Friendly fire WWII

[Brian]

Thanks North Weald (I was there a few weeks ago!)

Yes, I do have those recorded but thanks all the same.

Cheers
Brian

[Nokose]

From Vitaliy Gorbach's book Над Огненной Дугой.
03Aug43
"Unpleasant incident occurred involving the 202 BAD. According to operations of the 235 IAD, at 18:25 a Pe-2 bomber, which went under escort of two Yak-1, has dropped its bombs on the Krasnyy airfield, where is based the 181 IAP. Fortunately the bombs did not cause any harm to the fighters, after falling nevertheless only within 20 meters of the flight line."

The ground crews must not have felt like there wasn't any harm.

[Brian]

Many thanks once again, Nokose.

Very much appreciated.

Cheers
Brian

[Laurent Rizzotti]

Don't know it is too late, but I found a friendly fire event in Libya on 1 December 1941.

An Italian artillery unit equiped with captured British trucks was bombed by German Stuka while attacking British poistions at Bir Berraneb (west of Bir el Gobi) and lost half of his guns, an armoured vehicle and 40 dead, including eight officers, one of them Lt-Col Dissegna, its commander.

Source: http://www.afrikakorps.org/batterievolanti.htm (in French)

40 dead is high for a "tactical" friendly fire bombing (not counting the carpet bombing used by the Allied, that were sometimes more bloody, especially in Normandy).

[Brian]

Many thanks Laurent

Excellent, a new one! Plenty of time - Middle Wast and Far East 'friendly-fires' will appear in Volume III or IV!

Cheers
Brian

[Laurent Rizzotti]

Another one, probably you know about it.

http://www.station131.co.uk/55th/Pil...20F%20Capt.htm

[Brian]

Hi Laurent

That's another 'new' one for me!! Excellent.

Many thanks
Brian

[Six Nifty .50s]

Originally Posted by Brian

Many thanks Laurent

Excellent, a new one! Plenty of time - Middle Wast and Far East 'friendly-fires' will appear in Volume III or IV!

Cheers
Brian

Hi Brian,

A couple months ago I was surprised to find a used copy of BRITISH VESSELS LOST AT SEA 1939-45, 2nd Edition. A reprint of the 1947 two-volume official publication covering warships and merchant vessels and I was previously unaware of its existence.

The cause of loss descriptions are sometimes cryptic, but this is a handy little reference guide of tabular data and might be of some use to you.

[cz_raf]

Hi Brian, I suppose you know about this well known accident but as I am not visiting this thread so ofthen I have no idea if you know it or not:
On 28 June 1940, while landing on the Italian airfield of Tobruk a few minutes after a British air attack, Balbo was shot down by Italian gunners and killed. The cruiser San Giorgio started firing on his Savoia-Marchetti SM.79 airplane (bearing the civil registration "I-MANU" in honor of his wife, Donna Manu),[12] followed by the airport's anti-air guns. It is still not clear which of them shot him down.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italo_Balbo

Pavel

[Brian]

Hi Pavel

Yes, I do have this but thanks for thinking of me!

Cheers
Brian