On this day in 1973, Mrs N.P. Gomme from Sydney, arrived in Canberra to present the Australian War Memorial with the telescopic gunsight from the notorious red triplane of Manfred von Richthofen who was more commonly known as the Red Baron.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
or signup to continue reading
Mrs Gomme's husband, Oswald Dawes Gomme, served as a corporal for the 44th Battalion in France when the german ace, who has shot down about 80 enemy aircraft, was shot down himself. Mr Gomme had died in March and it was his wish for the gunsight to be provided to the memorial.
Mrs Gomme recalled her husband's account of events that fateful day. She said "they were preparing to bivouac for the night, as they had been in battle that day, when the machine guns around them commenced to fire at a red aircraft in the sky above them".
As the machine guns were firing, a shout went up that the red baron had been hit and shot down. Unsurprisingly, everyone headed to towards the crash site and Von Richthofen was found fatally wounded beside his aircraft.
Mrs Gomme stated "my husband said he was a very handsome man, in his middle 20s". The soldiers then took various parts of the aircraft as souvenirs and rushed back behind their lines to dodge the heavy enemy gunfire that had erupted.
The Germans were extremely displeased their hero had been brought down and began firing recklessly at them. Mrs Gomme shared "my husband always thought it was an Australian machine gun that brought him down".
Mrs Gomme said her husband, perhaps surprisingly, admired the prowess and skill of the Baron who had fought for his country. "As much as the men wanted the Baron's reign to end, they respected and admired him and that recognition extends beyond national boundaries," she said.
The Australian War Memorial is dedicated to all who have died during war.
