Von Richthofen belonged to the country gentry, of noble family. He entered the Cadet Corps when he was eleven years old. In 1911 he entered the Army. At the outbreak of the war he was a lieutenant of Uhlans. He went to the Western front with his regiment. His first experience with whistling bullets was when he and his company of Uhlans, out to ascertain the strength of the enemy in the forest near Virton, were caught in a trap. They fled in wild disorder, not without casualties. He was in the trenches before Verdun and found it “boresome.” When off duty he sought amusement shooting game in the forest of La Chaussée. So passed several months. Then one day he rebelled against inactivity. It was not the thing for which he went to war. He made his plea to the higher powers. With much grumbling his prayer was granted. He joined the Flying Service in May, 1915. He made his first flight the next day as an observer. Of that experience he wrote in his book: HIS FIRST FLIGHT “The draft from the propeller was a beastly nuisance. I found it quite impossible to make myself understood by the pilot. Everything was carried away by the wind. If I took up a piece of paper it disappeared. My safety helmet slid off. My muffler dropped off. My jacket was not sufficiently buttoned. In short, I felt very uncomfortable. Before I knew what was happening, the pilot went ahead at full speed and the machine started rolling. We went faster and faster. I clutched the sides of the car. Suddenly, the shaking was over, the machine was in the air and the earth dropped away from under me. “I had been told the name of the place to which we were to fly. I was to direct my pilot. At first we flew right ahead, then my pilot turned to the right, then to the left, but I had lost all sense of direction above our own aerodrome. I had not the slightest notion where I was!” He continued—with steadily increasing knowledge of aircraft—to serve as an observer until October 10, 1915, when, having passed his examination and been accepted as a pilot, he had the ecstasy of his first solo-flight. In his book (_The Red Battle Flyer_, translated by T. Ellis Barker, published by Robert M. McBride & Company), he describes that flight: