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Victory 49

Event ID: 203

29 April 1917

50.28223949409612, 3.05403541048941
Near Lecluse
Lecluse

Source ID: 13

Under the guns of the Red Baron, Norman Franks, Hal Giblin and Nigel McCrery

ISBN: 9781898697275

Combat Report: 1205 hrs, Swamps near Lecluse, this side of the lines. Spad one-seater. No details concerning plane, as it vanished in a swamp. With several of my gentlemen, I attacked an English Spad group consisting of three machines. The plane I had singled out broke to pieces whilst curving and plunged, burning, into the swamp near Lecluse. Weather: fine.

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  1. source: Inside the victories of Manfred von richthofen – Volume 1, James F. Miller, Aeronaut Books, 2016

    l. The RFC Combat Casualties Report listed the SPAD serial number as “A. 1573.”

    2. The RFC Combat Casualties Report listed B. 1573’s machine gun as a “Lewis.”

    3. Richthofen’s autobiography Der Rote Kampfflieger described Applin’s downing: “My opponent was the first to fall, after I had shot his engine to pieces. In any case, he decided to land near us. I no longer know any mercy, landl for that reason I attacked him a second time,whereupon the aeroplane fell apart in my stream of bullets. The wings each fell away like pieces of paper and the fuselage went roaring down like a stone on fire.” Again, this account is consistent with Richthofen’s usual no-quarter modus operandi.

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