"I, too, have a war wound." - Manfred von Richthofen
Rare Photograph of Manfred von Richthofen
by Stephen Skinner
photo supplied by Stephen Lawson
After decades of studying the subject I thought I had seen all existing
photographs of Germany's Red Baron, Manfred von Richthofen.
He is easily the most celebrated pilot of the First World War, and due
to his near-celebrity status even during his own lifetime, photos of Manfred are fairly common. Still, I thought I had seen
them all. Certainly I'd not seen a new one in many years and I presumed that no more existed. Then in September of 2002, Stephen
Lawson sent me this picture. If I've seen this photo before, I can't recall it. I don't claim this to be a remarkable "new"
find, but it is not one of the more common photos seen of Richthofen. But as Stephen Lawson astutely pointed out, the amazing
thing about this photograph is not just it's relative rarity.
In the last week of August, 1915, Richthofen was flying as an observer
with Georg Zeumer, a tubercular daredevil with a death wish (which he fulfilled two years later). The pair flew
a large, twin engined AEG bomber, with propellers whirling close by each side of Richthofen's cockpit. After dropping
his bombs on a mission over British lines, Richthofen signaled to Zeumer to swing the plane around to assess where the bombs
had hit. Richthofen's own account explains what happened next:
"In doing so I forgot that my infamous old barge had two propellers
which turned right and left near my observer seat. I was showing him approximately where the bomb had hit, and - smack! -
one of my fingers had been hit. I was surprised at first, but Zeumer had noticed nothing."
"I was sick of dropping
bombs and quickly let the last one go and made for home."
"My love for the large battle plane, which at best had been weak,
suffered seriously from this bomb drop. I could not fly again for a week. Now my finger had only a scratch, but at least I
can say with pride, 'I, too, have a war wound.'"
Sure enough, take a look at the right hand of Manfred von Richthofen,
who stands on the far left of this 1915 photo. If I'd seen this before, I sure missed that interesting historical detail.
