I know there have been countless “friendly fire” incidents where troops have been bombed, come under artillery fire, etc from friendly forces, but have there been any battles where troops fought each other in direct small-arms firefight type situations?
IOW, Bravo platoon fighting Charlie platoon because of whatever breakdown in communications?
According to historian John Toland in the book Battle: Story of The Bulge two regiments of the 106[sup]th[/sup] Infantry Division, I believe the 442[sup]nd[/sup] and 443[sup]rd[/sup], had a a brief exchange of fire during the battle of the bulge. They were cut off by the German advance in the first day of the attack and confusion was everywhere. The division was inexperienced having just arrived from the US only a week or so before.
Both regiments were surrendered and some 7000 were taken prisoner, one was author Kurt Vonnegut Jr., which was second only to Bataan in the number of US troops taken prisoner in one engagement.
I’m assuming that mutinies don’t count (I think the French had some problems during WWI after Verdun which probably involved French troops firing on French troops) as that wouldn’t be friendly fire.
Nor would former allies/countrymen turning against one another (as happened when in NW Africa when the Vichy fleet was sunk by the Allies or the ex-Soviet POW’s who fought for the Axis on the Eastern front).
I’d guess that the most likely scenarios would be civil wars/independance/revolutions (Spanish, Russian, Irish) where the possibility for confusion is even greater than normal.
<preview revealed that a specific example has already been provided>
The UK lost 8 men killed during the Falklands War to ground-based friendly fire. Five of those were Royal Marines killed when a patrol from 45 Commando RM accidentally identified its own mortar section as an Argentinian unit and opened fire.
I was watching some war documentary last night and it briefly mentioned an incident where two company sized elements of the 10th Mountain division accidently engaged each other with small arms fire. I think it was in Italy somewhere.
msmith537 - now that’s just eerie. I’m watching the History Channel tonight, and it’s a documentary about the 10th Mountain Division. They just mentioned an incident in the Aleutians where two patrols of the 87th Infantry Regiment opened fire on each other, killing eleven, when the Japanese defenders had already been evacuated.
I’ve got one, but it’s before WWI, and it’s more a “friendly melee incident”, but during the Battle of Barnet in the Wars of the Roses, the Duke of Oxford had routed a section of the Yorkist troops, then came back to the battle to hit the rest of the Yorkists from behind, but it was foggy, and the line had shifted, so he ended up charging the forces of Lord Montagu, a fellow Lancastarian. Montagu’s troops mistook Oxford’s symbol of “A Star Streaming” for the Duke of York’s symbol “The Sunne in Splendour”. When they finally realized their mistake, they thought Oxford had betrayed them, and they routed, ending the battle with a Yorkist victory.