Gottfried Freiherr[1] von Banfield (6 February 1890 – 23 September 1986) was the most successful Austro-Hungarian naval aeroplane pilot in the First World War.

Kriegsmarine and took part in the Battle of Vis as one of the commanders on Wilhelm von Tegetthoff's flagship, the Erzherzog Ferdinand Max.

[citation needed] Banfield was born 6 February 1890 in Herceg Novi, which is situated in the Bay of Kotor and was the homeport of an Austrian fleet.

[citation needed] He attended the military secondary school in Sankt Pölten, and the naval academy in Rijeka: on 17 June 1909 he emerged as cadet.

Once the Italians entered the war, he was commissioned with building up a larger seaplane station near Trieste, and after its completion was named as its commanding officer.

In April 1916, he successfully developed the first indigenously designed Austro-Hungarian fighter aircraft of the war by modifying his twin-seater Lohner Type M into a single-seater with a forward-facing, unsynchronized Schwarzlose machine gun bolted to the hull in front of the cockpit.

At the time of his death in 1986, Freiherr von Banfield was the last living Knight of the Military Order of Maria Theresa.

[6] After the First World War, the city of Trieste was annexed by Italy, and Freiherr von Banfield was for a time imprisoned by the occupation police.

They settled in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, where their son Raphael Douglas, known to the world as the composer Raffaello de Banfield Tripcovich, was born in 1922.