• an old black and white photo of a man with a turban
    MvR te bed in het Sint-Niklaasziekenhuis (Lazaret 76) te Kortrijk. (picture source: Marke 2 Wereldoorlog 1)

MvR wounded in the back of the head

Event ID: 374

Categories: 

Relocation & trips
Deutsch
Die Erinnerungen der Mutter des roten Kampffliegers Kunigunde Freifrau von Richthofen. Im Verlag Ullstein - Berlin, 1937.

06 July 1917

50.816141687498735, 3.2403333562695864
Markebeke
Marke

Source ID: 10

Die Erinnerungen der Mutter des roten Kampffliegers Kunigunde Freifrau von Richthofen. Im Verlag Ullstein - Berlin, 1937. p.  125 

‘We were just in Hamburg – Lothar was being driven next to us in a wheelchair – and we talked about how wonderful it was that Manfred hadn’t been shot yet. He seemed immune to the bullets; once a shot went through his two fur boots, another time through his aviator scarf, another time through his fur and leather jacket – but it never scratched his skin. We remember that a whole legend had been spun around the unharmed German master aviator, the kind of legend that is well suited to novels. In the French trenches and dugouts, in the canteens and stages, it was mysteriously reported that in the red aeroplane (the ‘diable rouge’, as it was superstitiously called) there was no man at all, but – a virgin, a Joan of Arc of the skies. While we were exchanging thoughts about the invulnerability that seemed to have been predestined by fate, a report arrived that abruptly dashed our hopes. Manfred had been wounded in the back of the head. The skull bone had been smashed in, exposing a piece the size of a five-marker. – How had it all come about? It must have been close to life. Only gradually did the details of his injury begin to form a complete picture. On 6 July, Manfred had blocked the path of a squadron of bombers, cutting off their retreat. They could no longer escape him. He watched leisurely as the English observers began to fire; he didn’t even take the safety off his machine guns. At that moment he was hit in the back of the head. It must have gone dark around him; the shot had numbed his optic nerve. He tried to raise his head to the sun, feeling its heat burning his face, but when he opened his eyes, he didn’t even see a speck of white. A thick pair of black glasses seemed to clamp down on his eyes. A savage fusion of all the energy. Once again, his blind eyes searched for the sun’s disc of fire, his eyelids twitched and, with a last, mighty effort, a pale brightness entered his field of vision. The aircraft makes an emergency landing – why doesn’t the Englishman follow! – Torn crater terrain spreads out in the depths, his strength wanes, another black wall pushes itself in front of his eyes. The plane coasts to a halt, Manfred tries to get up from his seat and get out, falling helplessly to the ground; quickly rushing crews wrap his head with their bandages. The last sensation he has is that his head is lying on a thistle, its thorns penetrating his skin. He no longer had the strength to roll down. In the field hospital, the doctors discover that the wound is about 10 cm long, but that the skull bone is exposed and that there was also a concussion. Manfred reports with a quickly reawakened sense of humour: ‘It’s good to have a stubborn head in life.’’

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