World War One Pilots Were Gentlemen

[TheParser]

I have just learned the following in National Geographic History (Volume 4, No. 1).

*****

1. The "greatest combat pilot ever" was German flying ace Manfred von Richthofen ((the Red Baron, because he painted his plane red).

2. He died when a bullet from either a Canadian pilot or from an Australian infantryman on the ground struck him in the torso. He crashed and died moments later.

3. The Australians buried him.

a. "Photographs were taken of the funeral."
b. "British planes dropped them over the Red Baron's home airfield" with a message that read:

" Rittmeister Baron Manfred von Richthofen was killed in aerial combat on April 21st, 1918. He was buried with full military honors."


The magazine article by David Alford says:

"Mutual respect and the values of the past transcended the battle lines and scars of warfare."

 

[Ringel05]

I have just learned the following in National Geographic History (Volume 4, No. 1).

*****

1. The "greatest combat pilot ever" was German flying ace Manfred von Richthofen ((the Red Baron, because he painted his plane red).

2. He died when a bullet from either a Canadian pilot or from an Australian infantryman on the ground struck him in the torso. He crashed and died moments later.

3. The Australians buried him.

a. "Photographs were taken of the funeral."
b. "British planes dropped them over the Red Baron's home airfield" with a message that read:

" Rittmeister Baron Manfred von Richthofen was killed in aerial combat on April 21st, 1918. He was buried with full military honors."


The magazine article by David Alford says:

"Mutual respect and the values of the past transcended the battle lines and scars of warfare."

Yes there were incidents such as that but they were rare, the myth of the chivalrous knights of the sky was born out of propaganda, fighter pilots were the rock stars of their age. Pilots took to the sky in flimsy machines that could kill them just as easily as the enemy and they went up with a job to do, that was kill the enemy any way you can and they did. Von Richtofen would follow planes he shot down to the ground, land and take a trophy off the plane, Guynemer was typically ruthless. There were the occasional chivalrous encounters which were played up in the press and even the ruthless occasionally indulged themselves but it was not the norm, it was as in all wars, kill or be killed.