Friendly fire WWII

[Brian]

Nice to hear from you again Six-Nifty .50s

Yes, a most unusual incident. I will research further. Many thanks

Cheers
Brian

[Dave Wallace]

My father's crew had a friendly fire incident on the approach to Rostock when they were shot up by the Stirling just in front of them, wounding the Pilot in the leg. The Flight Engineer flew the aircraft while my father (the Navigator) who had left medical school for the RCAF, patched up the Pilot who was able to land the aircraft at their home station at RAF Chedburgh. He recalled the incident in a letter to his Pilot, Geoff Shattock, in the 1980's.
"" It was on April 20, and we took off at 21:57 on `N for nuts'. Weather was very good and we could get a landfall as we crossed the coast somewhere around Cromer . Got good Gee fixes for a while then took some Polaris shots when we ran out of Gee range. We were routed a long way north, and crossed the Danish coast pretty well on track at nearly 56 degrees N., at the south end of Rinkabing Fjord. There was some flak, and by this time you had come right down to treetop height. From there on it got quite exciting, probably one of the most exciting times of my life. Having got a good pinpoint at the coast and having no further nav aids, I came up and sat with you prepared to map read us the rest of the way. We could see the tank defences along the coast (mainly big sort of angle iron contraptions). The trees went by in an alarming way, and we could see doors being flung open and even people standing in the light of their homes. Dickie remarked that we could almost tell people we'd been in Denmark rather than over it. We crossed Denmark fairly fast (Jutland , that is), and crossed Fyn, Langland and Lolland. These are what they are called now but I'm not sure they were that on my chart. At one point there was a lot of light flak around and some of it was coming right at us. I should recall that the term `light flak ` refers to the type (Bofors with tracer) rather than to the severity! Hunt was in the front turret and started yelling "Those sons of bitches!", and opened fire on them . Tommy and Dickie joined in and I'm not sure whether we shut them up or just drew attention to ourselves. As we reached the open Baltic Sea, you climbed to about 3000 ft., and all was clear as day. I could see all the land marks and we turned on about 200 T. to Rostock, soon in sight. However, as we drew closer, it was obvious that Jerry had put up a massive smoke screen over the whole area; in fact, the "Bomber Command War Diaries", a remarkable publication, states that as a result, the bombing was scattered. This was no town blitz- we were after the Heinkel Works. As we started our target run as best we could, I saw a Stirling weaving a bit ahead of us. Then there was a rather unpleasant bang, and you said something like "Oh, Jesus Christ!" Then you said `take that!', referring to the control stick. Then you called "Hunt, come up here quick!" As the only even remotely qualified second pilot, he let the bombs go and came up and took over the controls. I gave Hunt a course to steer. I told him to steer 015M for 10 minutes and then turn on 315. Then I went and found a flashlight and got your flying boot off. It was full of blood and there was a hole through your leg below the knee. I got the medical kit and put a shell dressing on it, but didn't try any fancy hemostasis because I was sure it would quit bleeding O.K. All this messing around in the dark took a while, about 20-25 minutes, and when I got back up with Hunt he was still steering 015 - either he hadn't heard me or didn't have a watch. I looked out and could see clearly the Copenhagen area right ahead. So we turned on about 270 and headed for home. In answer to your recent comment, I can't imagine that anyone even remotely thought of bailing out. The trip back was pretty uneventful. You described the amount of pain you had as about equal to a severe toothache. You soon took over the controls and declined any more help. I offered to shoot some codeine into you with some very neat little gadgets in the medical kit, but you were obviously scared it might destroy your razor-sharp awareness. Smitty radioed ahead something like: Pilot wounded; all O.K. When we got to base the Waaf on Flying Control asked: "What is the nature of your wounds?" and you answered that you had a bullet in the calf of your leg. You set it down perfectly and were whisked away to the hospital. Next day the ground crew found that ONE bullet had cut off the cockpit lighting, cut out the hydraulic exactor control of one port engine, gone through your leg, mangled some of my charts, and still had enough zip to make a dent in the armour plating beside my navigation table. It was a bad night for 3 Group (20/04/1943) - we lost 8 of 80 planes and didn't do a good job. Also a lot of people who got back were shot up with some killed including one gunner from 214." (Benjamin Oldroyd, 22, rear gunner in Sgt. Gray's crew - shot in head). They were flying Stirling III BK659 coded "BU-N" of 214 Squadron.
Regards
Dave Wallace

[Brian]

Excellent Dave

I have extracted this and placed it in Volume II of the forthcoming three-part series.

Many thanks
Brian

[Laurent Rizzotti]

Hello, Brian,

A detailled account of a Wellington flying into British balloons on 7 August 1942:

The Vickers Wellington IC R1075 of 16 OTU, Upper Heyford was engaged on a night navigation exercise. The crew consisted of P/O John Maura, pilot, P/O Percy Leslie Moxey (navigator), Sgt Norman Geoffrey Crabtree (Wop/Ag), Sgt Saddler, Sgt Russell and LAC Ronald Leonard Smith who appears to have gone along as a passenger. The aircraft and crew were attached to C flight.

The aircraft had taken off at 2207 hours on the 6th of August 1942. The exercise had been uneventful and had taken the crew to the Isle of Man. Over Douglas thet turned for home at 0030 hours and set course for Worcester. They followed a course of 160 degrees (C) with an ETA at the coast of 0106 hours and ETA Worcester at 0143 hours. Their altitude was 5000 feet and P/O Maura described the weather as quite thick and on consultation with his navigator reduced altitude to 3000 feet at around 0100 hours. As they were still in cloud P/O Maura reduced altitude to 2000 feet after first confirming with P/O Moxey that it was safe to do so. This brought them just below very thick cloud but the visibility remained very poor. At approx 0110 hours the navigator requested a QDM from th wireless operator and at approx 0115 hours the air bomber and navigator identified a place to port as Wolverhampton. The navigator then asked P/O Maura to circle to port while he checked his position. P/O Maura reported that no ballon squeaker was heard by him. This was a device by which ballon barrages emitted a signal which would be picked up by aircraft in the vicinity alerting the crew to the balloon’s presence. He comments that even at 2000 feet they were in intermittent cloud. P/O Maura started his turn at about 0125 hours, the aircraft almost immediately striking balloon cables, followed 30 seconds later by another impact which he believed to be another cable. This was almost certainly the impact of the drogue chute against the cable.

He immediately ordered the crew to bale out to which the navigator replied ’going’ and saw the air bomber attach his parachute and bale out. He observed two other crew members adjusting their parachutes and rushing aft to bale out. It was at this point that the aircraft hit another ballon cable (the second) and the aircraft became uncontrollable. P/O Maura then proceeded to bale out himself and noted the altitude as 700 feet. He landed safely and reported to the local police. The time was noted as 0136.

Birmingham ballon barrage records record two impacts at 0136 and 0140 hours, the latter entry being from the site closest to the crash. It appears the aircraft came down alongside the canal in the Kingsbury Road area. Certainly within a couple of miles of the airfield and factory at Castle Bromwich.

Plt Off Percy Leslie Moxey, Sgt Norman Geoffrey Crabtree and LAC Ronald Leonard Smith were killed in the crash. P/O Maura survived both the crash and the war, retiring from the RAF in 1946 with the substantive rank of Flight Lieutenant. There is some conjecture that he may have flown day fighters later in the war. Sgts Saddler and Russell both survived the incident but nothing is known of them subsequently.

Source:
http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/arc....php?t-66.html
http://www.cwgc.org/search/casualty_...sualty=2421586