Who shot down vonRichtofen?

Maryland public TV is running that documentary on the Red Baron. I've heard of this but this is my first chance to try to record it. I hope I get a good copy. My VCR seems to do a very poor job for some reason. Looks like Australian Gunner Sergeant Popkin was the firer of the fatal shot. They will probably run it another time this week. I still say the real thing that killed him was combat fatigue. He violated three of his own primary rules for air combat within 60 seconds. He simply was a man no longer functioning on all cylinders. There are others that stand out as you read fighter pilot's biographies too, look at Col. Thomas McGuires last Mission in W.W.II.

Bill Shuey

Reply to
William H. Shuey
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according to the PBS which was a rerun,if i recall from the orig. showing a couple of months ago, it was small arms ground fire

Reply to
RLGIRSCH

Yep you are right - pilot error. It is always pilot error. Doesn't matter if you get struck by lightening sent by God himself, they will always find someway to pin part of the blame on the pilot.

Reply to
Bull

It all depends on who or what you want to believe. The story I've heard is that an Allied ace (Bishop?) pumped von Richtofen's plane full of bullets and it was descending towards a forced landing (or perhaps a crash) when the Australian artillery shredded it further. Sounds like a shared kill according to that set of facts.

Mark Schynert

Reply to
Mark Schynert

Sorry... it was Al Gore.

I haven't read up on him in some time, but didn't his demise come from trying to turn his P-38 into a Zero (or whatever model the enemy was actually flying ;-) ) without releasing his drop tanks? The prevailing theory being he was looking one kill ahead too many in his ace race with Bong.

WmB

To reply, get the HECK out of there snipped-for-privacy@earthlink.net

Reply to
WmB

Snoopy, surely...

:-)

But the Canadian pilot you were thinking of was Roy Brown, not Bishop.

Cheers, Chuck Bell

Reply to
Chuck Bell

the way I read it he (McGuire) was up with a cople of other fellas that were not quite as experienced as he was, one got into trouble, he manuvered to help, was too low and slow and crashed.

Reply to
Steve Faxon

Hi Mark, I think if you watch this particular program and see all the evidence they gather, how they reconstruct the dogfight with computer and actual flights of aircraft to recreate the dogfighting that day it becomes very very convincing that The Baron was downed by groundfire, and that damage to his aircraft from aerial gunfire was minimal at best if any.

Reply to
Steve Faxon

Reply to
res0xur8

The fact is that he had only 1(One) .303 slug in his body.

Kind of hard to share one(1) slug don't you think?

I vote for ground fire, and not just based on what this TV show presented.

F Marion

Reply to
francis marion

I didn't say "pilot error", I said "Combat Fatigue"! There is a big difference between the two. Your cover name is quite appropriate!

Bill Shuey

Reply to
William H. Shuey

It'd be funny if his demise turned out to be his distraction by a wasp caught in his cockpit!

Richard.

Reply to
Richard Brooks

res0xur8 wrote:

Your description is close. The other aircraft was a Japanese Army Nakajima KI-43, flown by an experienced pilot. McGuire had been on enforced leave in Australia at General Kenny's orders so Bong could go home and get his hour of fame as America's top ace and marry his Fiancé. After that, Kenny turned McGuire loose. He arrived at, I believe the

49th Fighter Group's base in the Philippines with blood in his eye. He needed just two kills to catch Bong and three to become "Numero Uno". Most of the group was out on a mission so he grabbed an officer from the group staff for his element leader and two newly arrived second louies as wingmen and set off on a four plane sweep of Japanese bases on Luzon. The Staff officer had flown a couple of missions but was far from being an experienced combat pilot and the two kids were green as grass. The "Oscar" had just flown a dive bombing mission against U.S. ships off shore and was headed home when he was spotted. When they came down on him, he turned into their attack. They apparently were watching their speed as they dove so as not to overshoot which allowed the more maneuverable Oscar to get on the tail of the Staff type. He was yelling for help and McGuire pulled a hard turn at low level to try and get on the Oscar's tail. All 4 P-38's were fitted with two of the big 170 gallon drop tanks and they were still about half full. These were the early models without the internal "slosh" barriers, 170 gallons of Avgas at 6 pounds per gallon, you do the math. When the P-38 suddenly changed attitude 1000 pounds suddenly shifted aft and therefor, so did the 38's C/G. McGuire's plane stalled and flipped over and went straight into the jungle. At this point the story really got confused. The 2 green 2nd Louies were the only one's that came home to tell what happened and they thought the Oscar had bagged the Staff Officer as well. Their story was pretty confused as would be expected from total inexperience. One of our historians rooting around among Japanese records in recent years has rounded out the story. A Pilot from another Japanese Army fighter unit, the 73rd I believe, was headed in to land at his base and saw the 4 P-38's jump the Oscar. He sucked up his landing gear and headed his Nakajima Ki-84 up to join the fight. He apparently arrived just about the time McGuire went in. He closed up on the Staff Officer's P-38 and blew it out of the sky. The two green 2nd Louies didn't stick around to see more and the fight was over. They never realized that there was a second Japanese fighter in the fight. After the fight, the Oscar pilot crash landed in a rice paddy and was bushwhacked and killed by Philippine Guerillas. Whether the damage to his Oscar was from P-38 fire or was received during the dive bombing attack on U.S.Ships will never be known. The Ki-84 pilot survived the Philippine campaign and the war. His story was found among Japanese records and helped fill in the details after many years. True, McGuire was Kill Hungry. He had been playing second fiddle to Ira Bong for almost 2 years and it had gotten to him, but he also had been out there for two years and was probably pretty much a driven "burnout case". Never get into a fight at low lever, never get into a turning fight and never get into a fight with you drop tanks still aboard. McGuire broke three of his own rules for combat against the Japanese in the space of 60 seconds and he died for it. That was the act of a guy who simply wasn't functioning on all cylinders anymore. General Kenny should have sent McGuire home too. McGuire would have been pissed, but he would have been alive. As it is, he's number two on the list of U.S. Aces forever, and that will have to be his epitaph. I don't believe they ever recovered his remains so he has no known grave, just a place in the history books.

Bill Shuey

Reply to
William H. Shuey

ever read the wasp by eric frank russell?

Reply to
e

Reply to
Nemesis

Very nice summary Bill.

Allen Catonsville, MD

Reply to
Allen Epps

2 thoughts 1: wasn't there another,similar documentary a year or so ago in which they used lasers to determine who got him?I didn't see that in this one. 2: Seems like a lot of us marylanders in here :)
Reply to
Eyeball2002308

He probably screwed the pooch himself after spending hours trying to rig a D**N triplane......

Craig

Reply to
who me?

one member of whom was in the only band to win an grammy and perform by cartoon there. name that band.

Reply to
e

Fokker Tripe's are almost the easiest WW1 plane to rig. Almost nothing to it.

Or are you talking Sopwith Tripe? They are a bit tricker.

AGSanchez

Reply to
Anthony G. Sanchez

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