A week after that he brought down an 11 Squadron FE2b and killed the pilot and observer. This was a slightly more creditable performance, but the odds were still heavily in favour of the Albatros. For a souvenir this time he cut away a piece of fabric that bore a roundel.
Henceforth, unless the aeroplane he had sent down was burned to a cinder or souvenir hunters got there first and stripped it, he always took or had someone else remove some portion of it to send home, where his family vulgarised a room dedicated to exhibiting such relics and his self-awarded silver cups. The machine-gun was, in deplorable taste and self-advertisement, displayed over the front door.
His next three successive victims were BE2s, undistinguished single seaters, two of 21 Squadron and one of 19 Squadron, on 7, 16 and 25 October. All the pilots were killed.
On 28 October Boelcke’s career came to an end in the most unexpected way and with potentially grievous effects on the Jasta’s morale. Two 24 Squadron pilots, Lieutenants Knight and McKay, were far behind enemy lines when Boelcke and his Jasta intercepted them. The RFC’s combat report says that twelve Halberstadts and two small Aviatik scouts attacked a pair of DH2s. It was the British pilots who misidentified their assailants this time: the Albatros D rather resembled the Halberstadt, although to a well-trained pilot it had obvious differences, such as the shape of the tail fin and less shark-like lines of the fuselage. The two Aviatiks were presumably on a bombing raid with fighter escort. The DH2s began to circle tightly. Boelcke and Böhme together attacked one of them but Manfred, chasing the other, crossed their path. Böhme’s left wing hit Boelcke’s right and Boelcke’s machine went down steeply, out of control. The damaged wing came off and he was killed on impact with the ground. He had 31 victories to his name.
The RFC dropped a wreath at his funeral, with a note reading, ‘To the memory of Captain Boelcke, our brave and chivalrous foe, from the British Royal Flying Corps’. This was a tribute to his habit of visiting hospitals where men he had wounded were being treated and of giving or sending them cigarettes.
In a letter to his mother, describing the crash and his part in the funeral, at which he carried Boelcke’s decorations displayed on a cushion, Manfred wrote, ‘We are deeply affected, as if we had lost a favourite brother. The funeral was worthy of a prince. In the last six weeks we have lost six of our twelve pilots, killed, and one wounded. Two have suffered complete nervous breakdowns.’
This is hardly the information a considerate son would have given either of his parents.
Oberleutnant Stephen Kirmaier, the second-in-command, took over the Jasta. Five days after Boelcke was lost, he shot down his eighth enemy aircraft and, eight days later, his ninth.
On 3 November Manfred raised his score to seven with a victory over an FE2b, killing its occupants. On the 9th he destroyed a BE2c and mortally wounded its pilot. Both he and Kirmaier expected the Blue Max, now that each had bagged eight hostiles, but were disappointed.
On 20 November Manfred scored a double by sending down another BE2c, whose crew were taken prisoner; and an FE2b whose pilot died of wounds and observer was killed.
On the same day, Kirmaier had his eleventh victory. On the 22nd, fighting an alleged Vickers, he uncharacteristically followed it over the British lines and was killed. Command fell temporarily to the Senior Administrative Officer, but Manfred, in view of his personality and the fact that he was now the squadron’s top scoring survivor, led it in action. He took a serious view of his new responsibility and began by explaining to his pilots the ways in which air fighting was changing and the tactics they must adopt in order to cope with them. Flying discipline had always been essential and one facet of this was good formation-keeping, in which he exercised them strictly.
On 23 November he had the most important victory of his whole career. The man he fought, Major Lanoe Hawker VC DSO, was not only a fine pilot but also as good a marksman as Manfred and, like him, a regular officer and scion of the landed gentry.
In the early days, he used to take a rifle up with him, resting against his right leg, even when in a BE2c, whose observer had a Lewis gun. As a flight commander in No. 6 Squadron, on 25 July 1915, flying a Bristol Scout, he destroyed two hostiles on the same sortie. Rather than have a Lewis gun on the upper wing, he was so confident of his accuracy that he had one mounted pointing to the left at an angle of forty-five degrees to his line of flight, so that its bullets would miss the propeller. Apocryphal stories about his amazing skill with a rifle had always abounded. The rumour that spread this time alleged that he had shot down three German machines with a rifle.
In September he had taken command of 24 Squadron, which was being formed in England and arrived in France on 7 February 1916. Hawker and his three flight commanders were the only ones with operational experience. He and one of these were aged twenty-five, most of his other pilots were twenty or younger.
When other squadrons came to dinner there were tumultuous games in the mess, which became a tradition in RFC and RAF officers’ messes and would never even have been contemplated in any other nation’s. Battles were fought using armchairs as armoured cars, tennis balls as bombs, soda syphons as flame-throwers, and rugger was played to the detriment of furniture and windows.
Having been educated, after preparatory school, at the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth and the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, he was a great believer in Mens sana in corpore sano: he took his pilots for a run every morning; borrowed cavalry horses for them to ride and had a tennis court laid out. The Germans, French and Italians, all of whom regarded the provision of brothels more important than facilities for exercise, would have regarded these means of providing recreation as wildly aberrant or puerile. The morale of his officers and men was high, they were delighted with him and respectful of his bravery.
Within a week of arriving at the front, two pilots had been killed when their DH2s spun into the ground. These tragedies were potential morale destroyers. Hawker took a DH2 up to 8,000 ft and, out of sight, spun it several times to left and right, with and without engine. When he landed, he told the pilots how to recover from a spin and they hurried into the air to practise it. Such a man was Lanoe Hawker, a light-hearted and far more attractive, many-faceted character than the serious, introspective Manfred von Richthofen.
When they met in combat Manfred won because, although Hawker was the more polished flyer, Manfred flew the faster, more heavily armed aircraft and his two guns were each loaded with 500 rounds, whereas Hawker’s one had only ninety-four. Moreover, Manfred had had the great benefit of mock combat with a DH2 that Boelcke had forced down, intact, behind the German lines. Also, Hawker’s engine was suffering from impeded petrol flow, which robbed it of full power.
Hawker, patrolling at 6,000 ft with Captain Andrews and Lieutenant Saundby, had seen two enemy two-seaters, at which Andrews dived. The British combat report tells us:
… and then, seeing two strong hostile patrols approaching high up, [Saundby] was about to retire when Major Hawker dived past him and continued the pursuit.
The DHs were at once attacked by the HA, one of which dived on to Major Hawker’s tail. Captain Andrews drove this machine off, firing 25 rounds at close quarters, but was himself attacked from the rear and his engine shot through almost immediately, so that he was obliged to try to regain the lines. He last saw Major Hawker engaging one HA at about 3,000 ft. Lieutenant Saundby could then see no other DHs and the HA appeared to have moved east, where they remained for the rest of the patrol.
Manfred’s combat report yet again misidentifies the DH2. ‘I attacked in company with two aeroplanes of the squadron a single-seater Vickers biplane at about 3,000 metres. After a very long circling fight (35 minutes) I had forced down my opponent to 500 metres near Bapaume. He then tried to reach the Front, I followed him to 100 metres over Ligny, he fell from this height after 900 shots.’
The disparity in heights given by the reports was not unusual. Hawker, who had already been shot down twice by superior aircraft
and wounded once, was this time fatally shot through the head.
Manfred helped himself to the DH2’s machine-gun and a piece of fabric bearing the aircraft’s serial number.
The fight had lasted more than half an hour because Hawker was a brilliant aerobatic pilot. Manfred, who despised this facility, never practised it and discouraged it in those he commanded, had never before met a master of the art.
Manfred was still leading the Jasta in action, but not experienced enough to warrant being appointed Commanding Officer. He and the other pilots applied for Oberleutnant Franz Walz to be their next commander. He was thirty-one and although he had only six kills to his name, they thought, from his reputation, that he had some of Boelcke’s qualities. He arrived to take over on 29 November.
Meanwhile Manfred had notched up successes against two DH2s, with one pilot killed and one captured and two FE2bs, one pilot killed, one wounded. Thus 1916 ended with his total at fifteen. All had been achieved against aircraft that were at a disadvantage in speed, manoeuvrability or firepower.
On 11 December, the squadron was given the official title of Jagdstaffel Boelcke.
CHAPTER 8 - MANFRED’S ATTITUDE TO LOTHAR
Over the years since the end of the Great War, Manfred has often been denigrated for jealousy of, and rivalry with, his brother Lothar, who was two years and four months his junior. On the contrary, the interest he showed in his brother’s career can also be seen as affectionate concern and when, early in the war, Lothar was seeing more action than he, a wistful envy that was entirely proper. Manfred was a professional who had been trained for a military career from the age of eleven. War provided the opportunity for him to serve his country, do what he had spent eleven hard years preparing for and distinguish himself; yet for months he was kept on the fringes of the fighting. Lothar, who had been given a normal education before doing his compulsory military service, was in the thick of it. Disappointment and, for a Prussian cast in the military mould, humiliation, must surely have been the elder brother’s emotions rather than resentment. Significantly, Manfred’s detractors have all been of nationalities other than his own.
Both brothers were handsome, but physically and in character differed in many ways. Manfred was fair, short, introspective and reserved. However, in photographs with other members of his squadron he is usually smiling and has an air of geniality. Lothar stood a good half a head taller, was dark, broader-shouldered, sociable and cheerful.
Lothar Freiherr von Richthofen had joined the 4th von Bredow Dragoons, who took part in the invasion of Belgium. The regiment was soon transferred to the Russian Front, where the Germans won two great battles. The news in Lothar’s letters to his parents was passed on to Manfred, who was suffering agonies of frustration in the Verdun sector and wishing he had the same opportunities to do his duty in the fullest sense; and win medals.
From his earliest letters to their mother, Manfred had frequently stated that he was trying to win the Iron Cross. When he did receive it for his reconnaissances he was disappointed because it was only Second Class, not the First he coveted. When he was festering in a deep dugout, he wrote to her: ‘Unfortunately, my regiment has been attached to the infantry, I say “unfortunately” because I feel certain that Lothar has already ridden in many cavalry charges, which we shall never do here.’ This has repeatedly been quoted as proof of his jealousy, but it can just as logically be read as natural envy, not of his brother, but of the chance to do, himself, what he was brought up to do and to prove his manhood.
Transferring to the air service relieved his frustration and in February 1915 he persuaded Lothar, who was doing dull work training recruits, to follow his example. That does not seem like the advice of a brother jealous of his sibling, but the very contrary. As long as the younger man stewed in a non-combatant post, the elder, flying on operations, was in a position to feel that he had gone one better; if he were capable of such mean thoughts. The evidence is that such competitive feelings as he did have towards Lothar were frank and healthy. He encouraged him to fly and always sought his company. If he had wanted to indulge in ‘one-upmanship’ he would have been complacent about his young brother serving in an arm for which modern warfare had little use, not urged him to take to the air, where the prospects of hard fighting and fame were abundant. Lothar did not join the air service until some months later, but by the year’s end was operating over the Western Front as an observer. In 1916 he qualified as a pilot.
Family ties between the six members of Major Albrecht Freiherr von Richthofen’s household were close. Their affection for one another was manifested in many ways and communicates itself to anyone who studies their family relationships. On the second Christmas of the war, the Major and Lothar were home on leave, young Bolko was on holiday from his military academy and Manfred was able to join them late on Christmas Eve. Their unity and mutual love was clearly evinced. Manfred himself described the warmth and joy of the scene: his mother at the piano and the rest of the family grouped around her, singing, all in uniform including Ilse in her nurse’s outfit.
The German sentimentality about Christmas is well known and was famously displayed on the war’s first Christmas Day when the German soldiers took the initiative in shouting friendly messages from trench to trench and British troops mingled with them in no-man’s-land.
In 1916 the Richthofens could not be united at home for the festival, but the father and two elder brothers were able to meet in Jasta Boelcke’s officers’ mess.
On the following day, Lothar, having returned to his flying training school, made his first solo. Manfred wrote to their mother to tell her of both events. ‘Dad and Lothar were with me on Christmas Day. It was a memorable holiday and more fun than you at home might think. We had a Christmas tree and an excellent dinner. Next day, Lothar made his first solo flight.’
Manfred’s pleasure in his brother’s reaching this significant stage in his aspiration to qualify as a pilot is plain and demolishes all accusations of mean-spirited rivalry. There was, of course, competitiveness as both their flying careers advanced. This was true of all the pilots in the squadron and in the fighter squadrons of every nation fighting the war, and the Richthofens were open about it.
CHAPTER 9 - THE PACE QUICKENS, THE DANGERS GROW
1916 had seen air superiority fluctuate between the Allies and the Germans, as well as many considerable advances in the performance of aeroplanes and armament. The airmen on both sides entered 1917 with expectation of further improvements in aircraft, engine and weapon design. All current machine-guns were prone to jamming. German pilots took a hammer up with them to free the mechanism of their Parabellums and Spandaus. Lewis rounds frequently jammed in the breech, which meant unscrewing the ammunition drum, a clumsy business; when the Vickers jammed, the belt had to be adjusted. All these interruptions meant either abandoning a fight temporarily or permanently, or being wounded or killed. The Germans often used incendiary bullets, so a high proportion of the aeroplanes destroyed caught fire and men were either burned to death or jumped out at several hundreds or thousands of feet to avoid this agony.
The recent emergence of publicised British aces, who were becoming as well known as the French and German, was an embarrassment to the War Cabinet as well as to the objects of hero-worship. Censorship could suppress neither falsehoods nor truths that were spread by word of mouth. The dominance of the Fokker EI and II over the British and French air forces had not been entirely concealed, for the newspapers published daily casualty lists. When the Royal Flying Corps and l’Aviation Militaire overcame the Fokker with the DH2 and the Nieuport 17 respectively, the British public was eager to know more about its leading fighter pilots than the names they read in newspapers when decorations were awarded.
*
Manfred gained his last victory of 1916 on 27 December, against an FE2b. The pilot was wounded, the observer captured. His first success of the new year was against a Sopwith Pup of the RNAS on 4 January. His report goes:
&nbs
p; A new type of machine, never seen before, but, as the wings were broken, barely identifiable. The Pilot, Lieutenant Todd [everyone was supposed to wear an identity disc], killed. Papers and valuables enclosed. About 4.15 pm. Just after starting we saw above us at 4,000 metres four machines unmolested by our artillery. As the anti-aircraft was not firing we supposed they were ours. When they were nearer we saw that they were English. One of them attacked us and we saw at once that it was superior to our machines. We detected its weak point only because we were three against one. I managed to get behind him and shoot him down. The machine disintegrated while falling.
Having doubled the score for which Boelcke and Immelmann had been awarded the Pour le Mérite, Manfred was obsessed with anxiety about when he would be equally rewarded. His gloom at apparently being ignored, and being deprived by bad weather of the chance to add to his impressive record, was lightened when, on 7 January, some Albatros DIIIs were delivered to the squadron.
Exactly a week later, he was appointed to command Jasta 11, based at an aerodrome near Douai. He had to wait only two more days for the announcement that he had been given the Blue Max, which arrived during his farewell party. The newspapers fawned on him. Congratulatory letters, ‘fan mail’, came abundantly and he was pestered for portrait photographs.
He took his Albatros DIII with him and lost no time in setting an example to his twelve pilots. On 23 January he destroyed an FE8, killing its pilot, and on the following day brought down a FE2b, wounding both occupants, who were taken prisoner. About the latter encounter he wrote to his mother: ‘One of my wings cracked at an altitude of 300 metres and it was a miracle that I reached the ground safely’. On the same day Jasta Boelcke lost three aeroplanes and it was found that two of them had suffered from the same structural defect.
Von Richthofen: The Legend Evaluated Page 7