The Red Baron and the .303 Bullet

IT WAS AN hour before noon on 21 April 1918, when a .303 Brit bullet slammed into the chest of the pilot of a red, three-winged aeroplane flying over the Somme River in France. Moments later, the world’s most feared fighter ace cras landed in a beet field and died. Within min , troops from the Australian Medical Corps were on scene, but it was too late.

On that day, Baron Manfred Freiherr von Richthoven, the Red Baron, had been flying over Vaux-sur-Somme when his squadron was attacked by No 209 Squadron RAF. After coming to the rescue of his cousin, Wolfram von Richthoven, also a pilot, the Red Baron found himself low over the battlefield, with a Sopwith Camel piloted by Canadian, Arthur ‘Roy’ Brown, on his tail. Brown opened up on the hard-manoeuvring, red Fokker Tri-plane with his