Von Richthofen and Brown

Canadian Reporter:
Lieutenant Brown, the readers of the Toronto Star want to know about Canada's newest Ace.

Roy Brown:
What is there to know? I'm just a technician; I change things.

Canadian Reporter:
Change things?

Roy Brown:
Put a plane in front of me, with a man in it, I change them into a wreck and a corpse.

Canadian Reporter:
Well... well how do you like France?

Roy Brown:
It's a nice country, isn't it? Lots of my friends will be staying after the war.

Canadian Reporter:
Ah... how do you like the French girls, Lieutenant?

Roy Brown:
With both their arms and legs, I think.

Canadian Reporter:
[coughs]... the German planes, are they dangerous?

Roy Brown:
The Germans, they're dangerous. The planes, they're dangerous too. They kill as many Germans as we do, the same way ours do us.

Canadian Reporter:
But now that we outnumber the Germans, we're... we're winning, aren't we?

Roy Brown:
How in Christ's name do I know? I go out in the morning and try to stay alive till I run out of petrol. One day I come back and they tell me I'm an Ace.

Canadian Reporter:
But you've... you've shot down eight German planes!

Roy Brown:
Is it eight? God Almighty I thought it was a hundred. I keep shooting him down but he's always up there in the morning. How the hell do I know who's winning the war? One of these mornings...

Canadian Reporter:
One of these mornings, it'll all be over.

Roy Brown:
How can it be over? There's still some of us alive. They wouldn't end it with any of us alive, now would they?

Reporter:
You started the war as a cavalry officer, yeah?

Baron Manfred von Richthofen:
Yeah.

Reporter:
So, now, how does it feel to fly? To fight in the sky?

Baron Manfred von Richthofen:
My ancestors were Teutonic knights; I've merely exchanged my horse for an airplane.

Reporter:
[laughing] I see, so the flying is just a means to an end?

Baron Manfred von Richthofen:
The flying is wonderful! But it's the hunt that I find most satisfying: the stalking, the chase, and finally the kill. The climax.

Reporter:
Oh, so you enjoy it sir?

Baron Manfred von Richthofen:
What should I say? War is the father of nations. It makes them slaves or it makes them free. Victory brings with it a climax, a sense of fulfillment.

Reporter:
But the danger! Every day, every minute! While you are in the air...

Baron Manfred von Richthofen:
I never think of it. It's like the weather: always there. But when you hunt, you think about your hunting, don't you?

Roy Brown:
[Walking away from another pilot after an argument on the firing range, when the other officer turns his machine gun to Brown but does not use it] What's the matter? You can't shoot a man in the back if he's not in a plane?