[Tundra]

Futher to the inpuy from6 Nifty Fifties

January 1944
USAAF P-40 Warhawks accidentally strafed an RAF airfield near Trigno, Italy. Amount of damage and casualties if any were unspecified. See p.111, Bickers, Richard Townshend. Friendly Fire: Accidents in Battle from Ancient Greece to the Gulf War (London: Leo Cooper, 1994).


A quote from Robin Browns book on 112 Sqn RAF
Edited for clarity

On the 29th of April, 1944, Cutella airfield home to 112 Sqn was straffed by four USAAF P-47 Thunderbolts returning from an escort mission for Liberators and Fortresses bombing near Weiner Neustadh. Making landfall near Vasto the Americans, who were uncertain of their position, saw a Warhawk landing at Cutella. This machine carried a white spinner, unlike the normal red spinners of the RAF machines in the area at that time, and the Americans thought it was a Bf109, They came in line abreast, and opened fire. Three aircraft belonging to 260 and 450 Sqns were damaged and WO Roland C. Glew, DFM, of 293 Air-Sea Rescue Sqn detachment, was killed. Glew, who piloted a Walrus, was married and the father of three children, but what made this costly mistake particularly upsetting was that Glew had recently rescued a number of American aircrew who had ditched in the Adriatic, Later when the CO of the thunderbolt Group, which was based at Foggia, flew in to offer his apologies he was nearly lynched. All references to the incident where hushed up and personnel were forbidden tp write home about it and there is no mention of it in 112 Sqn records.


Others involving 112 Sqn aircraft

Kittyhawk Mk. I AK694/ GA Y, Sgt Cedric Don Young, 411490 RNZAF, 15/9/42, A/C shot down by own AA fire over point 878282, destroyed Homuth, pilot badly burned, 64th hospital stay did not return to 112 Sqn

31/10/40
Gladiator I, serial N/A,Plt Off Richard Alvin"Acky" Acworth,DFC, 40486 RAF, destroyed in collision in combat Mersa Matruh collided with E R Smith both had to bale out

Gladiator Mk I, 2/LT E R Smith SAAF, "C" Flight pilot, do not know his service number, A/C destroyed in combat collision Mersa Matruh collided with Acworth both baled out

Cheers Robert