Manfred von Richthofen

The "Red Baron" was a German fighter pilot during World War I. His actual name was Baron Manfred von Richthofen. He flew a bright red Fokker Albtross airplane, and is credited with over 80 "kills", the number of enemy aircraft shot down, and 127 personnel killed. Almost instantly, his fame spread as the French talked about a "Red Devil", and others called the fearsome pilot the "Red Knight or Red Baron".

Walter Mitty and Snoopy

James Thurber wrote a famous story entitled The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, in which a mild-mannered man has heroic daydreams while running shopping errands for his wife. In one of them, he imagines himself a World War I pilot in the RAF fighting Von Richthofen's Flying Circus.

In Charles M. Schulz's Peanuts cartoons, the beagle Snoopy, in a reference to Walter Mitty, is constantly daydreaming of being a World War I flying ace and fighting the Red Baron.

Then, in 1966, The Royal Guardsmen recorded a hit song entitled "Snoopy Vs. The Red Baron" which retells Schulz's story in song lyric form:

  Now, Snoopy had sworn that he'd get that man
  So he asked the Great Pumpkin for a new battle plan
  He challenged the German to a real dogfight
  While the Baron was laughing, he got him in his sight....