SWP Friendly Fire

[Franek Grabowski]

Hello

Bungay said that he examined the record personally. He probably tapped into several sources for information.
What reference are you working from?

Well, I have not found any statistics nor anything in that kind but my access to ex-PRO is quite limited, so I did no extensive search there. Procat did not return too many matching documents, however. My sources are publications and such documents like ORBs or PCRs.

I have another candidate. Maybe you have read that the L-5 observation plane carrying General George S. Patton came under attack by an RAF fighter on April 20th, 1945. According to his diary entry (see THE PATTON PAPERS) the RAF pilot made several passes and on the last, failed to pull out of a dive and crashed. Patton wrote that the plane appeared to be a Spitfire, and that the pilot may have been a Polish flyer with one of the RAF squadrons.

No Polish fighter was lost on 20 April 1945 but I recall a story by a Pole who could have been the pilot. His comment was - he was bl**dy lucky I was not an American.

BTW you might want to read the following article about E.J.B.
Nicolson, the only fighter pilot to win a Victoria Cross during World War II.

Yes, I know the story but not sure if it fits into my table. Another well known pilot killed similar way was Ortmans and I recall there was a well known French pilot killed in 1940 by a Belgian(?) shuttle operator.