During the Borneo Campaign, Sakai achieved 13 more victories before he was grounded by illness. When he recovered three months later in April, Petty Officer First Class Sakai joined a squadron (chutai) of the Tainan Kōkūtai under Sub-Lieutenant Junichi Sasai at Lae, New Guinea. Over the next four months, he scored the majority of his victories in flying against American and Australian pilots based at Port Moresby.
A myth has been perpetuated over time but declared to be product of the imagination of Martin Caidin, the co-author of Sakai's book "Samurai." Supposedly, on the night of 16 May, Sakai and his colleagues, Hiroyoshi Nishizawa and Toshio Ota, were listening to a broadcast of an Australian radio program, and Nishizawa recognized the eerie "Danse Macabre" of Camille Saint-Saëns. Inspired, Nishizawa is said to have come up with the idea of doing demonstration loops over the enemy airfield. The next day, his squadron included fellow aces Hiroyoshi Nishizawa and Toshio Ōta. At the end of an attack on Port Moresby, which had involved 18 Zeros,[12] the trio performed three tight loops in close formation over the allied air base. Nishizawa indicated that he wanted to repeat the performance. Diving to 6,000 ft (1,800 m), the three Zeros did three more loops without receiving any AA fire from the ground. The following day, a lone Allied bomber flew over the Lae airfield and dropped a note attached to a long cloth ribbon. A soldier picked up the note and delivered to the squadron commander. It read (paraphrased): "Thank you for the wonderful display of aerobatics by three of your pilots. Please pass on our regards and inform them that we will have a warm reception ready for them, next time they fly over our airfield." The squadron commander was furious and reprimanded the three pilots for their stupidity, but the Tainan Kōkūtai's three leading aces felt that Nishizawa's aerial choreography of the Danse Macabre had been worth it.[13]
Red Ace Squadron 2 Crack 3
Whatever the case, Sakai sustained serious wounds from the bombers' return fire. He was hit in the head by a .30 caliber bullet, which injured his skull and temporarily paralyzed the left side of his body.[22] The wound is described elsewhere as having destroyed the metal frame of his goggles and "creased" his skull, a glancing blow that broke the skin and made a furrow it or even cracked the skull but did not actually penetrate it. Shattered glass from the canopy temporarily blinded him in his right eye and reduced vision in his left eye severely. The Zero rolled inverted and descended towards the sea. Unable to see out of his left eye because of the glass and the blood from his serious head wound, Sakai's vision started to clear somewhat as tears cleared the blood from his eyes, and he pulled his plane out of the dive. He considered ramming an American warship: "If I must die, at least I could go out as a samurai. My death would take several of the enemy with me. A ship. I needed a ship." Finally, the cold air blasting into the cockpit revived him enough to check his instruments, and he decided that by leaning the fuel mixture, he might be able to return to the airfield at Rabaul.
The repair job was slower than Nark would have liked, as Xiono took longer than expected to get parts due to a poor attempt at locating First Order spies and a run-in with a con-man, Grevel, who felt Xiono owed him money from a scam he had tricked him into his first day on the Colossus. While installing a part on Nark's ship, Xiono overheard him talking on his comlink with Gorr, mentioning that they were on for a triple dark and addressing Gorr as "Kragan." The obviously covert nature of the conversation made Xiono suspicious. After the work was done, Xiono accidentally caused Nark to lose his comlink down a crack in the floor by slapping him on the back.[3]
The Aces fought the pirates well, but were clearly outnumbered by them, which Xiono noticed when he reached Yeager's shop. Remembering Nark's comlink, he had an idea, and retrieved it from the crack in the floor with BB-8's help. He then broadcast loud, unpleasant feedback over the pirates' communications channel, throwing off their starfighter pilots and preventing them from speaking to each other, forcing Gorr to call a retreat as the Aces held the advantage.[3]
Richthofen met Oswald Boelcke again in August 1916, after another spell flying two-seaters on the Eastern Front. Boelcke was visiting the east in search of candidates for his newly formed Jasta 2, and he selected Richthofen to join this unit, one of the first German fighter squadrons.[21] Boelcke was killed during a midair collision with a friendly aircraft on 28 October 1916, and Richthofen witnessed the event.[21]
His brother Lothar (40 victories) used risky, aggressive tactics, but Manfred observed a set of maxims known as the "Dicta Boelcke" to assure success for both the squadron and its pilots.[24] He was not a spectacular or aerobatic pilot like his brother or Werner Voss; however, he was a noted tactician and squadron leader and a fine marksman. Typically, he would dive from above to attack with the advantage of the sun behind him, with other pilots of his squadron covering his rear and flanks.
On 23 November 1916, Richthofen shot down his most famous adversary, British ace Major Lanoe Hawker VC, described by Richthofen as "the British Boelcke".[25] The victory came while Richthofen was flying an Albatros D.II and Hawker was flying the older DH.2. After a long dogfight, Hawker was shot in the back of the head as he attempted to escape back to his own lines.[26] After this combat, Richthofen was convinced that he needed a fighter aircraft with more agility, even with a loss of speed. He switched to the Albatros D.III in January 1917, scoring two victories before suffering an in-flight crack in the spar of the aircraft's lower wing on 24 January, and he reverted to the Albatros D.II or Halberstadt D.II for the next five weeks.
Richthofen received the Pour le Mérite in January 1917 after his 16th confirmed kill, the highest military honour in Germany at the time and informally known as "The Blue Max".[33] That same month, he assumed command of Jasta 11, which ultimately included some of the elite German pilots, many of whom he trained himself, and several of whom later became leaders of their own squadrons. Ernst Udet belonged to Richthofen's group and later became Generaloberst Udet. When Lothar joined, the German high command appreciated the propaganda value of two Richthofens fighting together to defeat the enemy in the air.[34]
Richthofen took the flamboyant step of having his Albatros painted red when he became a squadron commander. His autobiography states: "For whatever reasons, one fine day I came upon the idea of having my crate painted glaring red. The result was that absolutely everyone could not help but notice my red bird. In fact, my opponents also seemed to be not entirely unaware [of it]".[35] Thereafter he usually flew in red-painted aircraft, although not all of them were entirely red, nor was the "red" necessarily the brilliant scarlet beloved of model- and replica-builders.
Richthofen led his new unit to unparallelled success, peaking during "Bloody April" 1917. In that month alone, he shot down 22 British aircraft, including four in a single day,[37] raising his official tally to 52. By June, he had become the commander of the first of the new larger "fighter wing" formations; these were highly mobile, combined tactical units that could move at short notice to different parts of the front as required. Richthofen's new command, Jagdgeschwader 1, was composed of fighter squadrons No. 4, 6, 10, and 11. J.G. 1 became widely known as "The Flying Circus" due to the unit's brightly coloured aircraft and its mobility, including the use of tents, trains, and caravans, where appropriate.
By 1918, Richthofen had become such a legend that it was feared that his death would be a blow to the morale of the German people.[50] He refused to accept a ground job after his wound, stating that "every poor fellow in the trenches must do his duty" and that he would therefore continue to fly in combat.[51] Certainly he had become part of a cult of officially encouraged hero-worship. German propaganda circulated various false rumours, including that the British had raised squadrons specially to hunt Richthofen and had offered large rewards and an automatic Victoria Cross to any Allied pilot who shot him down.[52] Passages from his correspondence indicate he may have at least half-believed some of these stories himself.[53]
The body was buried in the cemetery at the village of Bertangles, near Amiens, on 22 April 1918. Six of No. 3 Squadron's officers served as pallbearers, and a guard of honour from the squadron's other ranks fired a salute.[j]
For decades after World War I, some authors questioned whether Richthofen had achieved 80 victories, insisting that his record was exaggerated for propaganda purposes. Some claimed that he took credit for aircraft downed by his squadron or wing.
At various times, several different German military aviation Geschwader (literally "squadrons"; equivalent to Commonwealth air force "groups", French escadrons or USAF "wings") have been named after the Baron:
Captain Roy Brown donated the seat of the Fokker triplane in which the German flying ace made his final flight to the Royal Canadian Military Institute (RCMI) in 1920.[84]Apart from the triplane's seat, the RCMI, in Toronto, also holds a side panel signed by the pilots of Brown's squadron.The engine of Richthofen's Dr.I was donated to the Imperial War Museum in London, where it is still on display. The museum also holds the Baron's machine guns. The control column (joystick) of Richthofen's aircraft can be seen at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra.The Australian National Aviation Museum has what is suspected to be the fuel tank of Richthofen's Dr.I, however there is no conclusive proof. 2ff7e9595c
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