The Red Baron

Albert Ball Red Baron (Albert Ball)

The girl wore a pale yellow linen dress and her hair was so thick in heavy rolled plaits - she had just put it up - that it framed her face beautifully under a large yellow hat. Within minutes of their meeting at Shenley airfield, Albert had asked her if she would like to take a 'flip' in his aeroplane. To the horror of her mother, she agreed.

Flora Young was 17 years old, lived at St. Albans, and was doing 'land work' for the army. Albert fell in love with her, wholly and ardently, writing to her everyday. He called her 'Bobs'. It caused great excitement amongst the local villagers and Albert was teased mercilessly in the mess.

On Good Friday, the day he was due to leave for France, he gave her his gold identity bracelet and she gave him a new one, along with a pocket edition of R.L.Stevenson's prayers. It was taken for granted they were engaged. In the evening she sang him his favourite song Thank God for a Garden, over and over again. The next morning, before flying to France, he sat in his aeroplane and scribbled her a brief note: 'God bless you, dear.'

France Again

At Vert Garland aerodrome near Amiens, Captain Ball was given an SE5. He didn't like it. He wrote home: 'They have put on an SE5 and simply won't let me get back to a Nieuport.' Somehow he arranged to have tea with General Trenchard who was doing his rounds of the aerodromes. The result was that in addtion to his SE5, Ball was given a Nieuport. The General later wrote: 'I realised he was quite out of the ordinary.'

Underway was the Battle of Arras. The Allies were employing new tactics of elastic defence with short jumps forward by artillery and infantry which made life difficult for observation aircraft. There was ceaseless strife in air and the Germans were making heroic efforts to gain supremacy.

Squadron Members Red Baron

Rittmeister Manfred von Richthofen, known as the 'Red Baron', led his own formation of picked fighter planes that were painted red. (Pictured right) the Red Baron is surrounded by members of his squadron and his dog 'Moritz.' In March and April he alone accounted for 30 British planes over the Arras front. Where Captain Ball's actions inspired confidence in the British and French, Baron Richthofen inspired the Germans to greater efforts.

Special Mark

Still employing the same motto, 'Attack Everything', Ball flew from dawn to dusk. Within two weeks he had accounted for 10 enemy planes with one miraculous escape when all his controls were shot up by shrapnel - he landed by winding his adjustable tail plane up and down! Albert must have realised he was the special mark of the German Air Force. On one occasion when quite alone, he was attacked by 5 enemy machines. After destroying two of them, he let himself fall vertically in a 'Death-Leap' and stopped his fall 10 yards from the ground. One of the German machines following crashed into the ground. Quickly soaring above the other two, he destroyed one of them before the other fled away.

On 28 April his diary read: 'Got up at 5.30 a.m. Dud day, so worked in the garden. Got garden ready to set peas. Went on patrol at night, attacked four Huns, brought one down. Had my control shot away but got home OK. General came and congratulated me.'

On that same day he wrote home: 'It is all trouble and it is getting on my mind. Am feeling very old just now. Well to top the lot; last night the Squadron gave a concert . . . All went well until 10 p.m. when the fire bell rang. I rushed out. Oh, try to picture my delight when I saw my hut, greenhouse and bathroom all on fire. Well, I had a double fit but that did not put the fire out.'

New Tactics

At the end of April, Trenchard asked Ball if he would like a fortnight's rest in England. Ball declined and resolved to stay the month in France. He was bringing down German machines at the rate of two a day. The Germans adopted new tactics. They combined groups of planes together for massed fighting, promptly nicknamed by the RFC pilots as 'Richthofen's Circus.' But they suffered from lack of team work and were too ready to break up under attack, a weakness Ball exploited.

There was no need to search for the Germans now, the air was full of them. The RFC policy was to meet the German challenge by fighting them out of the sky. Each night Ball returned from patrol exhausted. He was described by a Spanish correspondent on a visit to the Front: 'Two Captains of the RFC arrived. One of them was still a boy, short, unkempt, with staring eyes, and shy looking. Captain Ball, like so many of his compatriots was unable to put much eloquence into his conversation - he spoke of his bag of 42 as if he were half-ashamed of having destroyed them.'

Last Letters

On 5 May he wrote his last letter to Flora: 'Oh, won't it be nice when all this beastly killing is over, and we can just enjoy ourselves and not hurt anyone. I hate this game, but it is the only thing one must do just now . . . When I am happy I dig in the garden and sing.'

Later that same day, he was on patrol near Lens when an Albatros came for him head on, firing both guns. Ball opened up with his Vickers, continuous fire. The German's fire struck his engine which spurted oil all over him. Blinded in that second, Albert gave himself up as dead, but nothing happened. His engine was still firing and he climbed away, wiped the oil from his goggles to find that the German had dived away at the last second and had crashed to the ground. All he could mutter on his return to base was: 'I was certain he meant to ram me. God is very good to me. God must have me in His keeping.'

Just before midnight he wrote his last letter to his father; it had an almost fatalistic note: 'Don't work too hard, Dad, for it will be so rotten when I come home if you cannot share my happiness . . . Please give my dear mother a huge cheerio for me, and tell her I am doing my best for her . . . Do send me a few plants for my garden . . . One of the Huns tried to ram me after he was hit, and only missed by inches . . . Oh! I do get tired of always having to kill, and am beginning to feel like a murderer. Shall be so pleased when I have finished.'

His last letter was written the following day to his sister Lois: 'Received your topping letter and cake. It is so good of you to think of me so much. Today we drew lots for leave, and I came out last, but Lol, it was a sporting chance . . . I made my 42nd Hun yesterday, so am now four in front of the French . . . Was shot down yesterday, so am getting a new machine today. Must close now - Tons of Love, Albert.'

Last Patrol

Richthofen Brothers At 5.30 p.m. on 7 May 17, in heavy clouds and rain, a patrol of 10 British aircraft took off, crossed the trenches and split into three flights led by Captains Ball, Crowe and Meintjes. After leaving a cloud bank behind, they encountered a formation of hostile aircraft led by Lothar von Richthofen, the younger brother of Manfred, 'The Red Baron' both pictured right.

Zooming, diving and rolling at 100 m.p.h., the three flights engaged the red Albatroses in a chaotic dog-fight. Within the heavy clouds they lost and found each other again. Captain Ball attacked a red Albatros but for some reason when within firing distance he pulled out.

Captain Meintjes outmanoeuvred a red Albatros and shot it down, but when he attacked another he had his control lever shot off and his arm smashed by fire from the Albatros. In great pain he managed to land his plane before he fainted.

Lieut. Rhys-Davies was forced to land in a field after his guns jammed, his engine shot up and his undercarriage shot away.

After making a wide circling turn 2nd Lieut. Chaworth-Musters disappeared into the clouds. Lieut. Leach peppered an Albatros with fire and forced it to withdraw but was then wounded in the leg. Fortunately he succeeded in landing near a Canadian hospital.

Captain Crowe went on to attack a German machine above him which climbed away. The light was now very bad and rapidly worsening in the rain and thick clouds. Crowe spotted Ball's SE5, followed it, saw Ball go into a dive and then open fire at a German single-seater below him. Captain Ball and the German went eastward fighting before disappearing into a heavy bank of cloud. Captain Crowe followed but when he came through to clearer sky he could see nothing of Ball or his opponent. Captain Ball failed to return that night.

'Missing'

A few days later, still anxiously waiting for news, Major Blomfield, CO of 56 Squadron, dropped requests behind German lines for news of Captain Ball and Lieut. Charworth-Musters, his other missing officer. The British and French newspapers began to speculate wildly as to Albert Ball's fate. On 18 May Captain Albert Ball was officially posted 'Missing' and Major-General Trenchard, RFC Commanding Officer, wrote a sympathetic letter of regret to Captain Ball's father.

On 1 June a cylinder containing a message was dropped behind British lines by the Germans: 'Captain Ball was killed on May 7th by a pilot of equal skill and is buried at Annoellin, north of Lens in the locality in which his last fight took place.' Making no contact with the British, the Germans had given Captain Ball a full military funeral in the cemetery at Annoellin and the grave marked with a white wooden cross.

Ball's machine had been completely wrecked and later inquiries through the Red Cross disclosed that he was killed outright and did not suffer. Three months short of his 21st birthday he had gone out in the fading light and never returned.

Lothar von Richthofen claimed to have shot down Captain Ball. His combat report read: 'On May 7th I had combat with many triplanes. One of them attacked me in a determined manner. We fired a great deal at each other, and during the combat came very close. He came down under my fire. My machine was damaged, and I landed with a dead prop. near the hostile machine.'

Victoria Cross

'For the most conspicuous and consistent bravery ', Captain Albert Ball was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross on 8 June 1917. Captain Ball was also awarded the Legion d'Honneur, Croix de Chevalier and the Russian Order of St. George.

A memorial service was held on 10 June at St. Mary's Church, Nottingham. Enormous, silent crowds watched the procession. Albert's brother Cyril, himself a pilot in the RFC and later taken prisoner behind the German lines, attended. Their mother, prostrate with grief, did not. She never did recover.

A Mansfield collier, serving in the 'Sherwood Foresters', later related how his company was pinned down by cross-fire in 'no man's land' after going over the top. A young officer shouted: 'Remember Captain Ball, Sherwoods!' and bravely led them in a charge to take the German trenches.

Memorial Statue No more fitting place for the statue of Captain Ball could be found than the grounds of Nottingham Castle where bygone ages have witnessed many a dour struggle. Behind the bronze figure of Captain Ball stands the figure of a woman representing the air with robes and hair wind tossed, having one hand pointing to the sky, and the other resting on the bare-headed airman's shoulder.

'The most daring, skilful, and successful pilot the Royal Flying Corps has ever had.'

Major-General Trenchard.

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