Von Richthofen Funeral

[fitzee]

I seem to recall that several pilots from 209 Squadron can be seen watching the funeral from behind the fence

[joad]

Hi Bill

Leslie William Elliott, 57 Battalion

The story was they were in the reserve lines and he was shaving.....

Adam

[Dolphin]

Hello Gareth,

I am slightly reluctant to disagree with you but I know of at least 2 officers from 65 Squadron who attended the funeral.

Simon

Simon

Sorry, I should have been clearer. What I meant was that the 'official' participants at the funeral were from No 3 Sqn AFC; I was trying to clarify your comment about them being from No 3 Sqn and the Australians. There must have been attendees from other units, but they weren't pallbearers, firing party, etc.

Regards

Gareth

[Michael Molkentin]

Simon

Sorry, I should have been clearer. What I meant was that the 'official' participants at the funeral were from No 3 Sqn AFC; I was trying to clarify your comment about them being from No 3 Sqn and the Australians. There must have been attendees from other units, but they weren't pallbearers, firing party, etc.

Regards

Gareth

The evidence I've seen suggests Gareth is right: No. 3 Squadron's officers and other ranks formed the 'official' party- pallbearers, firing party, motor transport, funeral procession. I am not quite sure who the Anglican Padre was though- I don't think AFC squadrons had their own padres- my understanding is that they were employed at wing or perhaps brigade level.

Anyhow, there certainly was a very diverse crowd watching. I've seen a postcard with a Chinese face in the background, peering over the cemetery wall- my conclusion was that he might been a Labour Corps man!

[centurion]

The quote I provided from the AWM rings true

The Germans had extracted a great deal of propaganda value from Richthofen when alive both domestically and internationally. The myth of chivalry in the air had been assiduously promoted together with the man's invulnerability. The funeral gave a chance to counter this by saying very 'loudly'

a] We got him and now we're burying him - he's dead.

b] If you want the chivalry bit we can be just as chivalrous

[alex revell]

Isn't it amazing the sheer number of people who come out of the woodwork now and claim that their grandfather,father,uncle, brother - we haven't had an auntie,yet - were present at von R's crash. Reminds me of an American researcher, now dead, who told me that if all the pieces of fabric from von R's triplane he'd seen were put together they would cover a 747. :-)

[david lee]

Isn't it amazing the sheer number of people who come out of the woodwork now and claim that their grandfather,father,uncle, brother - we haven't had an auntie,yet - were present at von R's crash. Reminds me of an American researcher, now dead, who told me that if all the pieces of fabric from von R's triplane he'd seen were put together they would cover a 747. :-)

Medieval Europe had a similar craze with holy relics---it has been said that were enough pieces of the 'true' cross lying around to build a sizeable bridge out of.

As for 'late arrivals' at vR's death scene-----well, they are'nt all neccessarily contrived of course.

Dave.

[centurion]

On a more macabre note there was a similar story in late 19th Century Australia about the number of pieces of the rope they hanged Ned Kelly with.

[RAF_Louvert]

.

Actually, I had a great uncle, Waldo Nelsson, who claimed he saw MvR crash and was one of the first on the scene as well. He was also there to witness the funeral, and you can see him next to the Chinese labourer.

Poor Waldo, he disappeared shortly after the above photo was taken, and my relatives searched for him for years. While there were sporadic reports from around the world that he had been seen in many different locales, he was never reunited with the family. It's odd, there are sightings of him to this very day: trodding along in his red-and-white striped shirt and cap; haversack slung over his shoulder; trusty walking stick clutched in his hand; as if he were some wandering spectre still wishing to be found. Nearly always looks happy though, so that's a good thing I suppose.

.

[WhiteStarLine]

Hi Bill

Leslie William Elliott, 57 Battalion

The story was they were in the reserve lines and he was shaving.....

Adam

Hi Adam,

Have only just had a quick look and I may have missed something, but on that day, 57 battalion was in reserve at Aubigny with three companies forward and one company in reserve at Blangy Tronville. The battalion was stood to at 5:00 am expecting a Divisional attack and was only stood down at 5:35 am, having being gas shelled during the night. Working parties then commenced at 8:00 am, so sounds as if it was a busy day. Aubigny is around 6.5 km from the crash site as the crow flies. Even if he was picking up the bacon and tea they had for breakfast on that day, or the stew and tea that was lunch on the 21st April 1918, these were picked up from Daours, not Corbie. On that day, 723 rations were distributed by horse drawn limber, so it doesn't look if many of the battalion were anywhere else on that day.

Also, the shaving sounds a little odd, given MvR was shot down around 10:45 am.

It's a good story and no one can disprove it! However, there is no doubt that they would have seen and heard MvR's last fight.

Judge for yourself at http://maps.google.c...84,0.13175&z=14. Centre the map at Corbie and you can see both Aubigny and the crash site on the same page. Then use Street View to take a drive around the area.

Cheers,

Bill

[fitzee]

.

Actually, I had a great uncle, Waldo Nelsson, who claimed he saw MvR crash and was one of the first on the scene as well. He was also there to witness the funeral, and you can see him next to the Chinese labourer.

Poor Waldo, he disappeared shortly after the above photo was taken, and my relatives searched for him for years. While there were sporadic reports from around the world that he had been seen in many different locales, he was never reunited with the family. It's odd, there are sightings of him to this very day: trodding along in his red-and-white striped shirt and cap; haversack slung over his shoulder; trusty walking stick clutched in his hand; as if he were some wandering spectre still wishing to be found. Nearly always looks happy though, so that's a good thing I suppose.

.

[david lee]

Hi fitzee,

Nice one--a bit of humour at last, and not out of place.

Cheers,

Dave.

[RAF_Louvert]

.

I couldn't help myself Gents. I mean, there it was, just egging me on.

Lou

.

[david lee]

.

I couldn't help myself Gents. I mean, there it was, just egging me on.

Lou

.

Sorry Lou, I had'nt realised you posted and fitzee was quoting---so to speak. VERY FUNNY.

Cheers,

Dave,

[alex revell]

Lou,

You crazy fool. You know not what you do. Do you not realise that there are idiots out there who will take your post as fact. They will even start a thread about it, on you know where, which will run and run and run and run. :-)

[RAF_Louvert]

.

hee, hee...to quote the esteemed grey hare, Bugs Bunny, "Ain't I a stinker."

.

[Simon Birch]

Simon

Sorry, I should have been clearer. What I meant was that the 'official' participants at the funeral were from No 3 Sqn AFC; I was trying to clarify your comment about them being from No 3 Sqn and the Australians. There must have been attendees from other units, but they weren't pallbearers, firing party, etc.

Regards

Gareth

Hello Gareth.

Then we are agreed. Just for interest the follwing comes from a contemporary airmans diary from 65 Squadron: "21^st April 1918. On this date Baron Richthofen, Germany’s crack airman, with eighty-one machines to his credit is patrolling along with his circus. He sights two of our machines and gets them in the middle of his squadron – this was his usual method – reserving for himself the privilege of giving the deathblow. Help was coming to the British airmen and coming quickly in the shape of SPADS, SE5’s and Camels so he must do his executing at once or not at all. He dived on one of the machines (an R.E.5) but got more than he bargained for when the observer, an Australian corporal from 69 Squadron [technically this was number 3 Squadron Australian Flying Corps] turned his Lewis gun on him. The Lewis burst was true and one of the bullets piecing his heart. His machines continued to dive and when near the ground a gunner on the ground opened fire and claims to have brought him down. But from what I am told he was already dead and the machine was crashing to earth when the last gunner fired. At this time the Australian Squadron was next to us at Bertangles and they brought the body and remains of his machine back. I saw the body and secured a bit off one of the planes of the machine. He was a well built man, rather thick set, had a mark under his chin and one on his bottom lip and another on his left cheek near his temple. Whether these were caused by his fall I could not say. There was no blood on his face but uncovering the body, his breast was covered in blood. He had a typical German face, square set jaws and still in death a cynical smile.

He was buried at Bertangles the next day with Military Honours. The cortège passed our hut; I along with others saw it. First a firing party, then an Australian tender with the body and then a motor car with a few officers. From our aerodrome looking north you can see Bertangles nestling in the trees and it looks much prettier from here than it really is. The houses are built mostly of wood and plaster. From a lack of repairs most are falling down. The place is always full of troops moving to or away from the line. We learn that Paris has been shelled from seventy-five miles away"

Simon

[RAF_Louvert]

.

Who was the airman that wrote that diary entry, Simon?

Lou

.

[centurion]

Lou,

You crazy fool. You know not what you do. Do you not realise that there are idiots out there who will take your post as fact. They will even start a thread about it, on you know where, which will run and run and run and run. :-)

Any way there was an aviation film about him - The Great Waldo Pepper

[Simon Birch]

.

Who was the airman that wrote that diary entry, Simon?

Lou

.

Hello Lou,

It comes from a 29 page closely typed (A4) set of noted written by a Thomas Spencer, who served with 65 Squadron, from the time they went to France to the end of the war. It gives a different perspective to the air war but from an armourers point of view.

PM me if you would like a copy transcribed word document of this.

Simon

[RAF_Louvert]

.

You have been PM'd Simon, and many thanks for your kind offer Sir.

Cheers!

Lou

.

[Simon Birch]

I post the following really just for interest. It was written by Fredrick John Suckling from 65 Squadron - if it has been published before I apologise - as I say it is just for interest."By the side of a cottage in an insignificant French village one morning in the spring of 1918, a group of khaki-clad figures stood gazing intently at a sheet of foolscap bearing a few typewritten names.

By the cap and cut of the jacket, these lads, none of them more than nineteen years and all just from England, could be seen to belong to the Flying Corps, and they were eagerly scanning the newest list of postings.

One of them, by hurrying out from his billet immediately after breakfast, had been the first there, and although he had been at the Pilots' Pool only two days, it was with intense satisfaction that he read:

To 65 Squadron.

Lieutenant Suckling.

Lieutenant Knight.

"65 seems to be having a thin time; that's ten new pilots in a week," a voice remarked. "Heaven help those two poor devils. They've got the 'Circus' on their front."

For a moment Lieutenant Suckling felt a tinge of dread; he had heard much of the "Circus" of forty picked fighters, led by the redoubtable Richthofen, and here was he - a mere child in matters of aerial warfare - to be pitted against the best pilots of the German Flying Corps.

About eleven o'clock that evening a tender came for the two "unfortunates", and after a chilling ride which brought them ever nearer to the sound of big guns and a sky perpetually bright with their flashes, S. arrived at his squadron in the blackness of night that preceded dawn.

War seemed far away when a few hours later, looking out from the tent flap, he found himself in a little wood where a bright sun made the dew on the green leaf-buds glisten and revealed patches of violets among the moss. The sight of these flowers brought to his mind a vivid picture of Sussex woods and an English girl. It was her favourite flower!

At the end of a fortnight he was told to be ready to be one of three for a two hours' "show" over the lines. As he gazed up at the blue sky, broken from time to time by drifting clouds, which the enemy well knew how to use as a hiding place, the young officer pondered over his first outing.

There was his "bus", a scout which needed delicate handling, and instruments which required occasional watching. He must keep a wary eye all round and at the same time look out for landmarks; he must also keep his place in formation, and an eye on the leader's plane for the "waggle" which should tell of hostile aircraft.

Once up aloft, all apprehension left him and the clear spring air acted as a tonic. The sense of adventure became uppermost. In a close triangle the machines climbed to gain height before crossing into enemy territory, and after an hour's flying the planes of the front machine rocked.

Enemy! Another waggle, more violent! He looked in front... behind... above... and then over the side he saw them.

A few hundred feet below cloud vapours were drifting across the sky and as the machines circled above a gap in the golden mist he could see an old R.E. 8 lumbering along with three "tripes" buzzing round like hornets.

Only the "Circus" flew triplanes, and here were three of them, their variegated colours turned into gold by the brilliance of the sun, playing about with one of the slowest machines then on the Front. Why didn't his leader dive into them and give him a chance of using his guns on a live target, instead of letting the unequal battle go on?

Suddenly across the sun shot some black specks, and a flight of Camels streamed down on to the scene below. There was a mix-up of red and blue circles and black crosses, and one machine went down in flames, but the three machines above flew straight on, and finished their patrol.

When they came down Suckling asked the leader why he had not taken them into it, for they had been in a good position and the numbers were even.

"Say, youngster, do you realize who they were? If we had mixed it, you would have been dead meat before now. They are not new hands! And I had seen our chaps - even if you hadn't!"

A few weeks afterwards he met the "Circus" again, not three of them, but the whole bunch.

For several days things had been quiet on the Front, and the absence of hostile planes, which was attributed to a threatened offensive against the French south of Moreuil, had engendered a greater boldness in our young flying lads.

Miles beyond the trenches they would fly, a few feet from the ground, bombing dumps and "shooting up" anything moving. There was no opposition whatever until a certain Sunday in mid-June when, at a height of 15,000 feet, three of them had ventured about eight miles into the enemy's territory.

The clear sky, the absence of noise beyond the hum of the engine, the apparent peace all round, made it seem really a day of rest. Once during the patrol S. had noticed about a mile away and 1,000 feet below a large flight of machines.

Since his arrival at the squadron he had learned how to identify all types of machines in the air, and now, with the momentary thought "Bristol Fighters", he dismissed them from his mind.

For a few minutes only!

Suddenly, without any preliminary waggle, the leader climbed sharply to the right. S., flying on the right corner of the triangle, climbed at an even steeper angle to keep formation, and what happened then was recorded as a series of blurred impressions.

As he turned, the air was filled with tracer bullets and before he was on an even keel his partner on the left burst into flames, fell, and went out. He had heard such happenings reported by others, but the quickness of it appalled him.

There was by now no sign of his leader, and coming straight at him was the "Circus!" His mind, in a flash, remarked the bizarre appearance of these triplanes with the sun behind them; they resembled so many sets of empty bookshelves as they flew at him, the first a blood-red one. Only Richthofen flew a blood-red machine!

The air seemed alive with white-hot bullets passing over his head, beneath his wheels, and even between his planes. Instinctively he pressed his gun controls, there was no time to use telescopic sights. He blazed away in a vain effort to stop these flaming specks which were streaming past like fiery hail, and forgot that he had been told to fire always in short bursts.

His guns stopped-jammed; the "Circus" all round and he helpless at a height where the thin air made his controls slow to act. There was one thing he could do, dive - and the "tripes" could not dive steeply for long without a plane lifting off!

Pulling the joy-stick over to the right, he kicked the rudder bar hard with his right foot. Up and over came the nose of the little Camel, then down, down, engine full on. The pointer on his air-speed moved rapidly round 150, 170, 200, and still he kept his nose down.

Even as he had begun his dive he had seen four enemy machines dive out of the crowd and give chase. Could he go more steeply? He had heard of his own type of bus sometimes not coming out of a vertical dive.

By this time the rush of cold air would have cooled his guns, and he could scrap again, but one against four of Germany's best! A backward glance revealed the enemy beginning to flatten out and lose distance, so he himself flattened out. By the time he was out of the dive and had turned his machine back, only two of his attackers were at all near.

He climbed after them, but instead of turning to fight they simply flew eastward. His own bus, built more for rapid manoeuvring than for great speed, was gradually outdistanced and all he could do was to fire a burst in farewell.

On his return home he found his flight leader awaiting him, unhurt.

"Gee, that was a warm two minutes", the captain said. "There were well over thirty of the blighters."

Two minutes! To Suckling it had seemed a lifetime.

July came in and was very hot, and, in that part of the Front, both on the ground and in the blue, there was great activity. No longer did our young pilots seek adventure in threes or sixes, a "squadron show" was now the rule.

Every evening at 7 the whole of the eighteen machines went up together, and as soon as they were high enough and formation was made, the three triangles, each of six machines, flew east in quest of trouble with the red sun behind them.

Nor did it take much looking for. Invariably about the hour of 8, the "Circus" was there, always waiting at the same spot, and a perfect formation dive soon developed into a "dog-fight".

It was then a case of every man for himself, singling out an enemy "bus", and sticking to it until one or the other went down or ammunition gave out. In the twilight of the evening our machines returned singly or in pairs; names were checked and the pilots gathered together by a hangar, looking out for those not yet in.

Soon all but one were back, and as long as light permitted them to discern anything moving in the sky, so long they stood there, cap, goggles, and gloves in hand, just as they had climbed out of the cockpit.

But something strange was happening, and as the days wore on a gloom settled upon the squadron. Every night with unfailing regularity one of the lads did not return, and this went on for the greater part of a fortnight. On no occasion had a Camel been seen to go down in flames or out of control.

In the excitement of a "dog-fight" this was to be expected, but there seemed something uncanny in the monotonous regularity with which just one failed to return.

A less buoyant air was to be noticed among the pilots on the 'drome and in the mess, and unconsciously everyone knew the unspoken question uppermost in every mind, "Whose turn to-night?" Something had to be done and quickly.

One evening during the middle of that month, the men in the trenches must have looked up when they heard the roar of more than fifty English scouts crossing over like three great arrowheads.

The boys in those machines that evening were feeling "bucked", for that self-same morning another squadron had met a section of the "Circus" and satisfactorily disposed of ten of them.

With this knowledge and no time to think of the nightly missing pilot, they sailed across to their evening tryst.

Of the scrap that followed, one of the largest ever seen over the lines, one vivid picture remains to Suckling.

He is on the tail of a small, fast German scout, barely 100 feet away and, even while keeping an eye on it until he cannot fail to hit it, he is able to glimpse in the sky all round him countless specks of different sizes, wheeling, "split hairing", half-rolling, diving, at times spitting flame.

To his right and just above him there are five balls of fire falling earthwards, a moment ago swiftly moving machines guided by living minds. As he watches, flames lick out of the side of a bus not far away; in a fraction of time it is consumed with fire and hurtles down, leaving streaks of flame behind. No shrieks are heard, the comfortable hum of the engine removes any sign that a boy has gone to his death.

His own quarry is doing its level best to escape, but although actually faster, it is inferior at stunting, and the crowd of eighty odd specks makes straight flying impossible. Suddenly, during a short dive, the German pilot's neck fills the ring in his sight. Suckling. presses his gun controls.

There is a short burst, a wisp of grey smoke, but before he can see the result the nose of his machine rises quickly and turns to the right. Why he never knew; he hears the rattle of machine guns, and, looking to his left, sees within a few feet a black bus with tiny white crosses on the upper plane streak past in a headlong dive.

The pilot's head is turned towards him so near that he would recognize him again. In a flash he pushes the joy-stick forward to the left, rudders in the same direction and dives after this new adversary. Comes another burst of bullets, more prolonged, and an S.E.5, in a vertical dive, shoots between them and separates them.

How he went into the fight, what else happened in it the flight home, have gone from memory.

Back at the hangars, pilots related individual experience and there was great satisfaction when it was clear that the Camels alone, apart from the other two squadrons, had accounted for eleven of the "Circus".

But no one had downed a red machine. That honour fell to Brown of 209 on the following Sunday morning.

On the evening of the same day Suckling saw the dead body of the famous German pilot.

As a doctor cut open the leather flying suit, Richthofen's underclothing was revealed - of the same blood-red colour as his triplane.

Frederick Suckling joined Army, April 1917, at eighteen years of age. Served in infantry training battalion for three months. Became an officer cadet in Royal Flying Corps. Received Commission in October 1917, and "wings" as flying officer in March 1918.

He went to France in April 1918, and served with 65 Squadron until October of the same year. From April to August 1918, engaged on the Somme front, chiefly against hostile fighting machines.

He did his first "show" before nineteen years of age. August to October 1918, on the northern section of the front, chief duty being the escorting of bombing machines to Bruges and other Belgian towns.

Returning to England for brief period of Home service when the Armistice was signed.

First published in Everyman at War (1930)

Simon

[nils d]

Lou,

You crazy fool. You know not what you do. Do you not realise that there are idiots out there who will take your post as fact. They will even start a thread about it, on you know where, which will run and run and run and run. :-)

Well given the date it is the time of year for such stories. What more of an excuse could you have?

This guy Waldo had a red cap you say? hmmm we can speculate on where that came from cant we?

Are you sure his surname wasnt Pepper because that leads us to even more eanest speculation.

[Adrian Roberts]

had a mark under his chin and one on his bottom lip and another on his left cheek near his temple. Whether these were caused by his fall I could not say. There was no blood on his face but uncovering the body, his breast was covered in blood.

I'm not sure how badly I want to get into this particular minefield, but I wonder if the above quote sheds light on the "MVRs Last Words" debate. The post-mortem, such as it was, established that some of his teeth were knocked out in the crash, by hitting his face on the gun-butts. It would be expected that there would be a lot of blood on the face of someone who has had teeth knocked out - unless he was already dead when he hit the ground, and his heart had stopped pumping blood. His clothes under the flying suit and his underwear were red with blood (did they really think he had red underwear?); this must have occurred before hitting the ground, and since his body was not opened up properly in the PM, it cannot be discounted that the fatal bullet had passed through his heart or major artery. So, dead almost immediately, and no last words.

[RAF_Louvert]

.

Simon, thanks for sharing that account from Lt. Suckling. Interesting read to be sure.

nils d, I have a not-so-distant relative named Sgt. Pepper, and there is even a Dr. Pepper on my mother's side, but no Waldo Pepper.

Adrian, whatever MvR's last words were, (or weren't), they were uttered, (or not), 93 years ago today. I'm going with, "Oh no, not again!", as I read reports of an Infinite Improbability Drive being used in the immediate area of that famed event just as Manfred was swooping in.

Lou

.