Hi I saw an interesting UK Channel 4 ducumentary the other night where crash investigators and other experts made a fairly convincing case that famous British fighter ace Douglas Bader was actually shot down by another Spitfire. We'll never know for certain, of course, but all the clues seemed to add up.
It was a long and slightly meandering investigation but I'll try to summarise what I understood from it - 1. Bader and his squadron of Spitfires were on a mission over France when he went down. 2. He was captured and briefly entertained as an honoured guest by the Luftwaffe fighter group in that area which was led by the famous Adolph Galland. During this visit Galland reported that Bader asked him which of them had shot him down. Galland answered that none of his group had claimed him but they all wished that they had got him. 3. Bader was placed into captivity for the remainder of the war during which he managed to make an official release in which he stated, contrary to his "who shot me down question", that he had collided with an ME109 and was not shot down with the impact taking his tail section off and the ME109 he collided with went down too. Hmmmmm ... 4. The present day now. The investigating team discovered that only one German plane was lost that day and that was accounted for elsewhere. 5. The team discovered that there was a Spitfire pilot who claimed a very definite 109 kill that same day; his guns blowing its tail clean off like Bader's but this account did not tie in with the meticulous German records of only one plane lost. Additionally the pilot claimed that he watched the 109 descend and the pilot bailed out very late as Bader did because one of his false legs got stuck and was lost with the plane. 6. Putting all this together the team came to the conclusion that Bader was shot down by that same Spitfire pilot who could easily have mistaken the silhouette of his Spit for the model of 109 that was around at that time during the confusion of battle. My opinion - Balder altering his story is a side issue an probably politically motivated but I find the theory about friendly fire incident fairly convincing but I suppose we'll never know.[/i]
There's no reason that his Spit couldn't have been misidentified as a 109. P-51's on recc missions were ocasionally shot at by P-48 pilot (according to Microsoft CFS3 anyways) Some varients of the 109 (notable the ones built for the Spanish war) shared the same rounded wingtips as the Spits. Clear as mud? Good.
His Spitfire mistaken as a Bf109? Either that squadron was flying at night or in poor visibility, or that guy that shot him down had drunken too much alcohol before flying, or, well, uh, Siberian's right, I guess.
you mock about miss identification but you have to remember that this all happens at speed, distance and with adrenaline flowing If a plane could missidentify armour on the ground then it's just as easy to carry that to a plane in the air. FNG
When you look at a colour 3 view in a book from your school library it does seem hard to believe perhaps, however as FNG said in poor light, at speed, in the adrenalin rush of combat it shouldn't be too surprising. As examples: The first kills of Spitfires as a type were a pair of Hurricanes shot down during the Battle of Barking creek, a Hurricane and Spitfire squadron blundered into one another very early in WWII and engaged each other. Two Hurricanes were shot down and one pilot killed before the mistake was noticed. Bristol Blenheims and Ju88s were also often mistaken for one another, despite looking little like each in books. Mustangs apparently had a hard time in the ETO initially being mis-IDed as Bf109s, an apparently fairly common complaint was the P-47 Thunderbolt pilots would shoot at anything with squared wingtips. You shouldn't be too judgemental of young men flying in very dangerous circumstances and times and often fighting for their lives.
