List Of Friendly Fire Incidents

There have been many thousands of friendly fire incidents in recorded military history, accounting for an estimated 2% to 20% of all casualties in battle.Percin, Gen. Alexandre (1921) ''Le Massacre de Notre Infanterie 1914–1918'', Michel Albin, Paris Shrader, Charles R. (1982) ''Amicicide: The Problem of Friendly Fire in Modern War'', US Command & General Staff College Survey No.1 The examples listed below illustrate their range and diversity, but this does not reflect increasing frequency. The ''rate'' of friendly fire, once allowance has been made for the numbers of troops committed to battle, has remained remarkably stable, and unimproved, over the past 200 years.Kirke, Charles M. (ed., 2012) ''Fratricide in Battle: (Un)Friendly Fire'
Continuum Books
/ref>

Wars of the Roses

*1471 – During the Battle of Barnet a Lancastrian force under the Earl of Oxford was fired on by the Lancastrian centre while returning from a pursuit; their banner, Oxford's “ star with rays” had been mistaken for the Yorkist “sun in splendour”. This gave rise to cries of treachery (always a possibility in that chaotic period), Lancastrian morale collapsed, and the battle was lost.

English Civil War

*1643 – Following the fall of Gainsborough, Lincolnshire to Roundhead forces, captured Royalist commander, the Earl of Kingston, was killed by Royalist cannon fire when the boat transporting him to Hull was fired on from the banks of the River Trent.

Nine Years' War

*1690 – Two French regiments accidentally attacked each other during the Battle of Fleurus, which led to the practice of attaching a white scarf to the flags of the regiments.

French and Indian War

*July 9, 1755 – Two main phases of friendly fire occurred during the Battle of the Monongahela, which halted the Braddock Expedition after French regulars, French militia and Indians joined battle with them before Fort Duquesne. In the obscuring woodland conditions and confusion caused by the French musket fire and the Native Americans' war cries, several British platoons fired at each other. Later in the battle many British American soldiers fled from more exposed ground and into woods, where redcoats fired on them mistaking them for advancing French infantry.
*November 12, 1758 - Friendly fire occurred near Fort Ligonier, resulting "in the accidental death of many of George Washington’s fellow Virginians under his command, while also resulting in the capture of French prisoners who provided intelligence that led to the successful taking of Fort Duquesne by the British army."

American Revolutionary War

*In the Battle of Germantown in 1777, a combination of late arrival, poor navigation and overpursuit resulted in Major General Adam Stephen's men colliding with General Anthony Wayne's troops. The two Continental Army brigades opened fire on each other, became badly disorganized, and fled.
*In the Battle of Guilford Courthouse on March 15, 1781, after several volleys of musket and cannon fire broke out, smoke began to obscure soldiers' view of the battlefield. In a pitched battle, smoke not only limited visibility but irritated soldiers' eyes and could make breathing difficult. In the confusion, British Lieutenant John Macleod, in command of two British three-pounders, was directed by British Lieutenant General Charles Cornwallis to fire on the Americans who were in close combat with the British. Many British soldiers died as a result of friendly artillery bombardment.

Austro-Turkish War

*The Battle of Karánsebes in 1788, which only involved Austrian Imperial Army forces, started with a dispute over schnapps between Hussars and infantry of the Austrian vanguard which escalated into armed combat. The ensuing chaos involved even more Austrian forces, leaving 150 dead and 1200 wounded. The Ottoman Forces arrived only after the Austrian withdraw.

Napoleonic Wars

*1796 – Battle of Fombio: In a night of confused fighting when Austrian units had stumbled into his army's position, French general Amadee Laharpe was shot dead by his own men while returning from reconnaissance.
*1801 – Battle of Algeciras Bay: Spanish ships ''Real Carlos'' and ''San Hermenegildo'' mistakenly engaged each other in the dark after ''HMS Superb'' sailed between them and fired at both. 1,700 were killed when the two ships exploded.
* 1806 – On 30 November, at 10pm, and came upon a ship that they suspected was a French privateer and that kept up a running fight until morning, only surrendering after her captain and several of her crew had been wounded, of whom six later died. The vessel turned out to be the British merchant ship .Clowes (1897–1903), pp.394–5
/ref>
*1809 – Battle of Wagram: French troops mistakenly fired on their allies from the Kingdom of Saxony. The grey uniforms of the Saxons were misidentified as white, the colour of uniform worn by their Austrian enemy.
*1815 –
:*Battle of Quatre Bras: Soldiers of the Dutch 3rd Light Cavalry Brigade disengaging and retiring from a skirmish against the French were fired on by Scottish highlanders who mistook their uniforms for those of French ''chasseurs a cheval''. Section "French lancers created havoc." cites Hamilton-Williams as a source but does not give the book.
:*Battle of Waterloo: Prussian artillery mistakenly fired on British artillery causing many casualties, and British artillery returned fire at the Prussians.

Texas Revolution

*Both sides, Texians and Mexicans, in the Siege of the Alamo in 1836, had friendly fire incidents:
:*In early hours of 1 March, a mounted party of Texian volunteers arriving at gallop to reinforce the Alamo garrison were fired at by defenders who mistook them in the dark for attacking Mexican horsemen, wounding one of them, before the sentries were called to open the gates for them.
:*At the Mexicans' final mass assault (overnight 5–6 March), some of the veteran troops leading it were wounded or killed when shot by untrained recruits in the ranks behind who "blindly fir dtheir guns", and when all the defenders had been killed, Mexicans continued to shoot Mexicans in mistake during the darkness.

American Civil War

*During the Battle of Shiloh on 6 April 1862, Confederate General Albert Sidney Johnston was fatally wounded by a bullet that hit the back of his right knee when riding in advance of his troops. There were no Union troops observed to have got behind him and the bullet was identified by his surgeon as from a Pattern 1853 Enfield rifle, which was standard issue in the Confederate Army but not the Union troops present.
*Confederate Lieutenant General Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson was wounded as a result of friendly fire in the Battle of Chancellorsville on 2 May 1863, and died eight days later. He and some of his men had been returning, under the cover of night, from an intelligence-gathering mission when Confederate troops of the 18th North Carolina Infantry misidentified them as a Union cavalry scout team; as a result, the North Carolina troops opened fire.Garrison, Webb B. (1999) ''Friendly Fire in the Civil War: More than 100 True Stories of Comrade Killing Comrade'', Rutledge Hill Press;
*In the Battle of the Wilderness on 6 May 1864, Confederate Lt. General James Longstreet was wounded when his mounted column from the First Corps was mistaken for Federal troops. As a result of this, he did not return to command until October of that year. In the same incident, Brigadier General Micah Jenkins was mortally wounded after being struck in the head.
*In the early hours of 6 March 1865, the Union vessel was en route to blockade Wilmington, North Carolina when she was rammed and sunk by after being mistaken for a blockade runner. All hands were rescued before she sank.

Russo-Japanese War

* Dogger Bank Incident (overnight 21/22 October 1904) – In what can be classified literally as a case of fog of war, battleships of the Imperial Russian Navy's Baltic Fleet en route to reinforce in the Far East, fired on a fleet of British fishing trawlers in the North Sea, mistaking them for Imperial Japanese Navy torpedo boats after misunderstanding signals. One fishing vessel was sunk, four were damaged, and two fishermen were killed and six wounded. In the general chaos that ensued, the cruisers and were also taken for Japanese warships in the fog and bombarded by seven battleships sailing in formation, damaging both ships and killing at least one Russian sailor and severely wounding another, and fatally wounding a naval chaplain. During the pandemonium, several Russian ships signalled that torpedoes had hit them, and on board the battleship , rumours spread that the ship was being boarded by the Japanese, with some crew members donning life vests and lying prone on the deck and others drawing cutlasses to repel a boarding before a ceasefire was signalled.Dogger Bank – Voyage of the Damned
('Hullwebs – History of Hull' website. Retrieved 8 September 2007.)

World War I

*Battle of Dinant 21–23 August 1914 – It is believed that some parties of German infantry entering the Belgian city of Dinant in a nighttime assault, fired at each other in the darkness of the night while under fire from French troops. The Germans mistakenly believed that hostile Belgian civilians had fired on them, contributing to a conviction among the German soldiers that Belgian civilians were actively fighting them. This led to arrests and massacres of local civilians when the town was invaded and occupied. On the 23rd, German artillery mistakenly fired on infantry who were occupying and barricading a street; the latter units were temporarily forced to withdraw, having shot a man held as human shield accused of having been a ''franc-tireur'' in earlier fighting.
*Battle of Bolimów 31 January 1915 – The German Ninth Army launched the first large scale poison tear gas attack on the Russian Second Army in Poland, firing 18,000 gas shells. However the wind blew the gas back onto the German lines, causing a few casualties which could have been higher had the winter cold not frozen the ingredient xylyl bromide. The attack was called off, the counter-attacking Russians being successfully repelled by conventional artillery shellfire.
*25 September 1915 – In the first gas attack launched by British forces prior to their infantry attack that opened the Battle of Loos, about of chlorine gas was released, aimed at the German Sixth Army's positions on the Hohenzollern Redoubt but in places the gas was blown back by wind onto the trenches of the British First Army. Due to the inefficiency of the contemporary gas masks, many soldiers removed them as they could not see through the fogged-up talc eyepieces or could barely breathe with them on. This led to some being affected by their own gas, as it blew back across their lines or lingered in no man's land, immediately causing the death of 10 and injury to about 2,000 British soldiers. It was made worse when German artillery fire blew up some of the cylinders.
*8 May 1916 – During the Battle of Verdun, when the French outpost Fort Douaumont was occupied by German infantry, a careless cooking fire detonated grenades, flamethrower fuel and an ammunition cache. Hundreds of soldiers were killed instantly in the firestorm, including the entire 12th Grenadiers regimental staff. Worse, some of the 1,800 wounded and soot blackened survivors attempting to escape the inferno were mistaken for attacking French Colonial African infantry and were fired upon by their comrades. In all 679 German soldiers perished in this fire.
*2 June 1916 – On the opening of the Battle of Mount Sorrel in the Ypres Salient of Belgium, the commanding officer of the 3rd Canadian Division, Major General Malcolm Mercer, and his aide Captain Lynam Gooderham, were wounded and trapped when German artillery opened fire on divisional trenches they were inspecting. They ran into rifle crossfire when attempting to evade advancing German infantry, Mercer receiving a bullet in a leg, then remained overnight unhelped until 2 am next day when Mercer was killed by an exploding shell and Gooderham was taken prisoner by the Germans. A staff officer later claimed the fatal shell was British and Mercer is upheld as the most senior Canadian officer killed in combat and by friendly fire.Article by Gordon MacKinnon.
*On the night of 4–5 August 1916, during the First Battle of the Somme, the 13th Battalion of the Durham Light Infantry were fired on by Australian Artillery while in process of capturing and holding onto a German communication trench called Munster Alley.
*17 September 1916 – During the same Battle of the Somme, a company of the 1st/7th Battalion of the Duke of Wellington's Regiment waiting to charge a German trench south of Thiepval, France, were strafed from behind by Stokes mortar fire, the most loss of life caused when their hand grenade store was hit, detonating its contents. The mortars had been issued their battalion only a few weeks before and inexperienced firers had set too short a range aiming at enemy lines. Despite this, company commander Captain Basil Lupton rallied the survivors and led a successful taking of the opposite trench.
*17 March 1917 – The German submarine '' SM UB-40'' sank the British hospital ship '' HMHS Lanfranc'' in the English Channel when it was ferrying wounded from Le Havre to Southampton. The passengers included 167 German prisoners of war, of whom 18 were killed and 15 wounded in the sinking.
*At night in foul weather on 16 September 1917, the British submarine mistook the destroyer for a German U-boat and attacked with torpedoes. ''Pasley'', not recognising ''G9'' as British until too late, responded to the attack by ramming ''G9''. Nearly cut in two, the ''G9'' sank. Only one of the ''G9''s crew members survived.
*23 January 1918 – Major William Robert Gregory, Royal Flying Corps, was shot down by mistake and killed by an Italian Corpo Aeronautico Militare pilot at Monastiero near Grossa, Padua, Italy. He inspired the poem, ''An Irish Airman Foresees His Death'', by family friend W.B. Yeats.
*15 April 1918 – Two British soldiers from the Somerset Light Infantry were killed and C.S. Lewis was wounded after being hit by a shrapnel from a British shell that had fallen short of its target in Mont-Bernanchon, France.
*24/25 April 1918 – During the Second Battle of Villers-Bretonneux, soldiers of the Australian 50th Infantry Battalion, advancing in the dark under German machine fire, attacked what they believed was an enemy trench. They found out that the trench was instead occupied by British troops of the 2nd Devon and 1st Worcester Battalions who had not been informed of the Australian counterattack and "thought the Germans were attacking them from the rear".
*During the attack on the main wagon bridge over the Marne at Château-Thierry, American machine gunners described a night attack on 1 June 1918 of massed German troops, who were singing gutturally as they made a suicidal charge, some linked arm in arm. The victims were soldiers of the French 10th Colonial division from Senegal, who had been trying to get back across the river. Although reports of the incident were suppressed, it was discussed by American and French soldiers. There are no German records of any attack on the wagon bridge.
*16 June 1918 – During German spring offensive, the British 4th Battalion of the King's Shropshire Light Infantry (4th KSLI), with reinforcing elements of North Staffordshires and Cheshires, were shelled by British artillery who were unaware the position had changed hands, within 30 minutes of successfully taking a hill, Montagne de Bligny, from the Germans and capturing prisoners. The bombardment reduced the units' effective strength to 100 men but their commander, Captain Geoffrey Bright, insisted on retaining the hill and sending out for reinforcements from British units until help arrived before nightfall. For the overall action the 4th KSLI received a unit award of the French Croix de Guerre.
*13 July 1918 – British army officer and poet Siegfried Sassoon was wounded after being shot in the head by a fellow British soldier who had mistaken him for a German near Arras, France. As a result, he spent the remainder of the war in Britain.
*16 July 1918 – British flying ace Major Awdry Vaucour was killed in the vicinity of Monastier di Treviso, Italy when he was accidentally shot down by an Italian pilot.
*28 July 1918 – Canadian flying ace and future spymaster William Stephenson, then posted with No. 73 Squadron RAF, was shot down and crashed his Sopwith Camel biplane behind enemy lines in France. During the incident, he later claimed, Stephenson was injured by fire not only from German ace pilot, Justus Grassmann, but also by friendly fire from a French observer.
He was subsequently captured and held as a prisoner of war until he escaped in October 1918.
*4 October 1918 - The nine companies from the US Army's 77th Infantry Division which had pushed into a salient at Charlevaux, France and became known as the " Lost Battalion" after being surrounded by the Germans, were subjected to friendly artillery fire for several hours, either due to the artillery fire being inaccurate or the coordinates, delivered by carrier pigeon, being inaccurate. The overall commander, Major Charles Whittlesey, used his last carrier pigeon, named Cher Ami, to send a second message for the artillery to cease fire.
*15 October 1918 – British submarine was sunk by British Q-ship in the Northumberland Coast. ''Cymric''s captain, Lieutenant F. Peterson RNR, mistook the identity lettering on the conning tower of ''J6'' for ''U6''. Assuming ''U6'' to indicate a German U-boat, Peterson raised the White ensign and opened fire on ''J6''. After a number of direct hits, ''J6'' sank. It was only after the survivors were seen in the water that Peterson and the crew of ''Cymric'' realised their mistake and recovered the survivors. Of the crew of ''J6'', 15 were lost; a subsequent court of enquiry found that no action should be taken against Peterson.

Latvian War of Independence

*6 March 1919 – Colonel Oskars Kalpaks was killed in command of his 1st Latvian Independent Battalion, when his unit had a mistaken skirmish with a German Freikorps party near Airītes in Saldus District. Both parties were allied in a counterattack on the Soviet Army occupying Latvia.

Spanish Civil War

*In 1937, the Nationalist Irish Brigade was fired upon by a Falangist unit, and the hour-long firefight resulted in 17 deaths. Neither unit had had any battle experience.

World War II

1939

*6 September – Just days after the start of the war, in what was dubbed the Battle of Barking Creek, three Royal Air Force Spitfires from 74 Squadron shot down two Hurricanes from the RAF's 56 Squadron, killing one of the pilots. One of the Spitfires was then shot down by British anti-aircraft artillery while returning to base.Townshend Bickers, Richard L. (1994) ''Friendly Fire: Accidents in Battle from Ancient Greece to the Gulf War'', Leo Cooper;
*10 September – The British submarine sank another British submarine, . After making challenges which went unanswered ''Triton'' assumed it must have located a German U-boat and fired two torpedoes. ''Oxley'' was the first Royal Navy vessel to be sunk and also the first vessel to be sunk by a British vessel in the war, killing 52 with only two survivors. Both vessels were patrolling off the coast of Norway (then neutral) at the time. The incident that led to the loss of ''Oxley'' was kept in secrecy until the 1950s.
*3 December 1939 – British submarine HMS ''Snapper'' sustained a direct hit from a British aircraft while returning to Harwich after a patrol in the North Sea, but without taking damage."Allied Warships: HMS ''Snapper'' (N 39). Submarine of the S class"
uboat.net; retrieved 7 January 2008.

1940

*19 February – During Operation ''Wikinger'' the German destroyer Z1 ''Leberecht Maass'' was sunk by ''Luftwaffe'' bombs while another destroyer, the Z3 ''Max Schultz'', was sunk by mines in the confusion.
*14 April – The Dutch submarine was bombed in error off Noordwijk by an RAF aircraft.
*10 May – German Luftwaffe bombers sent to bomb Dijon in France instead bombed the German city of Freiburg due to navigation errors, killing 57 people.
*Night of 11 May – During the Battle of Belgium the British 3rd Infantry Division, commanded by General Bernard Law Montgomery were sent to take their pre-arranged position on the River Dyle near Leuven when they were fired on in mistake for German paratroopers by the Belgian 10th Infantry Division who were holding the position. They gave way when Montgomery (own claim) approached and offered to place himself under Belgian command.
* Battle of the Grebbeberg, The Netherlands - The 2nd Battalion of the Dutch 19th Infantry Regiment, ordered to make a night counterattack against positions newly seized by the Germans on 11 May, were fired on at the stopline by other Dutch troops who had been uninformed of the counterattack, causing it to be called off at dawn when order had been restored. (Fortunately for the Dutch a planned German night attack at that point had been called off because of their deterring supporting artillery fire.) They were ordered to counterattack again, after 1600 hours the following day, when, reaching the frontline, fellow troops again fired on them, causing the counterattack to peter out and be abandoned.
*14 May – At midday German Luftwaffe fighters attacked at French town of Chemery-sur-Bar as the 1st Panzer Division were holding a victory parade following the battle of Bulsen, causing a few casualties.
*20 May – The French Navy submarine mistakenly fired three torpedoes at the French Navy submarine in the North Sea off the coast of the Netherlands. ''Sybille'' avoided the torpedoes.
*21 May – A Royal Air Force Hurricane shot down Bristol Blenheim L9325 of No. 18 Squadron RAF. The Blenheim crashed near Arras, France. Its three crewmen were killed.(P.226)Warner, Graham. Bristol Blenheim: A Complete History. 2nd Edition. (Manchester, U.K.: Crecy Publishing, 2005
*22 May – A Royal Air Force Spitfire shot down Bristol Blenheim L9266 of No. 59 Squadron RAF. The Blenheim crashed near Fricourt, France. Its three crewmen were killed.
*May (unknown date) – As the French Navy submarine returned to her base at Dundee, Scotland, after a patrol in the Skagerrak that had begun on 7 May, a British bomber mistook her for a German submarine and attacked her in Dundee Channel, dropping five bombs. ''Achille'' suffered serious damage, particularly to her ballast tanks, propeller shafts, and hydrophones.
*1 June – A Bristol Blenheim piloted by Alastair Panton was shot down by Northumberland Fusiliers while flying low over the beaches of Dunkirk in order let the soldiers see the RAF was involved.
*28 June – Italian Air Marshal Italo Balbo and his crew were killed when Italian anti-aircraft guns at Tobruk shot down their Savoia-Marchetti SM.79.
*8 July – While the Vichy French submarine was departing Dakar, Senegal, to attack British warships threatening Dakar during Operation Catapult, she suffered light damage when she came under heavy gunfire from three Vichy French warships and was bombed by a Vichy French seaplane, all of which mistook her for a British submarine attempting to infiltrate the harbor.
*8 October – While on patrol in the Mediterranean, the Italian submarine sank the Italian submarine in error.

1941

*5 January – While flying an Airspeed Oxford for the ATA from Blackpool to RAF Kidlington near Oxford, Amy Johnson went off course in adverse weather conditions. Reportedly out of fuel, she bailed out as her aircraft crashed into the Thames Estuary but her body was never recovered. In 1999 it was reported that Tom Mitchell, at the time a RAF fighter pilot, claimed to have shot Johnson down when she twice failed to give the correct identification code during the flight. He said: "The reason Amy was shot down was because she gave the wrong colour of the day signal to identify aircraft known by all British forcesover radio." Mitchell explained how the aircraft was sighted and contacted by radio. A request was made for the signal. She gave the wrong one twice. "Sixteen rounds of shells were fired and the plane dived into the Thames Estuary. We all thought it was an enemy plane until the next day when we read the papers and discovered it was Amy. The officers told us never to tell anyone what happened."
*Bardia raid (1941): On the night of 19/20 April, 450 British commandos conducted an amphibious raid against Axis forces in Bardia, Libya, to destroy an Italian supply dump and a coastal artillery battery (which were successful). While most men were successfully evacuated after the raid, one was killed by friendly fire from an overalert British commando soldier and 67 became prisoners of war after getting lost and going to the wrong beach.
*May 26 – Fifteen Fleet Air Arm Fairey Swordfish torpedo bombers from the British aircraft carrier attempting to carry out a torpedo attack against the German battleship in the Atlantic Ocean mistakenly attacked the British light cruiser instead. They dropped 11 torpedoes, some of which exploded on contact with the water. The rest missed.
*5 July 1941 – An Armstrong Whitworth Whitley V bomber aircraft, Z6667 of No. 10 Operational Training Unit RAF based at Abingdon, was on a night training flight when it broke up over Oxfordshire, crashed on Chiselhampton Hill and caught fire on impact. The crash was variously attributed to either interception by a ''Luftwaffe'' night fighter or friendly fire by a local anti-aircraft unit. All six crewmen were killed.
*9 August – RAF fighter ace Wing Commander Douglas Bader was shot down in what recent research suggests was a friendly fire incident.
*29 August – A Focke-Wulf Fw 190 plane was shot down in error by a German 8.8 cm antiaircraft gun near the French coast and crashed on the beach south of Dunkirk