Hope Takes Flight (14 page)

T
he men who fight and die in wars are very seldom aware of the forces that thrust them incessantly toward death. Before every big push that sends thousands of soldiers over the top, somewhere far back of the front lines, there is a small room where generals sit and study the maps on the wall. These maps are covered with thousands of tacks, red and blue. Occasionally one of the generals will move a tack three inches. Only three inches, with almost no effort demanded of the general who makes that slight move. But the next day or the next week, a whistle blows, and forty thousand men come crashing into the barbed wire of no-man's-land. They die, bleeding in the ditches or blown apart, and fifty miles of battlefield is filled with sound and fury—all because a general moved a pin only three inches.

The unseen force that directed the destiny of Baron Manfred von Richthofen was not so much a group of generals staring at a map as it was a meeting of the German High Command. Far from the guns of war and the men dying in the trenches, General Erich von Falkenhayn was surrounded by a small group of his leading advisors. The tension in the room was thick, and von Falkenhayn—an erect, handsome Prussian—glared angrily at his officers.

“I am a soldier,” he said in a raspy tone, “not a journalist. I have no time to devote myself to pleasing the press.”

“Ah, you must not think of it like that, my General,” said a tall man with a crop of white hair and a fiercely bristling mustache. This was Karl Mundt, who alone, of the general officers, had the courage to stand up to General Falkenhayn. “This is a matter of war no less than the training of men and the moving of materials,” he insisted. “The British naval blockade is strangling the fatherland. It has reduced the flow of war materials like Chilean nitrates, which are used to make explosives, to dangerously low levels. It has also cut off consumer goods, and you yourself have seen, General Falkenhayn, the long lines in front of the shops and the raised prices.”

Falkenhayn glared at his chief advisor. “Mundt, what does that have to do with winning the war for the fatherland?”

Mundt sighed heavily and shrugged his massive shoulders. “General, in the old days workers in the factory could be ignored. Not any longer. This war has settled into a massive stalemate—a siege—and it feeds on hundreds of thousands of men in order to stay alive. These men have to be supplied with mountains of guns and biscuits.”

Another general, a short thick-set man, nodded and spoke tersely, his eyes glittering with anger, “Yes. And not only that, General Falkenhayn, but these Communists are everywhere, haranguing the people, using words like
exploitation
and
bloody revolution
.”

“Nonsense. A good German worker knows better than to listen to those wild lunatics.”

Mundt hesitated, then said slowly, “I wish that were true, General Falkenhayn, but times are changing. The first heady days of the war,” he shook his head sadly, “they're only a fading memory. It is now an old war, and we must keep in mind that this war has chewed up and digested the sons of the fatherland, and it has put the fathers and the mothers in an ugly mood.”

Von Falkenhayn argued steadily, vehemently, his face turning red with anger. But he saw, finally, that his staff was in agreement that he must modify his views. “Well,” he said stiffly, “what do you suggest?”

General Mundt answered, “The Information Department of the general's staff has agreed that what we need are heroes—visible heroes—that the people can see, that the soldiers themselves can see.”

“Heroes?” Von Falkenhayn grunted. “Why, every soldier that gets up out of a trench and charges across no-man's-land is a hero!”

“Yes, indeed, I agree. We are soldiers, and we understand that that is how the war will be won. However, finding heroes among ground troops is never easy. They always fight in groups, and groups can be heroic, sir, only in the most general of ways.”

“Very true,” the commanding general conceded grudgingly. “Also, foot soldiers are seldom heroic more than once.”

“Exactly.” Mundt nodded enthusiastically. “What we need are individual, Wagnerian heroes who will keep on doing the brave things when needed. And the Information Department has suggested that there's no better place to find them,” he paused, looking upward toward the ceiling as if he could see through it, “than in the sky. All the elements are there, General von Falkenhayn.”

Encouraged, Mundt pointed out that flying itself was still new enough that most people considered the very idea of going up in an airplane to be death-defying. Since the aviators thought so, too, they respected each other and were even chivalrous to their enemies, provided their lives did not depend upon it.

At this point, Mundt threw himself into the presentation with a dramatic flair. “Why,” he said, “our airmen are like knights! Their airplanes are steeds! The ground crewmen who repair the steeds are their squires, and the clumsy insulating flying garb which makes walking awkward is reminiscent of armor! And best of all,” Mundt said, “aerial combat—man against man—is jousting! And the flyers choose to joust until…well, until they are killed.”

The meeting went on for quite some time, and General von Falkenhayn was finally persuaded to see the need of the creation of heroes in the Air Force.

With his permission, the machinery that would make Manfred von Richthofen the premier hero of all of Germany was set in motion. The newspapers began recounting epic battles in the air. The Information Department had them photograph the postcards called” after the company that printed them, and these were sold all over Germany. The German aviators were also filmed “climbing confidently into their steeds which were pointed toward the Western sky” for segments of short movies that circulated to theaters in the larger cities and towns.

These were the seeds, strategically planted, of the power that would elevate Richthofen from an unknown pilot into the gallant hero Germany was seeking. The General Staff took a particular interest in Lanoe Hawker's death and of the newcomer who killed him. Lieutenant Manfred von Richthofen, a young baron from a good Prussian family, was the man to watch.

The decision of the General Staff to create heroes in the German Air Force changed the tactics of the day. Up until this time, Germans in the trenches rarely saw their own airmen or airplanes. The German strategy was to keep scouts and fighter planes in defensive positions, well behind the lines. This helped draw Allied airplanes deep over German-held territory until their fuel ran low and they were forced to turn and run the gauntlet of wind and German interceptors. Secondly, it helped prevent one of the new scouts from falling behind Allied lines, where the improvements on them could be stolen and copied.

For some time, however, the German soldiers daily watched French and British formations passing over in waves, apparently unchallenged, and suffered the indignities of being photographed in the aftermath of bombing and strafing by what seemed like any Allied airplane that cared to do so. They wanted to know where their aviators were and began coining such sayings as, “God punished the English, our artillery, and our air force.”

So the decision being made, the machinery began to roll, and German fighter planes were sent to the front lines to put on a show of strength for the men on the ground. The month of December furnished little opportunity, for the weather was bad. Nevertheless, on December 11, von Richthofen demonstrated his skill for soldiers on both sides of the barbed wire when he shot down his twelfth victim, a British DH2.

Five days before Christmas, he led his flag to a near-massacre of a third of the Royal Flying Corps' Number 29 Squadron. Flying in front, and slightly below in a V-formation, he led the attack against five British planes. All five were shot up. Von Richthofen claimed his second daily double—his fourteenth victory.

Sitting alone in his quarters that night, Manfred looked at the little silver cups, each representing a kill, and felt good. He would soon be his country's leading war pilot. Ace of aces. Furthermore, he had great hopes that this would be the last Christmas he would spend without a
Pour le Mérite
—the Blue Max, as the premier medal of Germany was called. He promised himself that he would either wear the Blue Max or die the next year.

He slept well that night and for the next few nights, although he shot down no more planes. However, he did achieve one thing that had long-ranging consequences: He painted his airplane. Toward the end of 1916, German airplane manufacturers began to paint their products in standardized camouflage color schemes. Early Albatrosses had the upper sides of their wings and tail painted in irregular patches of khaki and dark olive green. Undersides were light sky blue, and fuselages were varnished over their natural plywood color.

The pilots, in their never-ending search for individuality, wanted their own trademarks and therefore modified parts of their scouts—usually the engine cowling and tail—painting them with varying colors. Boelcke had had his scout painted red, and members of the squadron began to associate that color with their group.

Now, von Richthofen stood looking at his fighter plane. It was due for a paint job, and the men who were to do the job stood waiting silently for his instructions. Von Richthofen's face was still, but his eyes moved over the fragile body of the airplane and he pictured in his mind what he wanted. He turned to the sergeant, a smile turning the corners of his lips upward. “Red,” he said finally.

“Red?” the sergeant asked in surprise, his eyes flying open. “Which part, sir? The cowling?”

“The whole aircraft,” von Richthofen said firmly.

“But…but…uh, sir! Isn't that—”

“And not a dull red, Sergeant,” von Richthofen said, his voice growing eager. “Find the most brilliant red you have in stock. Fiery red! And paint everything that will take paint! You understand me?”

The sergeant wanted to object, but one look at the flyer's face convinced him that would be unwise, so he said, “Ja. Red. Bright red. Ja, it shall be so, sir.”

Two days later, von Richthofen's superiors watched as the red airplane took off from the field with a roar. One of them shook his head. “Bad. Bad for discipline, I think. Perhaps we ought to have him tone it down a bit.”

“No,” the other said thoughtfully. “If von Richthofen keeps shooting down Englishmen, and if he's proud enough of his work to want the whole world to know about it, let him go. He might get shot down once they learn to look for him, but a gaudy, conspicuous airplane is a small price to pay for making one a hero.”

Christmas day came, and Manfred von Richthofen showed his father Albrecht and his brother Lothar around the aerodrome. They were impressed, especially Lothar, who had transferred recently out of the Cavalry into the Air Force.

Lothar was lean like Manfred, but three inches taller, with a more angular face and a totally different personality. Where Manfred was quiet and often brooding, Lothar was boisterous and forward. Where Manfred was fond of sitting by himself for hours, Lothar was prankish, impudent, very much like one of the boys. Manfred, who stayed away from women—saying that he had no time for them or that he did not want to make some girl a widow—was in stark contrast to Lothar, who had plenty of time and didn't intend to get married anyway, at least not until after the war.

The three men walked around the field and spoke of the situation. “Will you be going to the front right away, my son?” Manfred's father asked.

“Well, no, not right away. I do have a week's leave.”

“Will you go to Berlin and do some partying?” Lothar asked, eyes gleaming.

“No. I am flying this new red ship of mine home. I'll get in a bit of hunting, and then in one week I'll be back to fight the enemies of the fatherland.”

“Too bad,” Lothar said. “You've become headline news.” He clapped his brother on the shoulder. “I see those Sanke cards everywhere. You must hear from plenty of the girls, ja?”

Manfred barely smiled and shrugged. But Lothar was right. Mail had been coming in by the bagful. Perfumed letters, proposing everything from marriage to less formal arrangements, had come in. In fact, he had shared them with his squadron mates, who delightedly read them aloud by turn, laughing at the mushiest.

“I'll let you do the Berlin party,” Manfred said to Lothar. “Me, I need time away. I leave in the morning for home.”

“I think that is wise, my son,” Albrecht von Richthofen said. “The family is proud; the whole nation is proud!” he cried. Then in a rare gesture of emotion, he put his arm around Manfred's shoulders and said huskily, “You have made me very proud.”

“Thank you, Father,” Manfred whispered. “I hope to do more yet.”

“I did not expect to see you here.”

On his second day home, Manfred entered the sitting room to find Lylah waiting for him. She was wearing a beautifully designed green dress that highlighted her eyes, and she looked far more beautiful than he had remembered.