Foreign News: Von Richthofen

Time was when the flying super-ace, Baron Manfred von Richthofen, was as great a hero in German eyes as was Guynemer to the French.* Before his death he was credited with having brought down 80 Allied planes singlehanded, and the squadron which he commanded boasted of having wiped out 200.

German newspapers asserted during the War that the British Government had set a price of £5,000 (nearly $25,000) on his head. And when an English pilot finally shot him down, during a terrific battle between his squadron of 30 planes and 50 English machines, his death took news-precedence over even the Battle of the Somme.

Until recently the body of Baron von Richthofen has lain buried on French soil at Amiens, where it was interred by his enemies with full military honors on April 21, 1918. Now, however, it is to be brought back to the Fatherland, and on November 20 “all Germany will unite in a vast memorial service.”

Inclosed in a special sarcophagus, the body is to be re-interned in the famed Invaliden Churchyard at Berlin. It is reported that President von Hindenburg and, so far as possible, “every living German War hero” will participate in the funeral.

Observers recalled that Germany has no “unknown soldier”; remarked that it is apparently in-tended to raise up the shade of Baron von Richthofenas a titanic figure epitomizing German War-heroism.

*The “ace of aces,” up to the time of his death (Sept. 11, 1917), having shot down 53 planes. The Allied super-aces for the whole War period were: France, Lieutenant Rene Fonck (78 planes) ; Britain, Major E. W. Mannock (73 planes) ; the U. S-, Captain “Eddie” Rickenbacker (22 planes, 3 balloons). The tabulation of scores was accomplished under different rules by the various combatant countries. A rigid “comparison” is not possible.