[mayfair35]

Jon,
I can only speak from my experiences, but I never heard of anyone deliberately shooting down a member of his squadron or group. By accident, yes. P-38s were notorious for shooting at any in-line single engine plane. We had the problem in our P-40s as well as with the P-51s. Aircraft recognition on occasion turned out to be a problem. I sat on the wing of one of our aces when he opened fire on one of our P-51s while a gaggle of Me-109s and our squadron were fighting. If I hadn’t yelled over the radio at him, I think he would have shot the P-51 down.

Our squadron had a particularly inept pilot assigned as our Squadron Commander. Note I did not say fighter pilot but just pilot. The first mission he led resulted in the unnecessary deaths of two of our pilots, and he was very reluctant to fly unless the Operations Officer insisted. Now if ever anyone would have liked to get rid of such a leader, it was us; but, no one would have contemplated trying to “execute” him.

I think you may have misunderstood “Fragging” in Viet Nam. From my experience, it was more likely done by a lower ranking member who felt the officer, often a 2nd Lt, was exposing them to too much danger by following his orders and attacking the enemy. Or perhaps the officer had disciplined one of his soldiers who intended to get “even”. I spent 3 ½ years flying 17 days a month in-country and my impression is that normally fragging was not because the individual was a bad leader but because he was attempting to establish military order among a group of unhappy dissidents. I have been wrong before, but that is the way I read it.

Art Fiedler