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The Red Baron, famous flying ace of the First World War, died 90 years ago today.

Anthony Looch looks at a new book which reveals the real man behind the heroic image

OCCASIONALLY, computers can get confused and call the wrong photograph on to a page, which can have disastrous consequences. Like the time - October 6, 1994 to be precise - when an article was published in The Northern Echo about Baron Von Richthofen, the Red Baron.

It was supposed to be accompanied by a photograph of the First World War pilot. The caption underneath read "Baron Von Richthofen - responsible for 41 kills in the First World War."

Instead, there was a picture of the editor - another Barron, slightly less red, with an extra r' and a fear of flying.

Manfred Freiherr von Richthofen fell in love with flying the first time he went up in a plane. His incredible derring do and deadly acrobatics in the clouds have fascinated people all over the world since his dramatic death, 90 years ago today. None more so than American author Peter Kilduff, who has been studying and writing about the First World War German fighter pilot for 51 years.

Kilduff first became interested in the First World War as a teenager and has now written six books about Richthofen. He says each one has resulted in people contacting him to offer new material, and he finds that public interest in aviation history is constantly growing.

The combat world of fighter pilots on the Western Front was one of the few theatres of war which still resembled the man-to-man confrontations between medieval knights in armour.

Kilduff 's latest book, Red Baron: The Life And Death Of An Ace, gives a detailed and interesting account of the exploits of the most famous 'knight' of all.

As a Freiherr'' he really was a baron, and his aircraft, painted entirely in his favourite colour of red, were his trademark. He downed at least 80 Allied planes (probably killing the occupants in about twothirds of cases) and his tally made him the most successful fighter of the war.

He clearly set out his attitude towards his opponents, saying: Every fight is for us a knightly joust...

a sportsman-like duel. I have nothing at all against the individual man with whom I fence'. I want only to put him and his aeroplane out of the fight so they cannot harm us any more.

"Whenever my opponent must make an emergency landing within our territory, if he has fought honourably and bravely, I will gladly extend my hand to him. I respect him - but nonetheless he will be recorded as a number'."

Considering the zeal with which Richthofen exposed himself to danger, one can be forgiven for wondering whether he had a subconscious death-wish.

Indeed, Kilduff quotes him as saying: "I myself could not wish for a more beautiful death than falling in aerial combat."

But death for a fighter pilot in those days, with planes that were little more than motorised boxkites, was hardly pleasant. Pilots did not have parachutes, so if their plane was hit and incapacitated, they were faced with the choice of either jumping to their deaths or staying in their seat until the aircraft hit the ground. If they survived the impact, which they stood quite a good chance of doing, they would probably be burned to death, as the downed aircraft often caught fire.

Richthofen's bravery, combat skills, self-discipline and dedication to his fatherland and comrades were in keeping with his background and upbringing, Kilduff recounts.

His family belonged to the Prussian aristocracy - although they were not wealthy - and his father, who was a major in the army, decided early on that his son should follow in his footsteps.

AFTER the world war broke out in 1914, he served first on the Eastern and then the Western Front as a cavalry reconnaissance scout.

When it was realised that cavalry officers with these skills would make good aerial observers, he was told to report to an aviation training centre.

He fell in love with the new medium of transport immediately, saying after his first flight: "It was a glorious feeling to sail over everything. I was quite sad when my pilot thought it was time to land. I could have stayed in the aeroplane all day. I counted the hours until the next take-off."

Richthofen soon became a fighter pilot, where his phenomenal success soon turned him into a legend.

It earned him many nicknames from his opponents, including The Red Baron, the Red Falcon, the Bloody Baron and the Red Devil.

In Germany he received the type of mass adulation enjoyed by a 21st Century pop star. Honours were showered on him and by 1917 he had already published his autobiography. In the same year he was made commander of a large fighter wing, which came to be known as The Flying Circus.

But his seeming inviolability took a knock in July of that year when he suffered a severe head wound from a bullet during combat. He succeeded in landing his aircraft but the injury kept him grounded for some months and left him uncharacteristically sullen and depressed. It may also have led to the element of careless flying which contributed to his death, according to Kilduff.

On April 21, 1918, shortly before his 26th birthday and about six months before the end of the war, his luck ran out. He was killed by a bullet during an aerial battle in which Australian ground troops joined in, firing up at his aircraft. Although at first it was thought that an Allied pilot had shot him down, it seems most likely that the fatal bullet had come from one of the Australian guns on the ground.

Richthofen's all-red Fokker tri-plane, which he had been flying dangerously low over those guns, made a relatively smooth descent but was wrecked when its wheels hit a ploughed field. The pilot's body was intact and was removed by Australian troops.

Word soon got round that the Red Baron had got his comeuppance, and the plane was stripped by souvenir hunters. Richthofen was given a full military funeral by the Allies and buried in France.

His countrymen, lacking his mortal remains for a state funeral, held an imposing memorial service in Berlin instead. After the war, his body was re-interred in his homeland.

The Baron's character is well summed up by Royal Air Force historian HA Jones, who said: Richthofen was a ruthless opponent but... was courteous and entirely without ill will towards those of his victims who were made prisoners. But in the air he showed no mercy, nor does it appear that he found any aspect of his duty distasteful."

Kilduff's book contains a chilling insight into the militaristic Prussian mindset which had moulded Richthofen into this efficient killing machine, and which could be said to have played a considerable part in plunging Europe into two appalling world wars.

Perhaps wearying of the slaughter of war, Richthofen made the following observation: "It is a strange feeling when one has again shot dead a pair of human beings. They lie out there somewhere, cremated, and I come back here to a normal table and the food tastes as good as ever."

11:39am Monday 21st April 2008

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