RichTO90 Posted December 8, 2024 Posted December 8, 2024 I have alluded to this incident before, but this is the final version after all the research and putting two and two together. On 17 August 1944, Brigadier General John M. Devine, commanding the 90th Division Artillery, also reoriented some of the Division’s Field Artillery battalions to bring them closer to the gap between Le Bourg-Saint-Léonard and Trun, through which elements of twenty or more German divisions were finally beginning to flee eastwards. At 0700, the 915th, 344th, and 345th Field Artillery were ordered to move further northwest of Nonant-le-Pin, closer to Le Haras du Pin. The 343d Field Artillery, with Dad’s Battery A, 537th Antiaircraft Automatic Weapons Battalion were ordered to move as well and started moving at 2030. Their destination was farm fields around the church at La Cochère, about five kilometers northwest of Nonant-le-Pin and two kilometers south of Le Haras du Pin. In route, they experienced something all too common during the Normandy campaign, an attack by friendly aircraft. Sometime earlier, two P-38J15 “Lightning” fighter bombers of the 430th Fighter Squadron, 474th Fighter Group, IX Tactical Air Force took off from their base at Landing Ground A-11, near Saint-Lambert south of Isigny-sur-Mer. Each aircraft was fully armed with a 20mm and four .50-caliber machine guns and two 500-lb bombs. Aircraft Serial Number 43-28725 was flown by 1st Lieutenant Robert Gustave Loft. The other was flown by Loft’s wingman, 2d Lieutenant Marshall Hanna. Their mission was to fly a dive-bombing and strafing mission against German positions near Bernay. The pilots flew a course of 110 degrees to reach Bernay through 8/10ths cloud cover, a 5,000-foot cloud base, and good visibility. A half hour after the 343d Field Artillery and Battery A got on the road, they noticed two aircraft circling above them. Dad’s four M16B began tracking them but they were quickly identified as American aircraft. However, as the aircraft approached, both made a low firing pass at the American column. According to the account by the 343d Field Artillery, The second came in too low, shearing the tops of four telephone poles and hitting Baker Battery‘s 4th gun section truck with its wing and propeller. Four men were killed and two injured during the strafing. The men killed were T/4 John Burkhart, Pfc. Henry Maul, Pfc. Fred D. Weyl, Jr., and Pvt. Tony A. Vigil. The plane crashed and burned about 250 yards from the road. The pilot was killed in the crash and burned beyond recognition, but his dog tags identified him as an American pilot. That story, while describing a sad series of events too common in warfare, also appears to conceal some of the reality of what happened that night. Problematically, there are numerous discrepancies in this account. For example, Lieutenant Hanna said that Loft’s crashed at 2030, while Battery A gave the time as 2100. However, that simply glosses over the major issue with the Army Air Force account – the two aircraft were over thirty miles off course, far south of their target at Bernay. To end up where Loftus crashed, they had to fly a course of about 130 degrees, not 110 degrees. Worse, Lieutenant Hanna testified that the crash site was one mile east of La Goulafrière, which is about twenty miles northeast of the actual crash site. The two pilots were completely mistaken about their location, which helps explain why they believed the American column they attacked was German. Given that neither plane bombed, but only made a strafing attack, it also seems likely that they had already expended their bombs on another target and were only attacking a target of opportunity. Nor does the account of the 343d Field Artillery match with Hanna’s description of events, which was that “[Loft] climbed above the overcast and came down on his bomb run at approximately 350 MPH and went into the ground bursting into flames.” The problem with that is that Hanna implied that only Loft attacked, when it is clear from the accounts on the ground that both attacked. It also makes no sense that the lead pilot, Loft, would be the second aircraft to attack, as the 343d Field Artillery account would have it. The answer to this enigma is simple and was given by Dad, who was an eyewitness – he recalled going over to the crashed aircraft and seeing the recovery of Loft’s dogtags, which confirmed that the pilot and aircraft were American. He remembered, just as in the 343d Field Artillery account, that both aircraft made a firing pass on the column. In that pass four men in Battery A, Sergeant Franklin F. Newcomb, Corporal John F. Reddington, Private First Class Lawrence A. Moore, and Private Lawrence Bradley, one of the M16B gun crew, were all lightly wounded by flying fragments from the 20mm and .50-caliber rounds. Reddington was lightly wounded enough that he returned to duty the same night, but the others remained in the casualty clearing station until the next day when they returned to duty as well. It may have been that Loft and Hanna were trying to suppress the “German” antiaircraft guns before they made another pass. The two aircraft then circled, and then made another pass at the column. Dad recalled that as soon as the aircraft opened fire, the M16B fired in return. One aircraft, Hanna’s, broke off the attack. The second was either hit by the fire from Battery B, struck the poles, and crashed or Loft was distracted by trying to avoid the fire, struck the poles, and crashed. Either way, Dad stated firmly, “he made a second pass at us, and we opened fire on him; we shot him down”. While it may seem shocking that Dad was so matter of fact about a fatal friendly fire incident, it was far too common an occurrence and the subject of considerable bitterness on the part of the Army Ground Forces to the Army Air Forces. Even General Patton had experienced the problem. Three days earlier on 14 August he recorded just as matter-of-factly in his diary, “One of our own P-47's strafed the cross roads [sic] near Hq getting a tank carrier. It was shot down.” Ironically, also on 17 August, the Allied Expeditionary Air Force, in overall tactical command of the air support effort in France, ordered the bomb safety line, “entirely removed from the pocket west of the narrowing Falaise-Argentan gap, and theoretically air activity over the beleaguered enemy in that area ceased.” The reason for shifting the bomb line east was to protect Allied ground forces from accidental air attacks, which had become a bone of contention between the ground and the air commanders. Air Chief Marshall Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory, commander of the Allied Expeditionary Air Force, had long opposed fixed bomb lines, claiming they restricted the effectiveness of close air support and denied the tactical air forces excellent target opportunities, allowing many enemy troops to escape. He preferred a less cautious policy, allowing fighter-bombers to attack identified targets at will. The problem with that, illustrated repeatedly in the Normandy campaign, as in Dad’s case, was that identification of targets – and even basic navigation – was problematic for many of the young pilots flying missions. Worse, by 14 August Leigh-Mallory had come to a remarkable conclusion. He had decided that the battle of Normandy had been won and was over. He dictated the following for his daily diary, My own view is that the chances of the Hun getting out have no gone. Inside [the pocket] of course he is being harried by the fighter-bombers which have clobbered and clobbered and clobbered. But the opportunity of wiping out the German Army as they streamed back over the roads in headlong retreat doesn’t look as though it will come my way. It is possible that they might last incise the pocket for as much as a week or ten days. They are almost surrounded. When that army in the pocket has gone, what can the Hun do? He will, I suppose, try to hold the Seine for a short time but he has no more troops, or certainly, none of any value, and with the large forces at our disposal, we shall be able to continuously to outflank him. Leigh-Mallory was so convinced the campaign was over that on 15 August he ceased dictating entries for his diary, stating, …he now regarded the campaign in France and Western Europe (as far as the air was concerned) as won and his eyes were turning in the direction of the Far East whither he was shortly to proceed. On the morning of 17 August, Montgomery flew to Bradley’s headquarters at Saint-James, where they discussed how to trap the Germans. During the discussion, both agreed to move the bomb lines east of the Argentan-Falaise gap. Given his assumption that the campaign was essentially over, Leigh-Mallory acquiesced with little protest. Leigh-Mallory was promoted to Air Chief Marshal on 16 August and was appointed Air Commander-in-Chief of South East Asia Command effective 1 November but was killed in an aircraft accident on 14 November 1944 before he could assume command his new command in Burma. His body was not recovered until June 1945. His older brother George famously disappeared attempting to scale Mount Everest in June 1924, and his body was not discovered until 1999.
Stuart Galbraith Posted December 8, 2024 Posted December 8, 2024 In 1944 there was iirc a difference of some 11 degrees between true north and magnetic north. I struggle to understand how you get 20 degrees off course unless his gyrocompass hadn't been properly adjusted.
RichTO90 Posted December 8, 2024 Author Posted December 8, 2024 23 minutes ago, Stuart Galbraith said: In 1944 there was iirc a difference of some 11 degrees between true north and magnetic north. I struggle to understand how you get 20 degrees off course unless his gyrocompass hadn't been properly adjusted. I surmise they already expended their bombs and were looking for some fun. If I get a chance I may look for the squadron records to see if Hanna had more to say.
Stuart Galbraith Posted December 9, 2024 Posted December 9, 2024 Yes, please do. Incidentally, recently I was looking up some of the 464 and 487 squadron on the National Archive. They really do have some excellent squadron records up there if Mosquito operations is your thing. I was quite surprised at their ability to find pinpoint targets in the dark, but then I believe 2 Group mosquito's were carrying GEE.
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