The Death of The Red Baron
Photos from Omaka Aviation Centre in Blenheim. New Zealand
Manfred von Richthofen was the most feared fighter pilot with the German Air Force during World War I.
He is credited with shooting down 80 enemy planes. The leader of The Flying Circus was shot with a single bullet to the heart on April 25, 1918, by the Australian gunners in the trenches.
This scene at the Omaka Aviation Heritage Centre re-enacts the crash site of the Red Baron’s famous Red triplane Fokker Dr.I 425/17 near Vaux-sur-Somme in northern France.
The exhibit shows the inglorious aftermath as Australian soldiers remove the pilot’s boots and rip apart the triplane for souvenirs.
As described by one onlooker;
"the men were ‘just like kangaroo dogs around a roo,’ ripping everything apart, souveniring, grabbing whatever they could get."
I noticed several small punctures in his face apparently caused by small splinters off a bullet which had probably hit the metalwork of his plane and a larger wound about the size that would be caused by a .303 bullet in the lower part of his chest and travelling upwards in the direction of his heart but I did not see any other injury.
At his death, Manfred von Richthofen was just 25 years of age.
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