Evening star. [volume], June 13, 1927, Page 23, Image 23

About Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972

Image provided by: Library of Congress, Washington, DC

                
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k Richthofen, the Kaiser’s Deadliest Ace,
.f Brought to Death, After 80 Victories, ffpr/
by the Canadian Boy, Royßrown
To get this remarkable story, Floyd Gibbons interviewed a great number of
people, including the Richthofen family; members of Richthofen’s famous
"Flying Circus”; British who had fought, and many who had been captured
by, the Red Knight; and he had also full access to the British and German
war archives. As a result, this story gives both sides, impartially recorded.
O HORTLY before 1900 two baby boys were bom on op- But science had passed up the horse. The cavalry couldn’t •
(3 posite sides of the world, one near Ottawa, Ontario; the stand engagements with modem weapons. A few months
other in East Prussia. Who living at that time could have later he was at a school of aviation, and a few months later
believed that the Canadian baby would kill the German he was an ace, and a few months later he was the most
baby in a battle in the air above a farm in France, occupied celebrated of all the Kaisers aces—the champion of the air,
by Australian soldiers, who wore steel helmets? Airplanes the Red Knight of Germany. He had shot down eighty
had not been invented when these babies were bom, and planes, and been twice decorated by the German Kaiser in
steel helmets had been long abandoned. person.
One of these boys was Baron Manfred von Richthofen, Meanwhile, changes had also come over Roy Brown. He
of a long line of Prussian nobles. His forefathers had worn learned where Scrvia was, where Serajevo was, and where
the uniform of their king since the days of armor and Belgium was. He forgot the Toronto baseball team, took a
chargers. They had nearly all been in the cavalry, because private course in flying and enlisted in the Royal Naval
that was the aristocratic and dashing branch of the military Flying Corps, where he became Flight Sub-Lieutenant
service. - Roy Brown. While he was no Richthofen, he was an ace.
__ He had shot down twelve German planes, had been deco-
Young Richthofen went to the military schools and ratcd b the Ki of England, and had been promoted to
learned that peculiar arrogance which belonged to the Captain
lieutenant in the days before the Great War. He was a
lieutenant at twenty-one, and his soul went up every night Fate was bringing these boys from opposite sides of the
The other boy was named Roy Browa He was born in It was the twenty-first of April, 1918. Richthofen was
Carlcton Place, Ontario, a peaceful little town of 4,000 per- with his fighting squadron in the sky He was on the tail
sons. His father was a business maa Roy played pool and of a young man named May, who had spent his ammuni
baseball and went to high school. Saturday afternoon he tion. His bullets were cutting between the wings of young
spent tinkering with his flivver, and Saturday night, he May’s plane, who was in his first air fight, when Roy Brown
took his girl out for a ride. When a Servian killed the dove upon the unseeing Richthofen from behind. It was a
Austrian Archduke in Serajevo, it didn’t mean much to long shot and had to be a quick one or May was gone. One *
Roy Brown. Servia was vague in his mind, and Serajevo, bullet reached the flying Uhlan, piercing his heart. He never
It was different with Lieutenant von Richthofen. He This was the last bullet which Brown ever shot at an
knew enough about Eastern history to have the hope that enemy. He came to the ground, learned the identity of his
the assassination would be the spark which would light the quarry, and collapsed from over-strain. While the British
world in flame. His soul was bathed in effablc joy. At last, soldiers gave Richthofen a beautiful and chivalric funeral,
war! A few weeks later he was riding his Uhlans against Brown lay unconscious in a hospital.
This Breath-taking Story Begins in This Week’s Issue of
out today
zA Weekly for Everybody •r
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;; • t * $•; V. c ’* • ' *
the evening star, Washington; d. Monday, .tttne n, 1927.
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