1918 03 12 Lothar von Richthofen victories 28 and 29 - Mark Postlethwaite
On the morning of 12 March 1918, nine Bristol F2B fighter of No 61 Sqn, Royal Flying Corps, were intercepted by a flight of Fokker DrIs of Jasta 11, ... near Le Cateau. The triplanes were led by other than Manfred von Richthofen in DrI 152/17 accompanied by his brother Lothar in DrI 454/17 and Ltn Werner Steinhauser. At 1100 hrs the Fokkers stabbed into the formation Bristols. After watching his brother bring down one of the two-seaters, Lothar looked around for an opponent of his own:
' To that end there was one especially suited for me about 100 meters below the English squadron. I attacked him. I was flying ahead of my Staffel when I suddenly saw that I was surrounded by aircraft with English cockades. I made a long dive of about 100 meters in order to get out of that unpleasant company. One of them followed me down. At the same altitude, we flew toward one another, head-on. We approached each other with the great speed of over 400 km/h. Here, you must aim clean, otherwise you will get the worst of it.
' We rushed towards one another shooting. At the last moment I noticed I had hit him. A blazing aircraft whizzed by me. I pulled my machine around and made such a sharp turn that I was three-quarters on my back. A sea of fire in the form of an English airplane whistled right by me. The observer stood up and stared into the flames. Completely ablaze, the English machine made another turn. Both crewmen jumped out along the way.
In the running battle that followed, Lothar brought down another Bristol ten minutes later, and Steinhauser added one more to bring his personal tally to four. These victories contributed to a total of seven for the day by JG, the most legendary of all German fighter units of World War I
