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i understood he was shot down an r.a.f.pilot called..rhys-davis.yours.starling.
Snoopy
After ninety years of controversy and contradictory hypotheses, exactly who fired the fatal shot remains uncertain.
The RAF credited Brown with shooting down the Red Baron. However, Richthofen died following an extremely serious and inevitably fatal chest wound from a single bullet, penetrating from the right armpit and resurfacing next to the left nipple. If this was from Brown's guns, Richthofen simply could not have continued his pursuit of May for as long as he did.[12] Brown himself never spoke much about what happened that day, claiming "There is no point in me commenting, as the evidence is already out there".
Most experts now believe that Richthofen was killed by someone on the ground.[12][14] The wound through his body indicated that it had been caused by a bullet moving in an upward motion, from the right side, and more importantly, that it was probably received some time after Brown's attack.[12]
Many sources, including a 1998 article by Dr. Geoffrey Miller, a physician and historian of military medicine, and also a U.S. Public Broadcasting Service documentary made in 2003, have suggested that Sergeant Cedric Popkin was the person most likely to have killed Richthofen.[12][14] Popkin was an anti-aircraft (AA) machine gunner with the Australian 24th Machine Gun Company, and was using a Vickers gun. He fired at Richthofen's aircraft on two occasions: first as the Baron was heading straight at his position, and then at long range from the right. Popkin stated — in a 1935 letter, which included a sketch map — to the Australian official war historian, that he believed he had fired the fatal shot as Richthofen approached his position. Such a shot would have been from directly in front of the aircraft and could not have been the one that resulted in the Baron's death. However, Popkin was well placed to fire the fatal shot when Richthofen passed him for a second time on the right.[12][14]
One source, a 2002 documentary produced by the Discovery Channel suggests that Gunner W. J. "Snowy" Evans, a Lewis machine gunner with the 53rd Battery, 14th Field Artillery Brigade, Royal Australian Artillery is likely to have killed von Richthofen.[13] However, Dr. Miller and the PBS documentary dismiss these theories.[12][14]
Other sources have suggested that Gunner Robert Buie (also of the 53rd Battery) may have fired the fatal shot. There is now little support for this theory.[12][14] Nevertheless, in March 2007, the municipality of Hornsby Shire, in Sydney, recognised Buie, a former resident, as the man who shot down Richthofen. The Shire placed a plaque near Buie's former home in the suburb of Brooklyn.[15] Buie, who died in 1964, has never been officially recognised in any other way.
The commanding officer of No. 3 Squadron AFC, Major David Blake suggested initially that Richthofen had been killed by the crew of one of his squadron's R.E.8s, which had also fought Richthofen's unit that afternoon. However, this was quickly disproved, and, following an autopsy that he witnessed, Blake became a strong proponent of the view that an AA machine gunner had killed Richthofen.
He landed the plane intact before dying, right. (I remember hearin on a doccumentary that his plane was burned afterward but according to wikipedia it was picked apart for souvenirs)