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Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 83, Issue 187, 10 August 1939, Page 8

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HOW WAS HE SHOT DOWN? Adler, the new periodical of the German Air Force, has published an article supported by a letter in which it was declared that Baron Manfred von Richthofen. Great War ace, was shot down by British shrapnel while chasing two British aircraf, * cablegram published in the Winnipeg Free Press. (Von Richthofen died on April 21 1918, in France. It has generally been believed that Captain A. Roy Brown, Canadian aviator and now president of General Airways, Ltd., shot down the Red Knight of Germany.) Major-General Aehnelt, of the German War Historical Department, quoted in the magazine a letter stating on April 21, 1918, that the lith. detachment, F anti-aircraft battery, Royal Garrison Artillery, stationed on the Bray-Corbie road, saw a red Fokker plane chasing two Sopwith Camel planes, and laid a shrapnel barrage between the fugitives and the pursuer. The detachment then opened fire with a Lewis gun to strengthen the fire from a nearby Australian battery. The letter said that von Richthofen turned and dived, but was dead when he landed. In 1925 Captain Brown, in an interview, said that he attacked von Richthofen from behind when the German aviator was chasing another Canadian machine. Brown’s fire hit the German, and he collapsed, his ' plane crashing. Investigation proved he was hit from above and behind, Brown said, showing that his fatal wounds were not caused by artillery fire.