Thursday, April 21, 2005
Today In Aviation History
APRIL 21, 1918
By the spring of 1918 the "Red Baron", German Air Ace Manfred von Richthofen, had shot down 80 Allied airplanes. His luck was about to run out. On April 21 he chased what would have been kill number 81, good Canadian boy Wilfred "Wop" May, born in Carberry, Manitoba, far behind the British lines. The grim ballet between hunter and hunted brought both planes closer and closer to the ground. With his quarry firmly in his sights, the Red Baron was suddenly felled by a single bullet coming from the guns of May's Flight Commander, good Canadian boy Arthur "Roy" Brown, born in Carleton Place, Ontario. Manfred von Richthofen crashed into a field alongside the road from Corbie to Bray. His body was recovered by British forces, and he was buried with full military honours. Gotta' love those "Canadian Pilots"!!
Richthofen's airplane; Fokker DR.-I Triplane
Brown's and May's airplane; Sopwith Camel
Explore Competing Theories: WHO KILLED THE "RED BARON"?
(Brown was given "Official Credit" and retains it to this day.)
By the spring of 1918 the "Red Baron", German Air Ace Manfred von Richthofen, had shot down 80 Allied airplanes. His luck was about to run out. On April 21 he chased what would have been kill number 81, good Canadian boy Wilfred "Wop" May, born in Carberry, Manitoba, far behind the British lines. The grim ballet between hunter and hunted brought both planes closer and closer to the ground. With his quarry firmly in his sights, the Red Baron was suddenly felled by a single bullet coming from the guns of May's Flight Commander, good Canadian boy Arthur "Roy" Brown, born in Carleton Place, Ontario. Manfred von Richthofen crashed into a field alongside the road from Corbie to Bray. His body was recovered by British forces, and he was buried with full military honours. Gotta' love those "Canadian Pilots"!!
Richthofen's airplane; Fokker DR.-I Triplane
Brown's and May's airplane; Sopwith Camel
Explore Competing Theories: WHO KILLED THE "RED BARON"?
(Brown was given "Official Credit" and retains it to this day.)
