Friendly Fire

I posted about this maybe a year ago but no answer...so here goes.
In Vietnam officers(NCO's & privates too) were sometimes shot in firefights by their own men...On perpose!
As my dad put it "every one had a gun over there...There was no pulling rank" & I'm curious if this ever happened in the Air Forces of WWI.

Keith,

Keith,

I don't think it was on purpose but MvR was most likely shot from behind by his own man. Unless his attacker was using magic bullets of the type that were used on JFK! But you never know what his wing man was thinking.

Mark

I know of no specific examples of intentional fratricide occuring in the various airforces of the first world war, HOWEVER, as an Infantryman, I can say with some certainty, that since man first grabbed a club, he probably used it no smash in someones skull "on his team", who he didn't like. (FYI, the popular term for killing an officer, NCO, or troop you didn't like while in Vietnam was called "Fragging".)

VBR
Nick Vitale
SSgt Of Infantry
USMC

Mark,
Of what instance are you refering to?

That would be when he was reported shot down by Albert Woodbridge.

Mark

[Barrett]

Fragging (whether aloft, afloat, or aground) is different from "Blue on Blue" but the latter happened A LOT more than people suspect. One study estimated that as many as 15% of KIAs result from "friendly fire" (which as Murphy's Combat Rules note, isn't). In aerial combat, the reasons generally involve poor recognition, confusion, or Great Expectations: the natural tendency to see what you expect to see, regardless of circumstances.
There are, however, a few genuine aerial "fraggings." One was related by a P-51 ace who made it clear that the "accident" wasn't accidental. Moral of the lesson: it really pays to become a team player.

[Vigilant]

In another thread it was mentioned that Mannock threatened to shoot a flight member who persistently turned back from combat. I know of no instances where this actually happened tho'. Then again, it's not really the sort of thing that you would include in your memoirs...

[Kirby]

Barrett

The order of the day, every day was, "Don't start any s..t and there won't be any s..t."

Mark,
Von Richthofen WAS hit by Woodbridge, his own man Wolf being below and behind him when Wolf started firing. Invest in the book 'Aircraft vs Aircraft', it gives a pretty good depiction of the combat in question showing how the wound was inflicted and the positions of the planes.
All,
I had a good friend of mine who spent 18 months in heavy combat in Vietnam with the 101st Airborne. He also told me of incidents in which fragging occurred, and usually the reasons why it takes place. He said that usually it was 'green' Lieutenants that were fresh from the States who were candidates for it, due to the fact that these officers refused to listen to 'seasoned' veterans of the bush (such as sergeants) simply due to the fact that they were enlisted. Once they started getting these troops killed through their ignorance of situations (i.e. getting pinned down in intense firefights), some of the friends of the KIA's would blame the officer (and RIGHTLY SO) for the death of their friends. After this first time the Sergeants would normally try to talk with the offending officer and educate him on what to do to avoid heavy contact (how not to f--k up). Then if the Lieutenant committed a similar error again which resulted in the deaths of more of his men, the next time they got involved in a skirmish is when the officer ended up getting "killed in the line of duty." As far as aviation personnel, in the Navy it was usually the pilots who treated their ground crews poorly, that took off sometimes and their planes 'mysteriously' blew up once they were airborne. It doesn't pay to be a pr-ck to the ones who keep your plane in the air.
VBR,
Jim