[Six Nifty .50s]

Originally Posted by Brian

16/11/44 two Beaufighters of 211 Squadron were shot down by P-38s from 459thFS flown by 1/Lts Vern L. Flanders and Walter H. Patton. Two crew were killed in one machine, the pilot survived from the second machine but his navigator died of wounds.

I found some more details:

" ... One of the first operations [from Chiringa], flown by Pilot Officer Trigwell and his navigator, Pilot Officer Chippendale, leading Flight Sergeant McDowall and Sergeant Cooper, ended in most unusual circumstances. They had been briefed to attack road transport on the Taungup Pass, between Taungup and Prome. Without warning they were attacked over the target area by two USAAF Lockheed P-38 Lightnings. Neither Beaufighter survived the attack, although Trigwell, after hitting a mangrove tree, was able to crash land his aircraft in about four feet of water. Triggy was uninjured, but Chips was badly wounded in the back by cannon shells and was unable to move. With much difficulty, Triggy was able to get Chips out. He recovered what he could of the medical supplies, including a few tubes of morphine and, by cutting up a parachute he was able to bandage the eight perforations in his navigator's back. That night, he bought a boat, but either he was betrayed by the Burmese or the Japanese had been able to locate the crashed aircraft, for they were taken prisoner just after dark. Chips died four days later whilst they were being transferred from the mangrove swamps to Taungup, and Triggy finally arrived in Rangoon as a prisoner of war on Christmas Eve 1944 ...
Triggy's camp had 1300 prisoners, 600 of whom were British, American and Dutch, and the rest Chinese and Indian. On 25th April, five months after becoming a prisoner of war, he was one of 400 whom the Japanese selected to be dressed in Japanese clothing and then marched north from Rangoon. On the fifth day when they were north of Pegu, the senior Allied prisoner of war, Brigadier Hobbs, informed the group that the Japanese commandant had left a letter with him saying that they were being freed and that 'they would meet us on the battlefield later'. The prisoners were now on their own and had the job of making contact with the advancing 14th Army, and their main problem being that they were dressed in Japanese clothing.
Over the five previous days they had been subject to considerable harassment by way of bombings and cannon strafing by RAF Mosquitos but suffered no casualties. Eventually, when they reached suitable terrain, they made from their clothing a large Union Jack and a message: '400 BRITISH POWS HERE PLEASE DROP RADIO'. In due course, they decided that RAF aircraft had spotted the signs but, much to their surprise, they suddenly found themselves being attacked by three Hurricanes with bombs and machine-guns with one unfortunate killing, that of Brigadier Hobbs ... "

See p.106-107, Innes, David. Beaufighters Over Burma: No. 27 Squadron, RAF, 1942-45. Blandford Press, 1985.