Read The Red Baron: A World War I Novel Online
Authors: Richard Fox
The Red Baron: A World War I Novel
The Red Baron
A Novel of the Great War
Richard Fox
Copyright © by Richard Fox
All Rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written permission.
ISBN: 099144292X
ISBN 13: 978-0-9914429-2-8
ASIN: B00PFF1266
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks to H Lynn Keith, Bill Gilbert and Jennifer Thomson for their expert technical and cultural advice during the course of writing this novel. Any errors in the text are mine alone.
For Dad
–Who kindled my love for history
Chapter 1—“This Will Be Over By Christmas”
Chapter 3 –“For Another Purpose”
Chapter 11—“Do Not Ask Anymore”
1917
First Lieutenant Manfred von Richthofen peered over the side of his cockpit, searching the sky for English planes. The freezing air bit at his exposed skin as he leaned farther into the wind. The French countryside, once the breadbasket for Paris, was scarred by shell holes. An irregular line of trenches cut through the once neat vineyards and plots of wheat, like stitches across a wound.
Manfred’s plane, an Albatros D.III, was red from tip to tail. His heraldry marked him out for his fellow pilots to recognize, and for his enemies to fear. With forty-eight victories to his name and Germany’s top ace, the blood-red plane was Manfred’s calling card.
The growl of an engine rose from the other side of his plane. Manfred turned and saw a red-and-yellow biplane dip into view. His brother, Lothar, pointed toward a lone cloud below their position. A distant flight of five enemy planes flew east toward the German lines. Manfred smiled; he could always count on Lothar’s sharp eyes.
Manfred lowered and raised his plane’s nose until the third German pilot, Lt. Kurt Wolff, acknowledged his commander with a thumbs-up. Manfred pulled his Albatros up and over into an Immelmann maneuver, changing direction to match their enemy. Manfred checked over his shoulder to locate the sun to position his attack. Five-on-three odds didn’t bother him, not with the sun to his back and two of Germany’s best pilots on his wing.
The English planes, two Sopwith triplane fighters escorting larger R.E.8 observation aircraft, maintained their formation as Manfred lowered his plane into a dive. With the sun at his back, the English wouldn’t know they were under attack until it was too late. He singled out the Sopwith on the far left of the formation as his airspeed increased. He held his fire as he closed to within three hundred yards. Two hundred yards. One hundred yards and no reaction from his enemy.
At fifty yards, close enough that Manfred could make out the pilot’s head, he fired. His twin Spandau machine guns raked the Sopwith’s pilot and engine as his plane sliced through the English formation. He twisted his neck and kept his eyes on his target as he pulled out of his dive. The Sopwith’s engine burst with smoke and flames, the pilot lost control, and the Sopwith plunged toward the earth, twisting through the air as fire consumed it. Satisfied with his handiwork, Manfred turned his attention to the four remaining English aircraft.
The English formation broke apart like a spooked herd, suddenly aware of the predator in its midst. Lothar and Wolff each pounced on an enemy, bright yellow tracer rounds marking shots Manfred couldn’t hear.
Manfred pulled out of his dive and crept up toward an R.E.8. The rear-mounted Lewis machine gun was a threat to him, and if he could get close to his new target from below and behind, outside the Lewis gun’s defilade, he’d have another victory. The R.E.8 pitched to right and lost altitude, bringing the rear machine gun into Manfred’s view.
So much for this being easy
, Manfred thought. He let loose a burst two hundred yards from the R.E.8, more to throw off the rear gunner’s aim than to bring down his quarry. The rear gunner’s nerves held out; the Lewis barrel flashed as bullets zipped past Manfred’s head. Manfred held his course and fired again.
His shots crept up the spine of the R.E.8 The gunner stopped shooting and collapsed into his seat. Manfred flew past the R.E.8 and lost sight of it as he pulled into a tight turn. The plane held its course as Manfred came up on its tail. The pilot was unstrapped, leaning over the rear cockpit, his hands on the gunner. Manfred closed the distance to thirty yards before the Englishman looked up at his assailant. The two men locked eyes.
Manfred took his hand off the Spandau’s trigger and gestured to the ground. If this pilot wanted to live, he’d have to land his plane behind German lines. The pilot shook his head and slipped back into the pilot’s seat. The R.E.8 tipped over as it tried to maneuver away.
Manfred’s jaw clenched in anger as he reached for his machine guns. No man should die for pride. He fired at the R.E.8, bullets gouging the fabric and wood. A fine mist burst from the front of the stricken plane a second before the engine caught fire. Manfred’s goggles clouded from the smoke as he broke off the attack. He wiped his goggles, a thin red film of blood remained.
His second victory secured, Manfred turned his attention back to the dogfight.
The remaining Sopwith was on Lothar’s tail, firing short bursts at his brother. Manfred could do little else but watch as his brother jinked from side to side. Another burst, and Lothar’s plane reared up and plummeted toward the ground. Manfred’s heart pounded as Lothar fell.
The Sopwith followed Lothar’s descent, chasing him with another blast of bullets. Lothar’s plane swayed as the heavy engine dragged the aircraft straight down. The Sopwith banked away.
Manfred looked on in horror as Lothar lost altitude, the uncaring earth seconds away from stopping his fall.
Lothar’s plane pulled out of the dive, barely missing a line of treetops as it leveled off. Manfred let out a long sigh of relief. Lothar was fond of acrobatic tricks, and he managed to throw off his pursuer by feigning distress.
The Sopwith turned around and flew toward Lothar. Lothar turned into his opponent, bringing the two aircraft on a collision course. Both planes fired, tracers crisscrossing as the distance between the planes shrank to nothing.
Lothar slipped beneath the Sopwith, its wheels barely missing Lothar’s upper wing. The enemy plane tried to climb, and fell into a dive as the right wings tore off. Lothar’s shots must have hit home. The loose wings fluttered like loose feathers as the Sopwith tumbled toward the ground. It smashed nose first into a dirt road. After years of aerial combat, Manfred knew the pilot hadn’t survived the crash.
He scanned the skies and saw gray smoke trailing from a distant plane. The smoke turned black as the stricken plane burst into a comet of fire. Another plane raced toward Manfred and Lothar. It banked to reveal the red and green colors of Wolff’s plane.
There was no sign of the last English plane. Both pilots gave their commander a thumbs-up, and took their positions alongside Manfred as the flight soared into the sky.
The hunt continued.
July 1914
Manfred never thought going to war would be such a joyous occasion.
Garlands of laurels and flowers wrapped the columns of the town hall and buildings around the Schweidnitz square. A brass band took center stage in front of the bank and played the same four patriotic songs over and over again. They played “Heil dir im Siegerkranz,” the Prussian anthem, with particular fervor and volume.
Civilians and soldiers packed the square as the 1st Uhlan cavalry regiment assembled for war. The regimental standard, a blazing red cloth fringed in gold tassels, fluttered in the wind. The air of excitement and anticipation more akin to a
volksfest
celebrating the fall harvest, not the prelude to the Germany’s first war in almost a generation.
Most of the younger soldiers were single, and managed to pass through the throng easily enough, stopped a few times by older men who wanted to pump their hands and encourage great violence to their French and Russian enemies. A line of soldiers blocked the civilians from the train station where the 1st Uhlan would depart for war. Soldiers passed through the blockade and reported to the adjutant, then found space in a troop car.
Manfred led his parents and brother through the square, a spring in his step that matched the beat of “Die Wacht am Rhein,” an inescapable habit from almost eleven years of military training and education. His lieutenant’s rank seemed to earn a bit more deference from the crowd, which parted to let him through with only a few polite words. Girls smiled and batted eyelashes as he passed. At twenty-two, with an athletic build from years in the gymnasium and constant military training, the attention of lovely young ladies was never hard to earn.
War. After so many years of training, speculation, and constant study, it was his time. His uncle, his namesake, had won renown in the last war with the French. His stories of leading a cavalry charge during the Battle of Gravelotte enraptured Manfred as a child. Manfred was determined to come back from this war with similar tales of valor. He wanted a French cavalry sword and cuirass for the family’s trophy room; the spoils would look perfect next to the wall-mounted twelve-point buck.
He looked over his shoulder to find his family. His mother, Kunigunde, wore her Sunday best for the occasion, ever conscious of her place in the local pecking order as a baroness. She hadn’t expressed much enthusiasm for the war, other than to opine that it might end too quickly for Manfred to fight. Father Albrecht, who’d left the army because of a hearing loss incurred while rescuing a soldier from a freezing creek, was more enthusiastic. Never having the chance to see war, he wanted his eldest son to earn mention in the general staff’s dispatches, a sure sign of valor.
Both parents had pulled back from Manfred as he approached the blockade of soldiers, which puzzled Manfred. Didn’t they want this for him? Wasn’t war the reason he’d grown up in a cadet’s uniform?
If his parents seemed hesitant about seeing him off, his brother, Lothar, was in denial. Lothar, a year and a half younger but was almost a head taller than his brother, slouched behind their parents. Lothar, still at the academy, hadn’t yet received orders to mobilize with his infantry battalion. If this war went like the last one, Lothar would certainly miss his chance to fight. The younger Richthofen brooded over his fate, and wore his jealousy for Manfred’s head start on his shoulder.
Manfred smiled at his family. “Time to go,” he said. His body thrummed with energy, ready to jump on the train and take on every Frenchman from Luxembourg to Paris.
His father shook his hand and squeezed his forearm.
“Dispatches, son; I expect to see you in dispatches,” Albrecht said.
His mother hugged him and quickly pulled away, dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief. She turned away and retreated behind her husband.
Manfred reached out to comfort her, perplexed by her reticence. His brother’s bulk stepped in to block his way.
“Don’t. You’ll just make it worse,” Lothar said.
Manfred looked up at his younger brother, whose attention had wandered to the army enlistment booth that had sprung up in the hours after war broke out across Germany.
“Don’t you dare enlist, Lothar. We are to be officers, leaders, not common soldiers,” Manfred said.
“What good is it to serve if you never get to fight?” Lothar asked.
Manfred pointed a finger at his brother’s chest. “Lothar,” he said.
“Fine, fine, save some French for me,” Lothar said.
“This will be over by Christmas. Sorry, brother.”
Lothar’s arms snapped out and pulled Manfred into a bear hug.
“Stay safe, Manfred,” Lothar whispered. Lothar let him go and gave him a playful shove toward the waiting train station.
Manfred straightened out his uniform and gave his family one last look before he went to war.
The train pulled away from the station with a jerk.
Manfred crowded around a window and waved to the throng of people in the town’s square. Onlookers threw flowers at the train; women and girls blew kisses to their men as the train lurched ahead.
Manfred searched the crowd for his family, but couldn’t find them. He waved anyway; perhaps they could see him.
He kept scanning the crowd until he found a knot of old men standing between the tracks and the town bank. They wore old uniforms from the last war. Ribbons and medals from forgotten battles hung from withered bodies. One old soldier, his left sleeve pinned up over a missing arm, saluted as Manfred sped by. The man’s eyes were full of pain, tears caught in his moustache.
Manfred returned the old man’s salute. Why was he so sad? The German army was on its way to victory.