Who Killed the Red Baron?
Tags: Richthofen, The Red Baron, Red Baron, World War II, Baron Von Richthofen

The Red Baron’s death has been of great interest for over 100 years. This article explores the lingering doubt and contentions in regards to the true shooter of the greatest aviator in the Great War, the Red Baron, whose skilful tactics revolutionised aerial combat and the nature of warfare.

The Red Baron, Manfred Albrecht Freiherr von Richthofen, was a German fighter pilot with a record of 80 confirmed air combat victories and was widely acknowledged for being the “greatest flying ace of The Great War”. Richthofen was considered invincible by his enemies and was known by the Germans as “Der Rote Baron”, commonly referred to as the “Red Baron” by his Allies due to the momentous red colour of his Fokker D1 triplane. Richthofen was renowned for his strict adherence to the Boelcke Dicta, under the guidance of his mentor the German ace, Oswald Boelcke. However just as the Great War was nearing its end, in a strange deviation from his norm, Richthofen entered Allied territory at low altitude and was shot down. It was the 21st of April 1918. On the day of Richthofen’s death, he had been chasing a Canadian aircraft flown by Lieutenant Wilfred R. May (a novice pilot) along the Somme valley to the east side of Corbie in the Australian territory. As the Red Baron passed overhead Allied soldiers, his plane suddenly inclined to the right and struck the ground near Bray-Corbie road, a division controlled by Australian soldiers. The British Commonwealth soldiers who had earlier fired at him arrived at his red Fokker triplane immediately and had potentially heard his final words, allegedly involving the word “kaput”. Richthofen’s death was caused by a single .303 (7.7.mm) calibre bullet. Doctors have determined that the wound was without a doubt fatal, but he still could’ve flown for a couple minutes. This paper investigates the enduring mystery: who killed the Red Baron, the supposedly invincible German ace? Based on military documentation, medical reports, popular reporting at the time and some recent scholarship, it will be contended that the official accounts are questionable, and that indeed the real shooter still eludes historical recognition. However, historical contentions tend to be open-ended and up to an individual’s interpretation a majority of the time, which will be difficult when pinpointing an exact shooter. This essay is composed of six main contentions, beginning with the Captain, Roy Brown, then exploring three favourable Allied soldiers: Robert Buie, W.J. Evans, and Cedric Popkin, afterwards Richthofen’s mental health after his dire head injury in 1917, and finally the possibility of an unknown Australian soldier situated in the whereabouts of the infantry.

The context of the Red Baron’s final, fatal excursion is quite well-established. Canadian forces had been battling against German forces in a brutal air dogfight over France. The Red Baron hung behind with already 80 confirmed kills to his name, but entered the fighting eventually. Whilst chasing Lieutenant May in his notorious red Fokker triplane, he was spotted by Roy Brown who immediately began chasing after them in his Sopwith Camel. From behind, he fired rapid shots at Richthofen’s plane, one of them managing to land directly on his back, resulting in an abrupt landing and an extremely dire injury. At the time, Brown was credited by the Royal Air Force as the pilot who conquered the Red Baron, which was the theory that endured for many years; however, current historians have determined that the bullet that dispatched him was in fact shot from the ground. The Red Baron had died from a chest wound which came from a single bullet that pierced his right armpit then emerged beside his left nipple. Studies show that Brown’s attack was to the south east of the triplane, to the left of Richthofen. Brown was also chasing Richthofen from above and the only way he could’ve fired the shot that hit Richthofen’s right was if he was sharply inclining the triplane. The Chicago Sunday Tribune article that credited Brown with the kill did not mention such an incline and Brown mentioned in an article that the Red Baron was glancing back at him; thus, a steep incline would’ve been extremely unlikely. Royal Military graduate Leslie Beavis (officer positioned east of Corbie) claimed that “There was no third plane (regarding Brown’s plane) within a radius of at least 2000 yards”, suggesting that it was near impossible for Brown to have fired the fatal shot at Richthofen being over 2000 yards away from him. Furthermore, research has shown that it was almost impossible for Richthofen to have pursued his chase of Lieutenant May for the whole two minutes if the bullet had come from Brown’s guns.

The crediting of Brown with the Baron’s demise has been called into question by other studies which suggest that Gunner Robert Buie was the soldier who fired the fatal shot; although, there still remains limited evidence for this contention. A borough in Sydney agnised Buie as the soldier responsible for the death of the Red Baron, placing a memorial tablet near Buie’s bygone home. In 1964, Buie passed away and has never been formally recognised in any alternative ways. In an interview, Robert Buie acknowledged that Richthofen’s Fokker triplane “was bearing frontal and just a little to the right of me”. However, the nature of the wound contradicts his statement due to the bullet piercing him from behind. In addition, another statement attributed by Buie proclaimed that “Still Richthofen came on firing at Lieutenant May with both guns blazing. Then just before my last shots finished at a range of 40 yards, Richthofen’s guns stopped abruptly…”. This indicates that at no time was Buie in the position to fire at the Red Baron and deliver the fatal shot from behind him.

In 2002, a documentary was published by the Discovery Channel identified Gunner W.J. “Snowy” Evans as the Red Baron’s shooter. In 2002, a documentary aired from the Discovery Channel (which, it must be said, is recognised for indulging in discredited theories over the prevalent and favoured ones) titled Unsolved History: Death of the Red Baron, and with the help of computer simulation concluded that it was most likely Evans who fired the fatal shot. Despite the evidence from the computer simulation, the PBS disregarded this assertion due to the angle Evans fired at the Red Baron. Similar to Buie, Evans was also close to the Red Baron when he was going up the hill as the two men were only 30 metres apart, but only described firing at Richthofen when he was coming towards them. As the bullet wound was from the right and slightly behind, it disregards both Buie and Evans as the shooter. In addition, the prospect of Evans being the actual shooter is shared by almost no historians.

A 1998 article published by a military medicine historian and physician, Geoffrey Miller, claims that Sergeant Cedric Popkin, a well experienced gunner, was the soldier who bested Richthofen. He had shot at the Red Baron on two occasions and it is commonly believed that he killed Richthofen with his Vickers machine gun. The first time occurred when the Red Baron flew directly at him, and the second was a faraway shot from Richthofen’s right. The nature of the Red Baron’s wounds led numerous historians to believe that Popkin was in the perfect position to fire the calamitous shot at Richthofen when he had passed Popkin a second time on his right. Popkin had continued to fire rapidly at Richthofen while he was completing the turn back to Central territory and the post mortem displays a bullet wound exactly where Popkin could’ve shot him — from the ground, slightly behind and right. Various studies indicated that the fatal wound was only consistent with Popkin’s vicious Vickers guns. Nevertheless, despite the majority of historians agreeing with this widely popularised theory, the greatest problem is Popkin’s distance from Richthofen. When Popkin rapidly fired his burst of 200 rounds, he was a complete 1.25 kilometres (¾ miles) away from Richthofen. The Vickers guns could theoretically travel that far, but it would’ve had to be an extremely lucky shot given the remarkable distance.

Another favoured contention is that Richthofen is to blame for his own death, although the theory doesn’t specify an exact shooter. Richthofen had practiced extreme conservatism in his years of flying and had never engaged in any risky battles as he had always depicted himself as a “poor marksman”. Therefore, many historians have concluded that this was relatively out of character for him. It has been widely suggested that he was suffering from deviant mental issues, potentially from his head injury the previous year, where he was nearly killed when a bullet grazed his skull, resulting in an arduous head injury. In 2004, two researchers from the University of Missouri published in the journal Human Factors and Aerospace Safety, determined that Richthofen had continuously suffered from his former brain injury in 1917. In 2006, their article was discredited by Air Force officer, Jonathan Young, who wrote in the Air Power History that in fact a majority of Richthofen’s successes, including a majority of his victories and leading his squadron, all occurred after his near fatal injury. However, Young had always spoken of Richthofen with extensive romanticism, portraying him as an “impassioned hunter” which certainly provided a considerable level of bias in his journal. Nevertheless, the dogfight wasn’t overly precarious for Richthofen to be involved in, as the Germans were more dominant in numbers — fifteen to twenty — while there were only ten Allied planes. Moreover, the whole dogfight only took place barely outside of the German territory. Neither of the journals appear to be unduly convincing; hence, there isn’t sufficient evidence to conclude that Richofen’s death is simply caused by his behavioural alterations from his former head injury.

The last contention is that the Red Baron is shot by an unknown Australian soldier who scored a lucky hit. The cartridge that was used to brutally shoot Richthofen from the sky was equipped in the Lewis guns, Vickers guns and Lee-Enfield Service rifle which was wielded by almost every Allied soldier. All that is certain is that the .303 rifle bullet was shot at Richthofen from below, to the right and slightly behind. In addition, his wounds displayed that the bullet passed through his heart; therefore, he could have only been sentient for a maximum of 30 seconds after being fatally shot. The bullet is most likely to have been fired at the end of Richthofen’s chase and is most probable when the triplane meandered abruptly from the hill, where there were infantrymen scattered all around, wielding Lee-Enfield rifles. Furthermore, it was completely plausible to hit a triplane at low altitude, doing a 180 degree turn with an accurate gun, such as the Lee-Enfield rifle.

In conclusion, it is evident that history always tends to be on a knife-edge, where the desire for immediate heroes such as Roy Brown are always more favoured rather than leaving it up for debate. As shown in this paper, it is difficult to pinpoint an exact shooter when there are numerous other possibilities to consider which is often the reason why there are so many contests in history. Although history allows us to understand events that occurred in the past, evidently there will always be many perspectives in a story. As countless historical sources have asserted, the bullet that pierced the Red Baron’s heart came from the ground, excluding the highly favoured possibility at the time, Roy Brown. Furthermore, evidence has proved that neither of the two Lewis gun-wielding men — Robert Buie and Snowy Evans — could have imposed such a brutal wound, consequently leaving the three other favourable theories: Cedric Popkin, Richthofen himself, and an unknown Allied soldier. This paper has shown that although Sergeant Popkin was in the perfect position to fire the fatal shot, his distance was far too great from Richthofen, unless it was the “luckiest shot in history”, while the theory of Richthofen being at blame for his own death is poorly supported and lacks concrete evidence. Finally, an unknown Australian soldier wielding a Lee-Enfield rifle who simply scored a lucky hit appears to be the most plausible conclusion to this one hundred year old mystery.