But October 28, 1916 (when the squadron had 40 downs to its credit),
Boelcke, von Richthofen and four others flying in formation saw at a
distance “two impertinent Englishmen in the air who actually seemed
to be enjoying the terrible weather.” The struggle began. “Boelcke
tackled one, I the other. I had to let go because one of the German
machines got in my way.” All that seems to have interested him further
in the fight was the fact that Boelcke’s machine suffered a sort of
collision with one of the other German machines, a part of his planes
was broken off, his machine was no longer steerable and it fell.
Boelcke was killed.
Some little time after he had brought down his sixteenth victim von
Richthofen was given the _Ordre pour le Mérite_ and appointed commander
of the Eleventh Chasing Squadron. It was then that the idea seized him
to paint his machine a flaming red, which became afterward the personal
identification of the Captain, who became famous through the adventures
and success he had with his machine—_Le Petit Rouge_, as “everyone got
to know my red bird.”
French, English, and American airmen who gained wisdom at the front may
find an amusing flavor in a sage remark of von Richthofen about the
time he became captain of the squadron. “In my opinion, the aggressive
spirit is everything and that spirit is very strong in us Germans.
Hence we shall always retain the domination of the air.” Events did not
altogether sustain the boast.
But it is not necessary to object strongly to the complacency of a
man who fought with undiminished valor throughout his flying career,
accounted for 80 enemy machines, and died at last, shot down over the
enemy’s lines. If he was self-confident to the degree of vanity, his
audacity was truly admirable. He lacked just ten days of attaining his
twenty-sixth birthday when he fell. The English grudged him no honors.