It’s a cool, misty morning in April 1918 at the Jagdstaffel 11 airfield in Cappy. The Staffel’s morning flight of colorful triplanes has just been rolled out and positioned for takeoff. Among them, the blood-red Fokker DRI belonging to the commander of Jagdgeschwader I, Baron Manfred von Richthofen, receives some last-minute attention from its ground crew. As the overcast lifts, the famous – or infamous – Red Baron himself engages in a little preflight repartee and gives final orders to the pilots who will fly into combat with him. A morning much like the one pictured here, von Richthofen would lose his life in combat over the Somme, on April 21.
