Great picture Jake, I've not seen that one before.
I'm wondering what the occasion was. Richthofen already had the IC, but was awarded the Hohenzollern order on 11th November 1916.
I'm wondering therefore if it's him being told of being nominated for it, or told he's got it, or just congratulated on another kill.
Either way it must be very shortly before Boelcke's death.
"A great deal of an aeroplane could be holed without affecting its ability to fly. Wings and fuselage could be—and often were—pierced in 50 places, missing the occupants by inches (blissfully unaware of how close it had come until they returned to base). Then the sailmaker would carefully cover each hole with a square inch of Irish linen frayed at the edges and with a brushful of dope make our aircraft 'serviceable' again within an hour."
I'm wondering what the location is. I don't recognize the buildings
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In Lance Bronnenkant's ultimate work on Oswald Boelcke, "Oswald Boelcke, The Red Baron's Hero," that photo is present, along with several others taken at the same time. The captions indicate they were taken toward the end of June 1916 as Boelcke prepared to leave for the tour of the Eastern Front. On this occasion he promoted four mechanics to Gefreiter and presented three of them with the Iron Cross 2nd class. This photo was taken at 6 Rue de Sartrouville, Sivry. You can see the location on Google Earth.
Thus, this photo was taken BEFORE Richthofen met Boelcke. MvR did not meet Boelcke until August, in Russia.
Last edited by JFM; 04/09/2006:17 PM. Reason: typo
Hey, you didn't know! This photo was all over Facebook recently, too, and someone there said it came from an Ebay sale. I don't know if even THAT is true, but wouldn't be surprising. On Ebay I've seen MvR's name attached to ridiculous things (a piano, even) for a sale, so this photo was much closer to reality than normal.
Thanks for the update JFM, it's still a great picture of the great man Jake so no worries there.
"A great deal of an aeroplane could be holed without affecting its ability to fly. Wings and fuselage could be—and often were—pierced in 50 places, missing the occupants by inches (blissfully unaware of how close it had come until they returned to base). Then the sailmaker would carefully cover each hole with a square inch of Irish linen frayed at the edges and with a brushful of dope make our aircraft 'serviceable' again within an hour."
I've seen MvR's name attached to ridiculous things (a piano, even) for a sale, so this photo was much closer to reality than normal.
I was at an air show in Van Nuys in the late 90's and someone had a piece of fabric with the lozenge camouflage and a piece of edged balkenkreuz on it. It was being touted as having come from MvR's Fokker D-VII.
Joined: May 2012 Posts: 4,879RAF_Louvert
BOC President; Pilot Extraordinaire; Humble Man
RAF_Louvert
BOC President; Pilot Extraordinaire; Humble Man
Senior Member
Joined: May 2012
Posts: 4,879
L'Etoile du Nord
.
I have a guaranteed original set of MvR's sock garters, and a nearly full jar of monocle polish documented to be his as well. Rare stuff indeed, and was found at a garage sale in, strangely enough, New Germany, Minnesota. Both items came with Xeroxed copies of hand-written letters from Mrs. Von Richthofen herself, so it must be for really real.
Jim, I took your advice. I had a $50 Amazon gift card from Christmas that I hadn't used, so I put it to good purpose and ordered Bronnenkant's book. I did NOT however sell my 1917 1st edition of Boelcke's "An Aviator's Field-Book" to offset the cost of the new addition. I'll just have to do without scones to go with my morning coffee for the rest of the month.
Oh Fuddle-Duddle....for a WHOLE month Lou??? What a sacrifice Sir!! Oh well, It could have been your single-malt, right??
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