[Laurent Rizzotti]

Hello,

In the morning of 3 March 1945, an unit of the 10th US Moutain Division was bombed by an aircraft before the division attacks. Here is what reports an US soldier:
"March 3, 1945, was when my number came up, because the Germans wanted back the exact section of the Apennine Mountains I happened to be stationed in. And the engineers were putting in some kind of a bridge there while I stood by with ammo. I had received my K ration and was trying to heat up a can of food, whatever it was, and that’s the last thing I remember before a captured American plane painted black that looked like our guys flew right over and decimated my area. That German tactic killed 14 in the 10th Mountain, and 24 were wounded, and I was one. I’ve been told I was blown out of a building and suffered a concussion and nervous disorientation. I can’t remember that moment, it’s all blanked out. The only reason I knew about any of this stuff is because I get flashbacks from time to time."

My first ID while reading it was that it was another case of "friendly fire", with an Allied pilot bombing the unit, but I have read in the book "Air War Italy 1944-1945" that Fw 190 of 1./NSGr. 9 were active that day, doing at least three attack sorties in the evening (and losing one aircraft and the Staffelkapitan killed in a fight vs P-47s).

Such a Fw 190 will probably be in dark color and so can be reported as painted black, and I guess we can forgive an US infantryman to not recognize the aircraft that bombed him: in Italy in 1944-45, he sure saw much more American aircraft than German ones, especially Fw 190s as they were fairly new in Italy (the witness above reached Italy after the Fw 190s left Italy in mid-1944).

But it is just a guess, so here is my question: is there a trace of a German sortie in the morning of 3 March 1945 on the Italian front ? The evening sortie was intercepted by P-47s and so was probably a daylight/dusk sortie rather than a night one, so a dawn/morning sortie could have been possible.

Thanks in advance.