Hello everyone!
Okay, so.
I'm back with another book based off World War One, and this one is slightly different than the exploration I did about the topic of what started the war.
This one is about aviation.
Also, it's about the man probably hailed as one of the greatest pilots of all time, especially because he was flying when planes certainly weren't as well-equipped as they are today.
I'm talking about a time when the aviators themselves were the ones discovering new tricks and weapons and practiced flying at high altitudes and high speeds, when soldiers in the trenches would look up above them and see the "birds" flying back and forth as they sought out their prey.
I'm also talking about a time when your first flight could pretty much also be your last, and for a large number of pilots it was exactly what happened.
The book we'll be talking about tonight is The Red Knight of Germany.
Written by an amazing man about an amazing man, it's a stunning account of the war years and almost a bird's eye view of what was happening.
Floyd Gibbons is one of those people you can only hope to match one day, from earning himself medals by pulling wounded comrades through no man's land, to having his ship bombed and barely escaping, to witnessing a revolution in Mexico and having only one eye to see it all. I mean, COME ON. The stuff he wrote about is basically LEGENDARY.
So I was thrilled when I saw the author of the book about the Red Baron.
Now, just a little note on the names: both are pretty acceptable. There's even a movie, The Red Baron, which I highly recommend. Both Red Baron and Red Knight indicate a specific person from that era:
He was a baron by rank because of his origins in an old, aristocratic Prussian family, but a knight by behaviour because the Great War was the last time chivalry and duels, close to what the old Teutonic knights would have fought on horseback back in the day, would take place.
And the Baron was the spearhead.
He was the second oldest child of the family, having one older sister and two younger brothers, and he was, what we would call today, a weird child.
No, we'd seriously call him weird, or maybe psychotic, considering he was crazy about hunting and killing animals, and when the war broke out he was all in for that, too. The idea of fighting an enemy face-to-face excited him, and it was one of the many reasons why he joined the cavalry units.
Yes, the greatest WWI pilot began his career on horseback. In fact, he wasn't a big fan of flying to begin with.
But he became worried that his younger brother, Lothar, whose unit reportedly reached Paris, would be given all those shiny medals before him, so eventually he transferred to the school for pilots.
And even then, he didn't start off as the Red Baron.
He had to take his flying exam three times, and afterwards no one trusted him enough to fly solo, so he was settled as a scout behind a different pilot, set to mapping out trenches and battle lines, and terrain, and all that jazz.
That would never be enough for someone like the Baron, however, and his temperament was definitely wasted in the passenger seat.
But he got himself noticed by the Kaiser, who recommended him to ace pilot Boelcke when the man was putting together a German flight group which would hopefully take control of the air from the Allies. The Baron idolised Boelcke and was more than up to the task - when Boelcke fell, it fell to the Baron to continue his legacy.
Which he did with alarming success. He was disciplined, organised, strict, and above all he chose the pilots who would fly with him based on their skill, not their personalities. As far as the book goes, he could cheerfully hate the pilot he chose - but if the man knew his job then Richthofen would be the first to recommend him, which is an admirable trait considering how emotional everyone is nowadays and how people usually get picked for any kind of job.
Emotions had very little room in the Baron's head - he was cool and collected during any aerial battle, even and especially after he decided to draw enemy fire the only way he knew how:
by painting his fighter plane bright red.
This was a move of sheer audacity, because red stood out miles away, and drew Allied planes like a beacon. But the Baron's idea was pretty clever, actually: if everyone was targeting him, he'd get the chance of a lifetime to take down as many as he could, and keep his young pilots safe by drawing away unwanted attention.
Also, yes, he had a bit of an arrogant streak. But seriously, if you're going to sit in an open cockpit and fly directly at an enemy shooting at you while shooting back high up in the sky, I say have all the arrogance you want.
Very soon, the Red Baron - see where the name comes from? - was the pilot everyone on the German side wanted to be, and everyone on the English side wanted to shoot down. He seemed to be unstoppable - by the book, he went out before breakfast and already had one victory under his belt when he sat down to eat with his pilots. Men revered him - on both sides - and women adored him. He was the A-list celebrity of his time with looks to match (typical Arian with blonde hair and cold blue eyes accompanied by a boyish smile) and a personality that shied away from all the attention.
Sure, he loved it up in the air, and he DEFINITELY liked the medals (although even he admitted he wasn't sure where some of them came from or why he got them), and the small silver trophies he had made for every victory (you can still see them in his childhood home), but when girls came round to chat him up?
Forget it. He was out of there faster than the Road Runner.
According to Gibbons, he had one love, and one love only, and they kept exchanging letters throughout the war. No one knew who she was or where she lived, except his mother - who wouldn't reveal the girl's name, only that Manfred loved her deeply but wouldn't marry her until the war ended. He didn't want her to become his widow should he not return.
And after getting seriously wounded (I mean, a head wound is ALWAYS serious) he was starting to have doubts about his safe return, honestly.
His Flying Circus - as his flying fighters were called, all in bright colours and coming up with crazy acrobatics on the fly - still revered him, but he became more cautious and much more aware of his own mortality.
His own bad humour caught up with him on April 21, 1918, roughly six months before the war ended, when RAF pilot Roy Brown shot down the Red Baron and ended his dominion of the skies (although theories suggest that Richthofen was actually killed by an anti-aircraft bullet shot from the ground, and Brown only forced the plane to land).
Manfred von Richthofen was 25, with 80 credited air combat victories, the highest number in WWI.
He was buried as was tradition between fighter pilots at the nearest cemetery, with pilots standing as an honour guard over his grave and farewell shots fired into the sky. There was respect among these flying knights - another reason why they called them knights. They took care of the fallen, their own or their enemies', and buried the dead with honour.
The Red Baron was later exhumed and relocated to Berlin, and a large marble statue in his likeness was commissioned.
He was the Maverick before Top Gun was even invented, the man no one wanted to face up in the skies yet whom everyone wished to have a crack at to try their hand at grounding the deadly red bird. A man with the typical Germanic coldness but a certain warmth in his heart and a larger-than-life understanding about honour and respect, who would have probably helped Germany further had he not been killed.
Ironically, he was due for a holiday right after his (last) flight, and the German command was considering pulling him from active fighting so they wouldn't lose him.
And I swear I shed buckets of tears just reading this book, not necessarily because of the Baron - but because when Gibbons lists the fallen, and you read 'pilot so and so and his gunner were 19 and 20 years old', I dare you not to weep.
When my friends and I sit and talk shop, we consider anyone under the age of 25 a 'boy'.
It's a sobering realisation that World War One practically wiped out an entire generation of 'boys' and paralysed the world for a couple of years simply because the numbers for the male population of a certain age were so low.
The book might have been titled The Red Knight of Germany, but it's an evocative image of a time no one in their right mind wants to repeat.
There's a reason it was called The Great War, after all.
xx
*images not mine
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