richthofen was hit by a single rifle bullet fired by a Canadian soldier. If so he hit a very small target a long way off moving at well over 100 mph. This is akin to hitting the much smaller target of a bird flying much closer and slower, eg. both targets would need to be led by nine or ten lengths, and these Canadians were used to taking on such targets in civilian life. We know that more than one of them had several shots each, and only one was successful.

[–] 16 years ago

[deleted]

[–] garygarth 16 years ago

The reason why Brown never talked about his victory was because he was a nervous wreck. In his log book, he wrote that he shot down an all red tri-plane. Two weeks later, he was informed that he had shot down Richthofen. Also, the autopsy found that he had been shot from above, behind, and from the right. (From where Brown was pursuing him.) There was most likely little evidence that the machine had been hit at all - concidering that there was hardly anything left of it from throphy-takers.

[–] nickm2 16 years ago

Mad26

I am only commenting on the term 'Digger': As far as I understand it, the term is Australian Slang for An Australian footsoldier of any kind--Sort of like "G.I.", "Tommy" or "Landser"---I THINK that it's based on the Australian's experiences in the Galipoli landings...they had to get dug in with great urgency, hence the nickname...

Ah...here we are, from the Miracle of "Wikipedia":

Digger is New Zealand and Australian military slang term for soldiers from New Zealand and Australia. It originated during World War I.

There are numerous theories about the origin of the term. Before the war, the term "digger" had been widely used in Australasia to mean a miner, or a Kauri gum-digger in New Zealand. On 25 April 1915, General Sir Ian Hamilton sent a message to the commander of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC), General William Birdwood, following the landing at Gallipoli. It contained the postscript: "P.S.—You have got through the difficult business, now you have only to dig, dig, dig, until you are safe." However, there is no hard evidence to support the theory that Hamilton's message is the reason why digger was applied to ANZAC troops in general. W. H. Downing, in Digger Dialects (1919), a glossary of words and phrases used by Australian personnel during the war, says that Digger was first used to mean a New Zealand or Australian soldier in 1916. It appears to have become popular among New Zealand troops, before being adopted by Australians. The word was not in wide use amongst soldiers until 1917. One other theory is the fact that ANZAC troops were especially good at digging tunnels between their own trenches and the enemies, and were regarded by both sides as diggers, one was derogatory and the other was in jest. Because the job of digging between the trenches was very hard, especially when both sides diggers met in the tunnels, ANZACS believe that it is a form of complement to be referred to diggers, because to be of any merit you had to be very good at this hard job, and to be regarded as diggers was due to there skill at their job.

While New Zealanders would call each other "Digger", all other nationalities, including Australians, tended to call them "Kiwis". The equivalent slang for a British soldier was "Tommy" from Tommy Atkins. However, while the Anzacs would happily refer to themselves as "Diggers", British soldiers generally resented being called "Tommy".

Throughout Australia when one refers to "digger", one is referring to the Australian Army.

I forgot to mention the Kiwis...

nickm

[–] BruceKahn 13 years ago

As I've always understood it, he was hit from slightly below.
Keep in mind a plane can bank, meaning that "slightly below" can easily be ground level if the craft in question is in a slight bank.
Unlikely, at the altitude that von Richthofen was reported to be, that Brown could have been below him.

www.brucekahn.net
Be there or be.... not there.