Friendly fire WWII

[Laurent Rizzotti]

Originally Posted by Brian

Hi guys

Laurent - among my many failings is an inability to read French very well - are you able to translate for me the incidents mentioned in Arnaud Gillet's book? If this is too great a task, may I ask you to provide further details of the book to enable me to purchase a copy? Many thanks.

Brian

Hi Brian, I have currently connexion problems at home but as soon as possible I will post here a list of the friendly fire occurences listed in the book. Then I will translate details of any case you may be interested in. I will have to translate them in English one day or another anyway.

Here is a case of air-to-sea friendly fire I would like to know more about:

On the night of 1 October 1944 destroyer USS DD-492 Bailey was on picket duty under a full moon off the Palaus, 06°59'N, 134°13'E, when one or more torpedo planes made two severe strafing attacks on her, killing three officers and 6 enlisted men (two of them were BM1C Charles P Mason and Cox William A. Knauss) and wounding 16 other enlisted men. Later reports were that it was Allied pilots who mistook her for an enemy craft (according to a member of the crew). Damage was extensive and she limped back as far as Manus of the Admiralty group where a tender repaired her sufficiently to return to the states, arriving 28 October at to Mare Island for permanent repairs.
http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USN/USN-Chron/USN-Chron-1944.html
http://www.hazegray.org/danfs/destroy/dd492txt.htm
http://htmlgear.tripod.com/guest/control.guest?u=dd492
http://htmlgear.tripod.com/guest/control.guest?u=dd492&i=1&a=view
http://www.abmc.gov/searchww.htm
http://htmlgear.tripod.com/guest/control.guest?u=dd492
http://www.abmc.gov/searchww.htm
Veteran registry: http://www.destroyers.org/smrdd/USS_Bailey.html