In the clear blue skies over Germany

Less than two decades after the Wright brothers’ first experiments with manned flight, a German cavalry officer transferred to the air service and painted his plane red.


Manfred Albrecht Freiherr von Richthofen (Freiherr means baron, he really was one) was born in Breslau, now Wroclaw, capital of southwestern Poland's province of Lower Silesia. He had been to Oxford, and enjoyed communicating with opposing pilots when he got the chance. He was fond of trophies and had a light fixture made out of an enemy engine block. He didn’t fly a triplane until well into 1917, the year he took command of das Jagdgeschwader (fighter squadron) I. They lived in tents, and for this reason became known as "the Flying Circus"...command was assumed by Hermann Göring after Richthofen was shot down in April of 1918.

He had an uncle that had moved to Denver in 1877 (founding the Denver Chamber of Commerce), and was only distantly related to Frieda von Richthofen, wife of D.H. Lawrence.


However, this didn’t stop the British government from accusing them of signaling U-boats with laundry hanging from their clothesline in Cornwall.