Robert Buie of Brooklyn and the Red Baron
Robert Buie was an oyster fisherman from Brooklyn who took part in the shooting down of the legendary Red Baron. The Red Baron was the German fighter pilot, Manfred von Richthofen, the greatest air ace of the First World War. His death has always been surrounded in controversy.
Robert Buie, who was born in 1893, enlisted in the Australian Army in October 1916 and sailed for France in January the following year. On the morning of 21 April 1918, Buie was in the trenches of the Somme, serving in the 53rd Battery of the 14th Brigade of the Australian Field Artillery. He was manning a Lewis gun with a makeshift telescopic sight. In the skies above, the Red Baron and his ‘Flying Circus’ of triplanes were engaged in a dogfight with fighters from the Royal Air Force. Having recently claimed his record eightieth victim, the Red Baron was seeking another, pursuing the plane of Lieutenant Wilfred May. Captain Roy Brown, a Canadian flying with the RAF, was in turn pursuing Richthofen, who in the excitement of the dogfight went dangerously low over Australian lines.
Buie later reported that the Red Baron chased May directly towards his position. As the planes approached, Buie opened fire. Buie reported that he hit his target at a range of forty yards, at which point Richthofen stopped firing on May. The red triplane then passed overhead, losing speed and altitude, before crashing in a field. At the time no one knew who the pilot was, but word soon reached Buie that the Red Baron had been found on board, killed by a single bullet through the chest.
Though his military comrades acclaimed Buie as the man who shot down the Red Baron, the RAF ensured official credit went to Roy Brown, who received a bar on his Distinguished Service Cross in recognition. This decision attracted immediate controversy, which has raged ever since. Moreover, the bullet’s trajectory was upwards, while Brown had been swooping down. Brown himself never strongly asserted his claim and later commented, ‘As far as I am concerned, I know in my own mind what happened, and the war being over, the job being done, there is nothing to be gained by arguing back and forth as to who did this and who did that.’
Though Buie always maintained his claim, it should be noted that some historians believe the fatal shot was fired by another Australian, a machine-gunner called Cedric Popkin, as the Red Baron manoeuvred to avoid Buie’s bullets.
Buie never received any decoration or official recognition. He was recommended for a Meritorious Service Medal for saving the life of the Canadian pilot, Lieutenant May, although it was not awarded. In August 1918, he was hospitalised with a heart condition and was subsequently medically discharged from the army. He died on Anzac Day, 1964, while fishing on the Hawkesbury.
Robert Buie was recommended for the Meritorious Service Medal on 23 April 1918 but the granting of the award was never approved.
Drawing of a group of Royal Flying Corp Sopwith Camels. The type flown by the Canadian pilot Captain Brown, one of the claimants to who killed the Red Baron.
The following is a letter from the Medical Officer, who examined the body of the Red Baron to the Australian War Historian Charles Bean.
Oct 23 1935
My dear Bean,
With reference to your letter of October 14th. asking for information.
I was inspecting this Air Force Unit and found the medical orderly washing Richthofen's body so I made an examination. There were only two bullet wounds, one of entry, one of exit of a bullet that had evidently passed through the chest and the heart. There was no wound of the head but there was considerable bruising over the right jaw which may have been fractured. The orderly told me that the consulting surgeon of the Army had made a post-mortem in the morning and I asked how he did it as there was no evidence. The orderly told me that the cons. surgeon used a bit of fencing wire which he had pushed along the track of the wound through over the heart. I used the same bit of wire for the same purpose so you see the medical examination was not a thorough one and not a post mortem exam in the ordinary sense of the term. The bullet hole in the side of the plane coincided with the wound through the chest and I am sure he was shot from below while banking.
I sent a full report to General Birdwood at Australian Corps and I have often wondered what became of it.
With kind regards,
Yrs sincerely
George W. Barber
Phillip Ruddock Federal Member for Berowra unveils a plaque commemorating Robert Buie in Brooklyn Park, New South Wales.
