Manfred von Richthofen
Manfred Albrecht von Richthofen was born on May 2, 1892, in Kleiburg near Breslau of Lower Silesia which is now Poland. He was the second child and the first son of Albrecht Freiherr von Richtofen and Kunigunde von Schickfuss und Neudorff. Manfred had an older sister Ilsa and 2 younger brothers Lothar and Karl Boiko.
In 1895 the family moved to a villa in the nearby town of Schweidnitz, where he learned to hunt from his Uncle Alexander. However, Manfred decided to follow in his father’s footsteps and become a career military officer. At the age of 11, Manfred entered the Wahlstatt cadet school in Berlin.
Manfred was a poor student who received bad grades and had poor discipline; however, he excelled at gymnastics.
“As a little boy of eleven I entered the Cadet Corps. I was not particularly eager to become a Cadet, but my father wished it. So my wishes were not consulted.” – Manfred von Richthen
At the age 17 he entered the Senior Cadet Academy at Lichterfelde, and then completed his academic career at the Berlin War Academy. After graduating, he was commissioned as a Lieutenant and stationed in Miletich which is now in Poland and he joined the cavalry like most young officers.
At the start of WW1 Lt. von Richthofen was stationed on Germany’s eastern border, but as losses mounted in the West he was transferred and participated in the charge into Belgium and France. Manfred’s regiment was attached to an infantry unit and Manfred conducted reconnaissance patrols.
However, history shows that the German offensive was blunted outside of Paris and both sides dug in leading to the trench warfare that was synonymous with the Western Front. When that happened, the Cavalry was eliminated as horses had no places in the trenches and Manfred was transferred to the signals Corp where he laid telephone wires and delivered dispatches.
Life in the trenches was frustrating for him and he looked up and realized that airplanes and not horses were the future of reconnaissance, yet he learned that it would take months of training to become a pilot and the war might be over by the time he got his wings, so instead of flight school Richthofen requested to be transferred to the air service as a observer. In May 1915 he transferred to the Number 7 air Replacement Station to join the observer training program.
During his first flight, Richthofen was terrified, he had no sense of location and was unable to give the pilots direction, but he continued to study and learn and he learned map reading, how to drop bombs, locate enemy troops and sketch maps.
He eventually passed his training and returned to the Eastern front as an observer, after several months he was transferred to the Mail Pigeon Detachment, the code name for a secret unit that was going to bomb England.
Richthofen got his first kill in Sept of 1915 when he shot down a enemy plane using a handheld machine gun, but was informed that kills in enemy lines didn’t count.
The young Lt. fate was changed on Oct 1, 1915, when he was riding a plane headed for Metz and he met Germany’s most famous fighter pilot Lieutenant Oswald Boelcke, frustrated by his own failed attempts to shoot down a plane Richthofen asked for advice.
"Good heavens, it indeed is quite simple. I fly in as close as I can, take good aim, shoot, and then he falls down." – Oswald Boelcke
While this wasn’t exactly the advice that Richthofen was looking for it planted an idea in his head. Boelcke flew a single seat Fokker Eindecker, where the pilot flew the plane and shot the guns, Richthofen was hooked on the idea of becoming a pilot.