New Discovery Channel Film Challenges 'Roy Brown' Answer

On the morning of April 21, 1918, Baron von Richthofen took a single bullet to the chest, crashed, and went into history as the greatest Ace of World War I. Just whose gun fired that bullet has been a mystery ever since.

Most of the forensic evidence surrounding the crash was destroyed or stolen by souvenier-hunters; and the Red Baron's body did not retain the bullet, so the absolute, hard evidence we'd all feel comfortable with just doesn't exist.

However...

For years, the Canadian pilot, Roy Brown, was given, if not an imprimatur, at least a conscious nod, by military historians. Brown himself thought he had probably been the one, as he fired "a long burst" at what he thought was von Richthofen's mount, to shoot the triplane off "Wop" May's Camel. A new Discovery Channel piece, though, challenges that theory, and points out that, among other things, Brown's plane was probably on the other side of von Richthofen's plane -- the side the bullet did not come from.

There was a guy on the right side, though, an Australian with a machine gun, named "Snowy" Evans. The new film gives him approval to wear the crown as the man who took out the 25-year-old Ace of Aces, over Vaux sur Somme.

The evidence used to move the credit from Brown, who died in 1944, to Evans consists of more than that entry wound. (After all, the Fokker was reported to have been corkscrewing around a lot that cloudy morning.) Re-enactments of what is known of the dogfight, using computer graphics and laser "guns," points to the infantryman as the most-likely hero that morning.

Captain Brown, ever a gentleman and never himself definitively claiming that most-famous bullet of the war, would be pleased that science is trying to truly pin down the essence of that battle.

FMI: www.discoverychannel.com