Friendly fire WWII

[Laurent Rizzotti]

It will never end...

Argus I EV762 Crashed near Messina Sep 1, 1943 after being fired on by friendly AA

41-31951 (455th BS, 323rd BG, 9th AF) hit by friendly fire at RAF Earls Colne, Essex, England Nov 7, 1943. All crew survived, aircraft badly damaged, unknown if repaired.

Source for both:
http://www.joebaugher.com/usaf_serials/1941_5.html

[Laurent Rizzotti]

The find of the day:https://books.google.fr/books?id=ikx-AwAAQBAJ&pg=PA194

A book called "Friend or Foe: Friendly Fire at Sea 1939-1945", by Paul Kemp, with a lot of data on AC vs ship and ship vs AC cases.

[Laurent Rizzotti]

And another, 5 May 1944, off Brazil, the Brazilian sub chaser Jaguarao was attacked by mistake at 01:10 AM by USN "blimp" K-132, which dropped one D/C over the ship. The bomb near missed by 20 meters.

Source:
http://www.sixtant.net/2011/artigos....-jaguarao-cs55

[Brian]

Thanks again, Laurent

I have a copy of Kemp's book - interesting.

Cheers
Brian

[Laurent Rizzotti]

Hello, just read the following in the book "The Pendulum and the Scythe", the history of 4 Group RAF by Ken Marshall, 1996:

"By mid-1941, Germany possessed 250 twin-engined night-fighters (Bf110, Ju88 and Do217) backed by an increasingly effective ground control and reporting organisation. From the middle of 1941 the above system gradually became integrated with the Luftwaffe's Flak arm to create a 'Combined Nightfighting' (Kombinierte Nachtjagd) system around the cities of Bremen, Cologne, Darmstadt/Mannheim, Duisburg, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Kiel and Munich. Flak was normally limited to a height of 4,000 metres, although this could be raised at the discretion of the Division Kommandeur. For various reasons this resulted in quite a few night-fighters being shot down by their own Flak and, not sirprisingly, this system was abandoned by the end of the year."

My understanding of the above is the system was set in place in mid-1941 and was abandoned before the end of 1941 after "quite a few" German nightfighters were shot down.

Problem: I have checked both books of Michael Balss on Nachtjagd losses and I can't find any German nightfighter shot down by friendly Flak over Germany in this period. I found one in Germany in February 1941 and one over Holland in July.

Here are all the case I found for 1941:
9./10.2.1941
3./NJG 1
Fliegerhorst Wunstorf
Feindflug: ja
Bf 110 D-0 Werknr.: 3172
Oblt. Werner Hansen gefallen
unverletzt abgesprungen
Durch eigene Flak abgeschossen.

13.3.1941 (book Materialverluste)
III./NJG 1
Flugplatz Rheine
Feindflug: ja
BF 110 E Werknr.: 3684
Besatzung unverletzt
Notlandung infloge Beschuß durch eigenen Nachtjäger. Schaden 40%

11./12.5.1941 (book Materialverluste)
II./NJG 1
Bei Schleswig
Feindflug: ja
Bf 110 D-3 Werknr.: 4301
Oblt. Müntefering unverletzt
Beschuß durch eigenen Jäger, Schaden 15%

27.5.1941 (book Materialverluste)
1./NJG 2
Bei Lannion (Frankreich).
Feindflug: ja
Ju 88 C-4 Werknr.: 0359 R4 + MK
Ofw. Hermann Sommer verwundet
Fw. Otto Glaß unterverletzt
Ofw. Johann Reinagel verwundet
Beschuß durch eigene Jäger , Bf 109, schaden 50%

23./24.7.1941
4./NJG 2
Bonby, Lincolnshire (England)
Feindflug: ja
Ju 88 C-4 Werknr.: 0854 R4 + LM
Ogefr. Heinrich Ladiges gefallen
Ogefr. Friedrich Heinemann gefallen
Fw. Josef Beblow gefallen
Vermutlich von eigenem Nachtjäger abgeschossen.

6./7.9.1941 0200 hrs according to Verliesregister
4./NJG 1
bei Franeker (Holland)
Feindflug: ja
Bf 110 C-5 Werknr.: 2191 G9 + BH
Uffz. Heinz Grimm verwundet
unverletzt
Durch Abwehrfeuer geriet das eigene Flugzeug in Brand und die Besatzung sprang mit dem Fallschirm ab.

[JaganP]

14th February 1945

Location: Pakkokku, Burma (or India?)

Harvard attacked by a Spitfire of No.17 Squadron. Fg Offr Rathwell when on patrol over bomb line attacked an enemy ac that turned out to be a harvard. the Harvard crash landed in a paddy field and neither of the crew were injured.

Approx 0700 hours.

There is a detailed combat report by Rathwell available.
----------------
I have not been able to identify the unit or the air crew of this Harvard that ws downed.

----------------

Added after an hour !

Date of Crash 14 Feb 45 Aircraft Type Harvard IIb
Serial Number KF106 Unit 42 Sqn
Pilot details Fg Offr R B Jackson & Plt Offr Ashley
Details Photograph sortie for smoke laying mission DAM BY Spitfire of 17 Sqn and Cr L Meiktila to escape gun fire. Crew slightly injured. Map Ref PP250790. Pilot slightly injured and passenger in right arm by shell splinter. Cat AC. 132RSU.
http://www.rafcommands.com/database/...php?uniq=KF106

[Laurent Rizzotti]

I think you have data on paratroops being hit by RAF on 6 June 1944, but the fact that a dog was among the victims was new to me:
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/133565530/glenn-dog

[Brian]

Hi Laurent

Great stuff once again. It's a pity that I don't have sufficient time at the moment to assimilate all this new material, but do please keep it coming.

The Glen the dog account is certainly interesting - I like to include animal stories in my books wen possible. A sad tale, but do we know how many other paratroopers were killed in this incident?

Cheers
Brian

[Laurent Rizzotti]

Originally Posted by Brian

Hi Laurent
A sad tale, but do we know how many other paratroopers were killed in this incident?

The wikipedia webpage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...s#World_War_II gave numbers for D-day casualties to friendly fire, but I do not believe them. Still, you can see the sources cites and try to find more.

Another example of certainly too high casualty number given by this page is for 27 June 1942, where "Wellingtons bombed for two hours British troops, killing 359 men" (sic). Given that between 26 and 28 June 1942, 600 Commonwealth men died in North Africa, I strongly doubt that more than half of them were killed in only one friendly fire case.

By the way the war diary of one of the units supposed to have been bombed on 27 June 1942 is online (http://www.warlinks.com/armour/4_cly/4cly_42.php) and there is nothing about a bombing attack on this date.

[Laurent Rizzotti]

From the US Army official book on Okinawa (see https://history.army.mil/books/wwii/...chapter4.htm):

"Enemy air opposition had been relatively light during the first few days after the landings. On 6 April [1945] the expected air reaction materialized with a fierce attack of 400 planes which had flown down from Kyushu to drive the invaders from Okinawa. The raids' began at dawn, and by noon Task Force 58 had shot down seven possible suicide planes. Throughout the afternoon the battle increased in intensity. Patrol and picket ships, which throughout the operation proved an irresistible attraction to enemy planes, were a favorite target. Japanese planes also appeared from time to time over the Hagushi beaches and transport area and were taken under fire by the ship and shore batteries. On such occasions the raider, ringed with bright streams of tracer bullets from automatic weapons, would streak across a sky filled with black puffs of smoke from hundreds of bursting shells, and in the course of seconds would plunge into the sea in a geyser of water and smoke, or crash into a ship with an even greater explosion of smoke and flame. Directed against such raiders, friendly fire killed four Americans and wounded thirty-four others in the XXIV Corps zone, ignited an ammunition dump near Kadena, destroyed an oil barge, and in the late afternoon shot down two American planes over the beaches. Some ships also suffered damage and casualties from friendly fire. Twenty-two of twenty-four suicide crashes were successful, sinking two destroyers, a mine sweeper, two ammunition ships, and an LST. A ship rescuing survivors from the lost LST was itself struck by a suicide plane soon after but was not seriously damaged. The attack cost the Japanese about 300 planes; 65 were splashed by fliers from the Essex alone. Unloading continued on the Hagushi beaches almost without pause, and the American fleet, although it had taken severe blows, was still intact."

According to http://www.aviationarchaeology.com/src/USN/LLApr45.htm, the US Navy lost 19 aircraft in Okinawa area on this date so identifying the two victims of friendly fire would need a check of USN war diaries, and my fold3 account is down for the moment.