Red Baron showed signs of brain injury

COLUMBIA, Mo., Sept. 20 (UPI) -- The demise of Germany's World War I flying ace Baron Manfred von Richthofen may be partly attributable to an earlier brain injury, U.S. researchers said.

The so-called Red Baron was shot down and killed in 1917 and a research team from the University of Missouri-Columbia said evidence suggests he might not have put himself into a position to be killed had it not been for symptoms linked to a severe head injury he suffered nine months before his death.

The study, which is to be published this fall in the journal Human Factors and Aerospace Safety, concluded the baron showed personality and cognitive changes after the head wound that led to errors in judgment.

The researchers said von Richthofen was moody and disinhibited, common side effects of a brain injury, and did things he never would have before. He also exhibited "target fixation" the day he was shot down, locking a fleeing British pilot in his sights and pursuing him into British territory at tree line level, making himself an easy target to his enemy, the researchers said.