Friendly fire WWII

[Laurent Rizzotti]

In "Sensi Sosho vol 3", the volume of Japanese official history describing the invasion of the Dutch East Indies, there is a mention of a deadly friendly fire on 20 December 1941 near Davao, Mindanao:
"The Miura Detachment, assigned to seize the airfield in a night attack and then capture the city of Davao, and the naval landing force, assigned to capture the oil storage facilities at Lanang in a night attack, each reported that they had successfully made surprise landings at 0400.(87, 89, 90) When Detachment Commander Sakaguchi came ashore in the second transport and advanced toward the airfield believing that the airfield had been secured in the night attack by the Miura Detachment, he only found that the Miura Detachment had not been able to launch a predawn attack, that some fifty soldiers had been killed when our naval planes mistakenly bombed them while they were preparing for an attack after daybreak, and that this had put the detachment in a difficult position for carrying out the attack. He also found that the naval landing force, which should have captured the oil storage facilities at Lanang in a night attack, had not been able to carry that out either and was moving toward the airfield."