The Flight of the Red Devil (standard:adventure, 0 words)
Author: Red Storm	Added: Jun 27 2001	Views/Reads: 3632/2526	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
This is an action-packed fictional account of the first flight of WWI flying ace Manfred Von Richthofen, also known as the Red Baron of Germany. Some real stats are added at the end to punctuate the experience, which I know you will enjoy!

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story

again fills the sky. Two Bristol M1C planes are crippled, and one is 
completely destroyed in the second pass. The two crippled planes 
immediately drop below the fighting in a drastic search for safe 
landing zones. They will not return today, or at all unless they find a 
place to make an emergency landing. The debris of the destroyed Bristol 
M1C falls helplessly toward the earth in a large burning heap. The 
Fokker planes sustain no further damage from this pass. As the Bristol 
M1C planes become free to conduct their turnabout, the French planes 
have come back in sight. They are now ready to engage the Germans as 
their British allies make their turns. 

It has been an even battle to this point, but the Germans suddenly
realize what is happening: the French are engaging them from the front 
as the British prepare to attack them from the rear. Nothing to do but 
go on. The Nieuport 10 planes engage them and send bullets in a 
scattered formation, hitting two Fokker I planes with deadly accuracy. 
The planes begin to fall below the fighting, but have nowhere to land. 
If they do succeed in making a safe landing below, they will be 
captured by enemy troops. Suddenly one of the Fokker I planes bursts 
into flame, breaking apart at the seams. It falls apart like a giant 
puzzle to the earth below. Seeing this, the second injured plane pulls 
itself into a nose-dive and heads for the earth with unchallenged 
speed. It slams into the earth and explodes into a great wall of fire 
before completely incinerating. 

The Nieuport 10 unit sustains three losses as their planes break away
from the onslaught, two from German gunfire and one to mechanical 
complications--engine failure. The two Nieuport 10 planes destroyed by 
gunfire stand no chance of survival, but the third might. It glides as 
slowly as possible--still extremely fast--toward the earth in an 
attempt to make an emergency landing without the use of its burning 
engine. The landing is too rough, and the plane falls apart as it hits 
the ground and tumbles to its finale in a hundred broken pieces. 

In the sky, the final Nieuport 10 plane disengages itself from the fight
and flees to more friendly territory. The Germans turn as quickly as 
possible to defend against the oncoming British fleet, but are caught 
from behind as they make their moves. A barrage of bullets tear through 
the wings and bodies of the Fokker planes, shredding three F-I’s and 
the two remaining F-II’s in the process. The planes fall away in doomed 
fireballs, except for the F-II’s, which are more properly built to 
handle the pressure of gunfire. The German team now flies two Fokker 
I’s and two Fokker II’s against thirteen Bristol M1C planes. Seeing 
that the situation is under control, five of the Bristol M1C planes 
disengage and head back to their airstrips. The odds are again 2 to 1, 
with 8 Bristols and 4 Fokkers. One of the young German pilots completes 
his turn in a Fokker I and watches as the Bristols prepare for another 
assault. He notices the grim situation, and prays hard for victory. It 
is his first solo combat mission, and he is determined to survive it. 
His name is Manfred von Richthofen, and he decides to pull ahead of his 
company and create a diversion. Doing this, the Bristols notice his 
aggressive move and engage him immediately. Machine-gun fire surrounds 
Manfred’s Fokker as he rolls the plane in an evasive maneuver he’d only 
dreamed about before. The Americans were calling the maneuver a 
barrel-roll, and he avoided every bullet sent his way as he completed 
it. The plane seems to instantly amplify his every command to the most 
perfect degree, making him feel almost at one with the plane. He feels 
invincible, but most of all, in control. Manfred shoots straight 
through the British formation, rapidly firing round after round of his 
machine-gun as he does so. His move, however stupid it might have been, 
pays off in this instance. Manfred knocks out three of the opposing 
aircraft in his single, swift pass. 

As he begins pulling his plane around to make another pass, his comrades
continue his attack, taking out two more planes. The Brits are now down 
to 3 planes, and the Germans are reduced to two as the damaged Fokker 
II’s finally draw their last breaths and fall to their graves. Manfred 
watches as the three Bristol M1C planes each go their separate ways, 
one breaking hard right, the other hard left, and the third climbing 
straight up. His fellow German craft circles and comes up behind him, 
and Manfred can now see thick black smoke coughing out of the engine of 
the other Fokker I. The enemy is no longer in sight, and Manfred is 
ready to head home. He watches as the second Fokker pulls higher, 
climbing above his plane. Manfred begins to worry that the plane has 
fallen out of the pilot’s control, and struggles to shift his body to 
examine the flight pattern. Suddenly the plane jolts violently, echoing 
a painful screech of metal and glass as his entire field of vision is 
rattled and Manfred loses his wits temporarily. Thick smoke fills his 
eyes momentarily, and the strong smells of gunpowder and burning metal 
fill his nose. 

Shaking his head quickly, Manfred stares ahead and notices the single
enemy craft that has returned to engage him. He had not seen it coming, 
and it has fired off a few early rounds from afar that have been 
indirect hits on his plane. He jerks his head from side to side, 
inspecting the damage, but finds little to worry about. His prime 
concern is directly ahead of him, in the form of a Bristol M1C 
aircraft. His neighboring Fokker I is nowhere to be seen, but Manfred 
has no time to search the skies. He watches the opposing plane, waiting 
until it reaches certain firing range. He is low on ammunition, and has 
to be sure he will hit what he fires on. The distant enemy quickly 
closes in and Manfred begins firing his gun. He can’t tell whether he 
has hit the target yet, but the enemy is still closing in. Now return 
fire. Manfred watches the bright orange streaks fly all around him as 
the bullets graze his plane and their spread begins to close in on him. 
Manfred freezes in fear as he realizes that his guns will not hit the 
target until he is well within the enemy’s range. Suddenly, from 
somewhere above, his fellow Fokker I plane dives between them, 
absorbing the gunfire just as the blasts line up with Manfred. The 
other Fokker is blown to pieces while sparing the life of the plane 
still intact, giving Manfred just enough time to climb out of the 
Bristol M1C’s sights. As he does so, the plane again shakes violently 
with the echoes of splintering metal and burning fuel. The bullets hit 
Manfred more directly this time, delivering some serious damage. He 
will have to turn home now, or else be shot down or captured. The 
British plane has disengaged, and looks to be heading back toward 
allied territory. [END FLASHBACK] 

Manfred von Richthofen opened his eyes, checking the enemy in his
mirror. They were closer now, and he was beginning to worry that he 
wouldn’t make it home after all. And after all the relief that he had 
felt when the last plane disengaged him, now only to realize that he 
had misjudged the enemy. They would not stop until they, or he, lay in 
a burning heap of rubble almost three hundred feet below. His plane 
gasped and sputtered again, his propeller actually slowing until he 
could make out the individual blades moving around, then coughed and 
returned to normal as a puff of jet black smoke ejected from the 
bullet-torn engine. The sky was darkening and he was still not in 
German airspace, his injured plane was falling apart on him, he was low 
on ammunition, and he was running low on fuel. Four things that one 
does not wish for when engaging in an aerial attack, Manfred thought to 
himself. But this time he had no choice. 

The tiny Fokker plane made a turnabout, and headed back to engage the
Bristols as they approached. From previous experience, he knew that the 
Bristols would have him in shooting range before he could properly aim 
at any of them, so he decided to build his speed instead of attempting 
to fire his machine-gun. If he could make a high-speed pass and avoid 
the initial gunfire of his opponents, he could make his turn and 
probably get on their tails before they could retaliate. On this note, 
he was correct. The Bristols had slowed to attack speed, and thus would 
have to make slow turnabouts. The Fokker gradually sped forth, picking 
up speed very slowly and at great cost to his engine. The black smoke 
coughed harder and the engine sputtered more frequently, but it 
wouldn’t give up on him. Not now, after so much. 

His engine pushed all 110 h.p., bringing him to the fringe of its max
speed of 140km/hour. The Bristols were coming at him with only half 
speed, a mere 100km/hour, their machine-guns already blazing. The 
Fokker closed the gap between them with an extra burst of speed, and 
caught the Bristols off guard. They had expected him to come in much 
slower, assuming he would try to return fire instead of make it through 
their barrage. The plane darted past them sustaining only three more 
direct hits, two to the wings and one to the rutter. The plane handled 
much more defiantly with the rupture of his navigation device, but 
Manfred pulled hard on the plane’s steering shift. His turn came about 
almost flawlessly, with a few explosive spark-filled showers from the 
engine, but nothing extremely serious. As he leveled off, he realized 
that his plan had worked. The Bristols were now struggling to gain 
speed and perform their turnabouts, but he was already on their tails. 

Manfred lined his sight on the center of the middle plane and pulled the
trigger of his machine-gun. The orange streaks blasted from the barrel 
of his 3.2 inch mounted gun and flowed in a solid line just below the 
middle plane’s body. Manfred gently pulled downward on the device, thus 
guiding the barrel upward, and the flowing stream of gunfire rose into 
a direct hit. The plane exploded in the air and fell away toward the 
earth as Manfred quickly moved his sights to the aft Bristol. Adjusting 
his gun a little higher than his target to compensate for the slack he 
had just noticed, Manfred delivered a direct hit on the second Bristol 
without wasting a single shot. The Bristol exploded like its sister 
plane and fell slowly out of his sights. 

The third Bristol had already begun its turn when Manfred finished off
the second plane, and was now leveling off and coming at him in a 
straight line of intercept. They were already in each other’s line of 
sight and fire, and both planes began rattling off rounds at each 
other. Manfred held the trigger of his machine-gun down, emitting round 
after round into the enemy, but sustained the same amount of gunfire in 
the process. Both planes shook violently with the stress of metal 
slamming into metal, and smoke and flame filled the dark sky. The 
Bristol exploded immediately, hurtling just underneath the speeding 
Fokker that was struggling to handle the assault it had just received. 
Manfred cursed under his breath, realizing that this was the end. Fuel 
was splashing all over him, from the tank directly under the plane 
which had been ruptured at least six times in this last bout. The 
engine was on fire, not random flaming like before, and the black smoke 
was a solid wall in front of him and behind. The sputtering and 
coughing engine was the only sound he heard now, and there was no more 
returning to normal for it. This was it, he had better try to land the 
small plane before everything just quit and he dropped to the earth 
like so many others he had witnessed on this day. 

The Fokker made a quick descent, and Manfred prayed that the engine
would hold until he was on the ground. It sputtered, then quit, then 
sputtered back to life. He quickly scanned the terrain, looking for a 
remotely flat piece of land, which to his satisfaction was all around. 
He gently pushed the steering shift forward, letting the plane’s wheels 
lightly touch the rocky ground below. A painful screech as the rubber 
hit the rock harder than he had wanted, but he wasn’t worried about 
that right now. He tried to guide the plane as it slowed down, and it 
looked at first as if it would be no more than simply steering the 
craft until it came to a stop. Suddenly on of his wheels came loose and 
twisted sideways, snapping clean off and bouncing into the night. The 
body of the plane instantly fell to the side that was no longer equally 
supported, and Manfred screamed as his left wing scraped the ground and 
snapped off. The heap was now moving forward in a spiral pattern, and 
the second wheel snapped off. The entire plane fell on its belly and 
spun sideways, until it finally came to a rest a hundred and fifty 
yards from its initial touchdown spot. 

Manfred picked himself up slowly from the floor of his cockpit and
looked across the empty terrain into the blackness of night. A sigh of 
relief as he turned and sat back in his pilot’s seat. The stretch where 
he had skidded across the land was highlighted by a streak of burning 
fuel, and his engine was still blazing. He jumped out of the rubble and 
stumbled a few feet, then fell onto his back in the mud and breathed 
hard. Everything seemed blurry, and for good reason, as he lay there 
expressing thanks to the higher power that had delivered him from the 
clutches of death. 

A new sound now, not the cracking of the fire that was eating his
engine, not the hiss of the steam and smoke coming from the wounds on 
his crashed Fokker, and not the hard breaths of his own aching body. It 
was a light rumble, growing or coming closer. He couldn’t move, his 
body was unable to react to his mind’s commands as the adrenaline high 
raced through his veins, but he did hear it and wonder. Sweat trickled 
across his forehead and down his cheek as the sound drew nearer. Was it 
enemy troops? He was still too exhausted to worry or even care. Yes, he 
finally decided that it was a truck’s motor that he was hearing, and it 
was drawing nearer to him. From the deepness of the sound he determined 
that it had to be a very large engine, unlikely to be civilian. No, he 
thought to himself, it must be military. He heard an eardrum-piercing 
squeal as the brakes were applied, and his adrenaline-sharpened senses 
even allowed him to hear the tiny rock shards on which the truck slid a 
few inches to a rest. He still couldn’t see anything but the stars in 
the purple sky overhead, but he could now hear voices just out of range 
for him to make out any of the words. He heard feet, dozens of feet, 
running in his direction now, and voices calling out orders. He smiled 
and breathed easier as he realized that the orders were in German. 
These were German officers, and he was safe at last. 

“Are you hurt, sir?” One called from his side. 

There was no answer from Manfred, just heavy breathing. The officers
gently rolled him onto a makeshift cot and lifted him into the back of 
their unit transport truck. They jumped into the canvas-covered bed of 
the large truck and signaled the driver onward. The engine again roared 
to life and pulled away from the burning wreckage. 

“You look fine, sir.” One of the officers was saying to him. 

“Just a bit scraped up and bruised, but nothing serious. Hell of a
flight sir, we all saw it from the lines about three miles west of 
here. You landed just on our side of the fighting, sir, and a damn good 
thing you did. We’ll get you back to base and have you checked out, but 
you’ll be back in the sky in no time.” He confirmed with a salute. 

“I think I’ve seen the end of my days as a combat pilot,” Manfred
replied with a painful grin, “but who knows, maybe when the War is over 
I will become a great fisherman.” 

Manfred Von Richthofen eventually returned to the skies of Germany in a
Fokker D.II class tri-plane. He aided Germany in World War I by 
obtaining more than 80 confirmed kills over his native land, and a 
handful of unconfirmed kills over allied territory which he never 
received credit for. He became one of the most famous aces of the Great 
War, feared by the allies and honored by his own people. Richthofen 
accumulated many awards, including the Orden Pour le Merite (Order of 
Merit; Blue Max), the Ritterkreuz des Königlichen Hausorden von 
Hohenzollern mit Schwerten (Royal Hohenzollern House Order with 
Swords), the Roter Adler-Orden mit Schwerten (Red Eagle Order; only von 
Richthofen won this award in World War I, and he received the 3rd Class 
with Crown and Swords), the Eisernes Kreuz I. Klasse (Iron Cross 1st 
Class), and the Eisernes Kreus II. Klasse (Iron Cross 2nd Class). His 
final rank was that of Rittmeister, and he became known to his enemies 
by various nicknames. To the French, Richthofen was known as the Red 
Devil because his Fokker II had been painted red in order to keep his 
own people from shooting him down. This nickname stuck, but was later 
altered by the British, who called him the jolly Red Baron, and the 
Americans who simply called him the Red Baron. 

On April 21, 1918, Manfred engaged two enemy pilots, Captain Roy Brown
(Canadian Royal Air Corps) and Lieutenant Wilfred May. In chasing May’s 
plane, Manfred crossed British airspace and made himself a target for 
Brown. He was shot down and killed on that tragic day, buried by the 
British with full military honors. 


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