2018 Battlefield Tour post 10
2018 France/Belgium Trip Post 10
Fifteen miles up the road at Vaux sur Somme we stopped again on the trail of the Red Baron ....Whilst on patrol westwards up the Somme Valley Von Richthofens flight spotted and attacked two British recce aircraft but the Germans were in turn seen by a flight of six Sopwith Camels. In the ensuing dogfight a novice Canadian pilot Lt. Wilfred May fired on Wolfram Von Richthofen, the Red Baron’s cousin. On seeing this Richthofen intervened and pursued May’s aircraft.
May’s friend Capt. Arthur Brown saw the chase and at approx 11am dove down on Richthofens aircraft and fired at him. Richthofen turned to avoid this attack then resumed his pursuit of May at low level along the Somme Valley. The two planes flew directly over the front line held by the Australians.
A Vickers heavy machine gun of the 24 Machine Gun Coy commanded by Sgt. Cedric Popkin, situated a 1000 yards west of Vaux sur Somme on the northern bank of the Somme opened fire on the red enemy aircraft as it flew directly towards him but he missed.
Two Lewis machine guns mounted on AA poles situated 1000 yards east of the village of Bonnay also opened fire as it flew towards them causing Richthofen to take evasive action and turn to the right. This presented Popkin with another opportunity to fire a burst at the red aircraft. A single .303 round hit Richthofen, entering under his right arm pit, penetrating his heart and lungs and exiting his left chest.
Even though mortally wounded the Red Baron made a forced landing in a field on the D1 Bray-Corbie road, narrowly missing the chimney of the St. Colette brickworks. His aircraft was soon stripped by souvenir hunters and various items are today kept in museums around the world.
Brown was initially credited with the kill and No. 3 Sqn Australian Flying Corps claimed his body, taking it back to their base at Bertangles. The next day 22 April he was buried with full military honours at the nearby French civilian cemetery. It is not widely known however that Von Richthofen had four burials.
In 1920 his body was exhumed from Bertangles and taken to the newly opened Fricourt German War Cemetery near Albert where he was buried in section 4, row 7, grave 1177.
In 1925 Von Richthofens younger brother Bolko had his body exhumed once again and taken back to Germany with the intention of having him buried in Schweidnitz Garrison Cemetery in Eastern Prussia (now Poland) along side his father who died in 1920 and brother Lothar who died in 1922. Lothar was a fighter ace in his own right with 40 victories to his name.
The grave at Fricourt German War Cemetery once occupied by Von Richthofen now contains the body of Pte Sebastian Paustian.
The German authorities had other plans however and instead Von Richthofen was given a State Funeral presided over by the Reich President Paul von Hindenburg in the Prussian military cemetery of Invalidenfriedhof in Berlin, where Germany's Officer class and heroes were buried.
In May 1951, during the Cold War East Berlin city council closed the cemetery off to the public so that repairs and restoration could be carried out. However since the cemetery lay close to the Berlin Wall in the Death Zone, in the 1960s over a third of the cemetery was destroyed to make way for watch towers, troop barracks, roads and parking lots. Also some of the graves were damaged by gunfire from East German border guards firing on would be escapers from East Berlin.
The degradation of the cemetery continued in the 1970s, when soldiers stationed nearby began to use abandoned or damaged gravestones to build shelters in case of bad weather.
In 1975, at the request of his family the Red Barons body was moved for the last time and taken to it’s final resting place in the family plot at the Sudfriedhof in Wiesbaden near Frankfurt am Mainz.
Nobby left a poppy cross at the crash site in remembrance.
