Back to MvR's Abendmaschine

[Lance B]

Hello all,

I would like to return to the topic of Manfred von Richthofen's "Abendmaschine." It's been brought up in several prior threads that were hijacked before it could be thoroughly discussed.

Manfred T/Hal O have hinted/indicated that it was the machine (#3 from the camera) next to Le Petit Rouge (#2 from the camera) in the famous Jasta 11 lineup photo that has been extensively debated regarding its location either at La Brayelle or Roucourt (yes, I'm purposely avoiding the opening of Pandora's Box by not saying here which location I think it is). This also may have been the Albatros used by MvR that Lothar von Richthofen recalled receiving from Manfred after his arrival at Jasta 11 -- the one with a red band around the fuselage (a dark band is visible around Albatros #3's fuselage in most reprints of the Jasta 11 lineup, and certainly in the better-quality ones). Another photo of this Albatros exists that shows LvR sitting in the cockpit with Schaefer talking to him alongside from a ladder. There, the presumably red band is more clearly seen; and the fuselage appears to have been painted/stained a darker hue than the usual natural wood finish (the wear and tear on the coloring just aft of the cockpit indicates the fuselage had been painted). LvR also recalled that MvR had, prior to going to an all-red fuselage, experimented with other colors like reddish-brown in an attempt to camouflage his aircraft.

The entry that referred to MvR's "Abendmaschine" also said it was "halbrote." A literal translation of "half-red" doesn't particularly suit the red-banded fuselage; however, my understanding of German (admittedly somewhat limited) also offers a possible translation of "semi-red" or what we in English would call "reddish." Dictionaries state that "Abendrot/Abendroete" are German terms for "sunset" -- presumably from the reddish glow that can often be observed at that time. So my questions are:

1. Do we think the machine 3rd from the camera in the famous Jasta 11 lineup photo is MvR's "Abendmaschine?"
2. Do we think it was the same plane referred to by LvR as having previously belonged to MvR with a red band around the fuselage?
3. Could the remainder of its fuselage have been painted a reddish-brown color by MvR as LvR recalled?
4. Is this reddish - but not pure or bright red - color why it was referred to as "halbrote" and "Abendmaschine"?

What evidence exists to support or refute the above?

Incidentally, the machine 3rd from the camera also sports the same white wing patch that appears in Schaefer's famous Sanke card #512.

Let's hope we have a healthy, informative discussion that stays on topic this time!

Best regards,
Lance

[JFM]

Hi, Lance,

I went back through some of the threads and in those I saw, Hal and MT didn’t mention which D.III was the Abendsmaschine. Did they state specifically that it was #3? If so I missed/overlooked that.

In any event, regarding that third machine, it does bear semblance to the one photographed with Lothar in the cockpit. As far as your other questions hopefully Hal/MT will chime in here, although about the the reddish brown that Lothar said Manfred used prior to red, I believe MvR did not use this on a D.III. To review, Lothar wrote: “When Manfred began to gain his first successes with Jagdstaffel Boelcke, he was annoyed because he felt he was much too visible to his enemies in aerial combat and that they saw him much too early. He tried using a variety of colors to make himself invisible. At first he emphasized the earth colors” (this from Peter Kilduff’s translation in The Red Baron, and Ein Heldenleben, translated by my German friends that I’ve pestered). As vague as “first successes” is, MvR's first successes were achieved with the Albatros D.I and D.II. After earth colors didn’t work to MvR’s satisfaction: “Then, in order to at least be recognized as the leader by his comrades in the air, he chose the color bright red. Later the red machine also became known to the English as ‘Le petit rouge.’”

Lothar is chronologically specific about first earth colors then bright red, and "the red machine also" indicates a single/same machine. As you know, the red machine known by that name was a D.III, MvR’s first and two-week old D.III that he landed with the cracked wing after his 18th victory 24 January 1917; he mentions the term “Le Petit Rouge” in that combat report. MvR’s report also said his red machine “was not unknown to them” (the RFC crew he brought down), which the crew verified in accounts later given to Floyd Gibbons, so MvR must have been flying around with a red machine for a bit to have it become known. Thus, it seems he had already moved beyond the earth colors (which I always regarded as greens and browns) and had switched to red when he arrived at Jasta 11. Although I have no proof of the timing, his arrival to command a Staffel that needed much training would have been a sensible time to paint his plane bright red for recognition.

[Lance B]

Hi Jim,

Great to hear from you. Actually, if you look at the "Richthofen and Albatros D.III 789/17" thread (sorry, I don't know how to imbed a link to it), on page 1 Hal says the following: "Actually this aircraft was delivered to Roucourt airfield on May 2nd. It hardly could be Manfred von Richthofens "Abendmaschine", the aircraft flown by him next to "Petit Rouge" at La Brayelle or Roucourt.."
This is what caused me to focus on machine #3.

I agree that the timing that seems most logical for MvR to have painted a plane red was when he was posted to Jasta 11. I'll go into all my reasons another time. Yet that doesn't necessarily mean that he had not had another plane painted reddish-brown ("earth colors" could have meant that) at Jasta Boelcke (which later sported a red band around the fuselage) that eventually found its way to Jasta 11, and that he later "loaned" to LvR. That is, the red-banded one could have been the Albatros he took (if he in fact DID so) from Jasta Boelcke and the red one could have been a D.III already at Jasta 11.

But here's a problem with our theory of his painting "Le petit rouge" soon after his arrival at Jasta 11. What keeps bothering me is that if that really had been the case, how was it that the machine was so quickly recognized in the area as "Le petit rouge"? MvR states in a letter home that he got lucky on his "first" day (or "first" time, or something like that -- I'm not at home where I can get at the exact language) when he brought down #17. The implication is that it was his first time up in action with the unit. No.18 followed the next day, when it was noted how "Le petit rouge" was already well-known by the English. That seems awfully fast, but I suppose it could still be possible. I'll be able to provide you with more concrete language/quotations/etc. after I get back home in a few days. In the meantime, I hope you and others will continue to weigh in.

I really hope Manfred T and Hal will also join in to help us with whatever information they might have on the subject.


Best regards,
Lance

[JFM]

Hi, Lance,

Thanks for pointing out that thread name. There were a lot of them that involved Albs/Roucourt/LaBrayelle and I can’t keep track of them/find them all again.

All sound points you make and good food for thought. I had a similar thought that perhaps MvR still had an earth colored (and, sure, reddish brown could be an earth color, I agree) machine with J11, even after having switched to using bright red. However, I don’t think he brought a red-banded D.III with him from Jasta Boelcke and then also painted an existing Jasta 11 Alb D.III red because (as it is my understanding) J11 was equipped with Halberstadt Ds when MvR joined; he brought the unit’s only Alb D.III at that time with him. However, on the other hand, Ferko lists new Alb D.IIIs arriving at Jasta 11 on 21 Jan (two) and 22 Jan (two), so it is possible he painted another Alb D.III red. Or, as you said, perhaps he didn’t bring a JB Alb D.III with him at all and grabbed the newly arrived J11 Albs.

You are right that MvR’s letter states that his “first day here I shot down number seventeen” with J11. That his bright red Alb D.III was well known by “the English” is perhaps a bit of a stretch inasmuch as regards all of the RFC at that time. The crew of the FE2 downed on the 24th “had previously seen it [the red Alb D.III], but we did not know who it was.” They obviously had seen it prior to their downing but it likely wasn’t known frontwide yet. Weren’t many red Albs flying around and even seeing it just once before (I speculate) could have left an impression on a single crew. As with the day before, on the 23rd, when MvR shot down a No. 40 Squadron FE8. If I remember correctly, during this combat Benbow stated he had been attacked head-on by a red machine.

In any event, that suggests a red machine (rather than or in addition to any red-banded machine) by the 23rd at latest. How long to paint an Alb D.III fuselage and have the paint dry properly enough to fly the machine? I don’t know.

[FliegerJG1]

At this time (January 1917) Richthofen spent quite a bit of time flying. Could it be that the RFC recognized his machine from times it was in the air but not necessarily for combat? He may have been flying it to check it out or to survey the area or to demonstrate for training purposes. A red airplane would be noticeable and unique and it probably would not take long for word to spread amongst the guys in the trenches and those who met it in the air.

FliegerJG1

[GMU]

Thanks Lance for bringing back this topic; it is certainly very interesting. I was disappointed when it was derailed back then. Let’s hope to have a fruitful discussion now.

George

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[Dan_San_Abbott]

Gentlemen:
Would it not be logical for MvR to park his back up machine next to his primary machine in the Jasta line-up.
Blue skies,
Dan-San

[Gregvan]

Thanks, gentlemen - all very interesting material. I don't really have time to get fully involved in this discussion right now, except to raise the following question:

Is it possible that Richthofen first flew a red-painted airplane at Jasta Boelcke - and that is one reason a red airplane was already "well known to the English"? I don't know if Richthofen ever flew a D.III with Jasta Boelcke; if he did it would have been one of the first at the front....

However, we know that Ltn Collin had a green-painted Albatros D.I, which was later taken over by Prince Friedrich Karl. Von Tutschek first flew a largely-black Albatros D.III at Jasta Boelcke (see his diary entry for 6 April 1917, and a confirmation witness, Uffz Tamm, mentioning a black Albatros single-seater).

So it seems possible that the use of a large display of one color as an identification may have been used early on in Jasta Boelcke, at least by some pilots. On 16 October 1916, in the fight with No. 19 Sqn BE 12's that produced Richthofen's 5th victory, 2Lt C G Baker (in BE 12 6619) reported that they were attacked by a "red doped aircraft (Nieuport type) and two Rolands". Both the "Nieuport type" and "Roland" descriptions were oft-seen mistaken descriptions of Albatros D.I and D.II fighters by RFC pilots (yup, even the Albatros D.II was often called a "Nieuport").

I have no strong feelings or other evidence to support this, just throwing it out for discussion. In "The Fokker Triplane" by Alex Imrie, pp. 81 and 87, the canny old Scot offered this bit of tantalizing info: "This use of red was fostered by Jagdstaffel Boelcke, the unit in which Richthofen had served until he was given the command of Jagdstaffel 11 on 14 January 1917, and caused him to develop a more obvious red as his own colour..."

Greg

[Lance B]

Gentlemen,

You've all made excellent points and I want to address them individually rather than lump them together in a run-on response of my own.

First then, FliegerJG1: I've thought the same thing and am glad someone else made the point first. MvR mentions in his 27 January 1917 letter home that "Am ersten Tage schoss ich Nr.17 'runter..." or "On the first day I shot down No.17..." (some translations have "on my first day here" but the original German doesn't explicitly say that). MvR could have meant, as you pointed out, that it was his first day of official action/combat with Jasta 11. He was known to have been a dependable, methodical leader and I find it hard to believe that on his first day AT Jasta 11, he would have gone up on a combat mission before having gotten to know his men on the ground and in the air (and vice versa) or before familiarizing himself with the surrounding territory and landmarks.

What facts do we have to support this? Several sources record 15 January 1917 as the start of MvR's tenure with Jasta 11. I don't know where that came from and whether or not that meant he was physically with them that day or just on paper; so I looked at other sources as well. In Der rote Kampfflieger's PLM chapter, MvR states that he was informed about his posting to Jasta 11 and then received word of his PLM 2 days later while still at Jasta B. His mother, in Mein Kriegstagebuch's 16 January 1917 entry, states that she learned of her son's PLM the morning of 16 January. MvR's award was officially approved as of 12 January, but we know from several other examples that pilots in the field did not always learn of their award until a few days after the official date. I doubt that MvR would have wasted much time before informing his mother, so all these sources seem to point to his going to Jasta 11 on or about 15-16 January 1917. This would have given him a week there before his 17th & 18th victories on 23-24 January. If this supposition is right, that would have been enough time for him to have had his D.III painted bright red, to have gone on several training /practice flights in it and to have been consequently recognized by the enemy as "le petit rouge' by 24 January. By the way, we have confirmation that MvR had painted his plane red by then not only because of his and his mother's books, but also because Lt. Benbow of No.40 Squadron stated in his 23 January combat report that he was "attacked by a red machine from the front."

I believe the concept above is plausible . Anyone else?

Regards,

Lance

[Lance B]

Next, Dan-San. Your point is well-taken. I think the Albatros with the presumably red band around its fuselage logically would have been parked next to MvR's all-red one if it had been either his backup machine or one being used by his brother (in accordance with what LvR told us in Ein Heldenleben, pp.221-222, i.e. MvR gave him "seiner alten Maschine...die ein rotes Band um den Rumpf hatte..." "his old machine...which had a red band around the fuselage..."). In line with what you said (pun intended), the next Albatros away from the camera sports a dark tail. This could've been Schaefer's black-tailed Albatros (though it does not match photos we have of his black-tailed 2062/16) or even a yellow-tailed Albatros flown by LvR (admittedly, this is quite speculative and based on two tenuous pieces of evidence: (1) a photo of LvR stepping down from what appears to have been the same aircraft, and (2) LvR mentioning he later flew a red Albatros with a yellow tail.

Regards,

Lance