Roy Brown (RAF Officer) - Fighting Richthofen/Red Baron

Fighting Richthofen/Red Baron

On the morning of 21 April, No. 209 was on patrol when they became engaged in combat with fighters of Jagdstaffel 11, led by Manfred von Richthofen, the "Red Baron". A newcomer to No. 209, Brown's school friend, Lt. Wop May, had been instructed to stay clear of any fight and watch. May noticed an enemy pilot doing the same thing. That pilot was the Red Baron's cousin, Lt. Wolfram von Richthofen, who had been given the same instructions as May. May attacked Wolfram and soon found himself in the main fight, firing at several fleeting targets until his guns jammed. May dived out of the fight, and Manfred von Richthofen gave chase down to ground level. Brown saw May in trouble and dived steeply in an attempt to rescue his friend. His attack was necessarily of fairly short duration, as he was obliged to climb steeply to avoid crashing into the ground, losing sight of both Richthofen and May.

What happened next remains controversial to this day, but it seems highly probable that Richthofen turned to avoid Brown's attack, and then, instead of climbing out of reach of ground fire and prudently heading for home, remained at low altitude and resumed his pursuit of May, who was still zig-zagging, as he had not noticed that Richthofen had been momentarily distracted. It should be noted that it would have been physically impossible for Richthofen to have done this had he already received the wound from which he died. May and Richthofen's route now took them at low level over some of the most heavily defended points of the Somme. Franks and Bennett have suggested that Richthofen had become lost, as the winds that day were blowing the "wrong way", towards the west, and the fight had slowly drifted over to the Allied side. The front was also in a highly fluid state at the time, in contrast to the more common static trench lines earlier in the Great War, and landmarks can be confusing in very low level flight.

Australian Army machine gunners on the ground fired at Richthofen, who eventually crashed near the Australian trenches. Upon viewing Richthofen's body the following day, Brown wrote that "there was a lump in my throat. If he had been my dearest friend, I could not have felt greater sorrow". His initial combat report was that the fight with Richthofen was "indecisive" - this was altered by his commanding officer to "decisive". In any case, Brown was officially credited with the kill by the RAF, shortly after receiving a Bar to his DSC, at least partly in recognition of this feat.