Quote:
Originally Posted by squigg58
It only mattered (at the time) to the extent that by giving the the credit to Brown, it could be claimed that von Richthofen had been "bettered" by a pilot of the newly formed RAF. For propaganda purposes, that would be more appealing than saying he'd been killed by what could be seen as a "lucky" shot from the ground. I also can't help but wonder if those in charge of official statements preferred to give the credit to a Captain, than to a humble Gunner!
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IIRC, there's been at least one book and a couple of TV documentaries devoted to the question- I saw one of them a while back, and recall it featured a light aricraft flying the approximate course of von Richtofen's last few minutes in the air, while a historian on the ground with some kind of laser gadget and camera on a tripod attempted to get a clear 'shot' at it from the positions of the various gunners on the ground who may have fired the fatal shot.
Apparently the candidates were a Sgt Cedric Popkin, who claimed to have fired his .303 Vickers gun at von Richtofen on two separate occasions in the crucial period, (though his claim to have fired the fatal shot has been confused by an inaccurate description of events in a letter Popkin wrote in the 1930's), and a pair of Lewis gunners, Gunner W.J. 'Snowy' Evans and Gunner Robert Buie, who also fired at the triplane from their respective positions.