Manfred von Richthofen was born on May 2, 1892 in Breslau, Germany as the son of Major Albrecht von Richthofen, a Prussian nobleman and his wife, Kunigunde. Manfred was the eldest of three sons. At the age of eleven he was enrolled into the military school at Wahlstatt and then attended the Royal Military Academy at Lichterfelde. Manfred was a far better athlete than he was a scholar, and applied his horseback riding skills to become a cavalry officer. He was commissioned in April, 1911 in the 1st Regiment of Uhlans Kaiser Alexander III. H e was promoted to Lieutenant in 1912.
             However, twentieth century warfare had little use for mounted cavalry. The invention of the Maxim machine gun had led to the need for combat operations to be carried out from trenches dug into the country side. When war broke out in August, 1914, Richthofen looked to the air service for a new challenge. He initially joined the Fliegertruppe (air service) in 1915 as an observer because the training course was shorter and would get him to combat faster. After meeting Oswald Boelcke, who would remain his hero and idol, Manfred was committed to becoming a pilot. After only 24 hours of flight training from his friend, Oberleutnant Georg Zeumer, he made his first solo flight on October 10, 1915 but crashed his plane while attempting to land. By his own admission he was not a great pilot. In his book he expressed amusement at the fact that an opponent he brought down made a perfect landing while his attempt at the same feat, at the same time, was disastrous.
             In his second air combat, Richthofen exchanged fire with a French plane. Though this was against what he had been instructed to do. In this flight von Richthofen was supposed to be an observer of the dogfighting going on below him. The Allied plane dropped away and crashed, but Richthofen was not credited with the victory because the enemy plane crashed behind French lines and could not be conf...