Talk:Lothar von Richthofen

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I do not believe the story about Lothar shooting down Ball to be true. I believe Ball was killed when he flew past machine-gunner placed in a clock tower. Can someone please check the validity of that claim? Perhaps it was just propaganda?

There are many versions with regards to Ball's death. One is the machine gun story as you mentioned. An other is that Ball and Richthofen did indeed face eachother in Ball's final fight. Both planes went down after the dogfight, Ball died, Richthofen survived. Although Germany officially credited Lothar von Richthofen with downing Ball, there was little or no evidence to substantiate the claim.

Moments before Ball's plane crashed, Leutnant Hailer, a German officer on the ground, witnessed Ball's undamaged aircraft emerge alone from the clouds, 200 feet above the ground in an inverted position with a dead prop. So most likely Ball encountered engine failure and simply crashed killing him. Nonentheless the Germans officially credited Lothar with Ball's killing so it should be mentioned but perhaps with a proviso as to the doubts.

Given the eye witness account, I personally, subscribe to the latter version - Ball engaged a German plane, got lost in the clouds and got disoriented, probably stalled and encountered engine trouble and then crashed... Why don't I subscribe to the machine gun theory? According to several sources, neither Ball's bodily remains nor the plane did show "battle damage" (in other words; bullet holes)... As to the identity of the German pilot... he was from Richthofen's flying circus... that's for sure but wether it was really Lothar is an other matter as some say that Lothar was recovering from battle wounds at the time of Ball's death and was thus inactive. --fdewaele 10 January 2006, 21:30 CET

BTW please sign your comments --fdewaele 10 January 2006, 21:31 CET

[edit] Post-War Airplane Crash

I've added that Georg died in the crash.

65.255.147.8 (talk) 05:25, 14 April 2008 (UTC)