|
Re: Friendly Fire
Most of the time, friendly fire in the air was due to the attacking pilot not recognizing an Allied aircraft until too late (or not at all).
There are few cases, if any, of a pilot actually recognizing a friendly aircraft but attacking it because it did not fire the colors of the day.
There are still cases where people fired at a friendly aircraft knowing fully it was friendly, but that was defensive fire (that could still be lethal) after repeated attacks.
On the other hand, both sides reported many stories where captured aircraft were used by the other side to launch attacks. Most of these cases are bad identifications of attacking aircraft, or good identification but friendly aircraft attacking the wrong (friendly) target. Using captured aircraft in battle is both dangerous (both sides will fire on you) and difficult (for maintenance and training reasons). AFAIK only Finland did it on a relatively large scale... because they had no other choice. Most other air forces will use captured aircraft in the rear area or in clandestine operations to drop agents.
|