World War I was a bloody war, fought in muddy trenches and overwhelmed with slaughter. Yet a few soldiers escaped this anonymous end - fighter pilots. They volunteered to fly when just going up in an airplane seemed heroic. However, most fighter pilots achieved only a few victories before they too were shot down. Yet, there was one man, Baron Manfred von Richthofen, who liked to fly in a blazing red airplane and shot down plane after plane. His achievements made him both a hero and a propaganda tool. With 80 credited victories, Baron Manfred von Richthofen, the "Red Baron," defied the odds and became a legend in the air.
Von Richthofen was killed just after 11 a.m. on 21 April 1918, while flying over Morlancourt Ridge, near the Somme River. While pursuing a Canadian pilot Richthofen was hit by a single .303 bullet that caused such severe damage to his heart and lungs resulting in his speedy death. Before dying he managed to make a hasty but controlled landing in a field on a hill near the Bray-Corbie road, just north of the village of Vaux-sur-Somme, in a sector controlled by the Australian Imperial
Force.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manfred_von_Richthofen
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