'Kaputt'

"Ernest Twycross' son had taken his father on a mostalgic visit to the old battlefields of France in June 1970, and upon reaching the Corbie-Bray road the old soldier asked his son to stop and he looked out across the field in front of the brickworks: "I did not know why he wanted to visit this area, and, after stopping the car he said they had had a forward OP near here (pointing to the fields next to the road) and: 'we used to thether our mules along this road with chains' he said. He then told me that he and his officer witnessed a fight between three aircraft, two RAF and one German Triplane. My father said the Triplane appeared to be in trouble and he and his officer watched it force land under control by the side of the road. As the aircraft appeared to have landed intact my father was sent to capture the pilot and aircraft before the pilot destroyed it. My father had no idea who the pilot was. He arrived at the aircraft which in my father's own words, had come to rest against a pile of 'mangel wurzles'. The pilot was still alive and my father's intent was to capture him and to get him out of the cockpit because of the smell of petrol and the engine was ticking as it cooled down. The pilot gurgled or gasped: '...kaput' and died. He said the words sounded like 'War es kaput' but with the noise around he couldn't be sure, but 'kaput' came into it. A few moments later Australian troops and an officer arrived and my father left the site. It was only afterwards that he learnt that the pilot was von Richthofen, a famous German aviator.""