[Six Nifty .50s]

Originally Posted by Six Nifty .50s

A few more personal remembrances from those at the sharp end...

May 1941
RAF Blenheims and FAA Fulmars were attacked by British Navy AA fire:

"... On Crete, we spent most of our time escorting convoys -- and I think I am right in saying that we never lost a ship. Escorting the Navy with fighter Blenheims was not funny, we looked too much like Ju88s. Despite approaching the convoy into the sun, line astern, undercarriage down, at 1,000 feet ahead of the convoy, furiously firing off the colour of the day, they still plastered us. And the sight of a cruiser such as HMS Carlisle letting rip with all its guns was not a pretty sight if you were on the wrong side of the barrel. It became quite dangerous ... we had one more go when the Fleet Air Arm, who had a couple of Fulmars there, said they would lead us out to a big convoy which had eight destroyers as escort, saying, "They never shoot at us". They did, and the Fulmars high-tailed it for home and were never seen again. In another incident, Flt Sgt Innes-Smith, flying a Blenheim, having established his identity with the convoy he was protecting, was turning to intercept an oncoming Dornier Do 17 onto which he had been 'vectored'. As he was closing to attack he was hit and nearly shot down by RN AA fire. Fortunately he just managed to crash-land back at Maleme! ..."
John Jarvis
30 Squadron, RAF

See p.60, Forty, George. Battle of Crete (London: Ian Allan Publishers, 2001).


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September 1943
USAAF A-36 fighter-bombers were attacked by British Navy AA fire and FAA Seafires during the Salerno landings; U.S. ground troops attacked by their own fighters:

" ... We took off from our landing ground at San Antonio, Sicily, at first light on 9 September 1943. Our assignment was to fly the Salerno-Agripoli patrol line as soon as we reached the beachhead. We proceeded to the north end of Salerno and then turned south ... About this time the sky turned white beneath me. The British Navy had fired a barrage of 40mm guns at us. At this time, Buzzy Sheftel, the controller on duty aboard the aircraft control ship, called me and said that our ships were firing at us. I replied to Buzzy that I knew that and that I thought I would move over and fly where the Germans were because the shooting was not as intense over there! ...
We had suspected that the British would be 'trigger happy'. During the Battle of Britain, the square wing tipped airplanes were the Me 109s and the round tipped airplanes were the Spitfires and Hurricanes. That thought was ingrained into the minds of the British. In 1943, the Me 109F and -G had round wing tips, the A-36A had square wing tips. Prior to the invasion of Salerno, we had sent an A-36 to Malta for the British to see. We had hoped they would realise that square wing tips were on our side now. We found out that it was the British Navy's policy to shoot at all airplanes that flew overhead. We did not receive an order or letter to that effect; we found out by getting shot at! We learned quickly...
Some British carriers were providing Seafire aircraft for the patrol line between Salerno and Capri. They lasted about a week! Word was that they damaged all of their aircraft trying to land on the carriers. They spent most of their time when they were aloft, attacking the other Allied aircraft which were also on patrol. At first, we took evasive action. Later, because of their vague idea of what constituted a 'curve of pursuit', we did not pay much attention to them. We figured that they needed the practice but they never seemed to get themselves into a position where they could do damage to another aircraft! ...
As for getting shot at by the Royal Navy, we got shot at as often by our own troops and we shot and dropped bombs on our own troops quite often. One day in the spring of 1944, we got a message from our higher Headquarters. It pointed out that there had been thirteen instances in one day where our airplanes had shot at or dropped bombs on our own troops. The next person who did it would face a court-martial. The following day, there were fourteen instances where we shot up our own troops!
The outcome of our getting shot at by the Royal Navy was that we were ordered not to attack a ship at sea in the Mediterranean. During the winter and spring of 1943-44 the Germans ran small boats and Siebel Ferries up and down the west coast of Italy. The Navy did not attack them and we did not give a damn whether they did or not, because we just bombed them when they reached a port ... "
Joseph Kelly
27th Fighter Bomber Group, USAAF

See p.121-123, Smith, Peter. Straight Down! The North American A-36 Dive-Bomber in Action (Manchester, UK: Crécy, 2000).

9 May 1943
" ... If the Royal Navy seemed 'trigger-happy' to Colonel Kelly it was with good reason. From Norway, through Dunkirk, Greece, Crete and numerous other occasions, the RAF had totally failed to protect them from the Luftwaffe and the assumption that anything in the sky was enemy, was hard to break. Nor had the arrival of the USAAF helped much. Earlier in the year, on 9 May 1943, while patrolling the Sicilian Channel to prevent German troops from escaping to Sicily, and with their decks painted British red to make recognition simple, two British destroyers, Bicester and Zetland, had been dive-bombed by fifteen American-flown Spitfires of the 57th Group. One bomb hit the Bicester on her starboard side, and it passed through her Chief and Petty Officers' mess into the after fuel tanks. Fortunately it failed to explode. Another was a near-miss alongside. A second wave of fifteen Spitfires then made another attack. The destroyer's captain, Lieutenant-Commander S. W. F. Bennetts ('...a former submarine officer, famed for extensive knowledge of the lesser used terms of the English language') overheard the American pilots talking on their radio telephones overhead after the attack. Tuning in his own set he joined in, calling them all the names he could think of without reservation. After listening in, one of the Americans was heard to remark to his colleague, 'Say I guess this guy's friendly!' What Bennetts said to that is not on record. See Cunningham of Hyndhope, A Sailor's Odyssey, London, 1951. On 12 May the captain, along with a party of two other officers and twenty ratings from the ship visited 57 Group to talk with their attackers face-to-face. They were 'hospitably-entertained' and Bennetts was told that the Americans concentrated on his ship as the leading vessel and had aimed tenty-five bombs at her. Bennetts commented 'It seemed like more at the time! HMS Bicester, Report of Proceedings May 1943. ADM 199, Public Record Office, Kew, London. See Peter Smith / Straight Down!, p.134-135 ... "

More to follow ... eventually.