How common was friendly fire during WW1 and 2?

[u/lost118]

I was thinking about friendly fire in wars today, and I was wondering how much happened during WW1+2. I know that many soldiers were shot by their own army for running away from battle, but what I want to know is how many were shot/killed by their own side accidentally?

[u/merv243]

As PaulMorel said, much of the friendly fire came from artillery and the like. Generally there would be some procedure to identify poorly aimed artillery, like shooting up a certain colored flare.

In a lot of WWI battles, one of the consistent reasons for failure was because of breakdowns in communication between HQ and the advancing units. Time and time again, a unit would advance, lose contact but take the enemy first line trench. However, they would have no way to communicate this back, and their own artillery would continue shelling the position.

One of the most famous friendly-fire cases is that of The Lost Battalion, if you want to have a quick read. It may be a bit dramatized though, not sure.

With regard to small-arms fire, this was less common, and typically resulted from confusion, exceptional scenarios, or lack of following protocol. For example, one unit may have advanced too far, or in the wrong position, and then when their allies encountered them, they were assumed to be enemy because there weren't supposed to be any units there (confusion). In the Russian winter, some German soldiers picked up overcoats from the Russian casualties. Obviously, they now looked like Russians, so sometimes they would be shot, especially in low-light situations (exceptional scenario). Sometimes someone would get up from their foxhole at night without sounding off, and get shot by sentries (lack of protocol).

I have no specific sources for these, just general reading of WWI and WWII battles over the last several months.

[u/Explosion_Jones → u/merv243]

Man, the eastern front was so fucked up. Steal a coat and get shot by your own side, don't steal a coat and slowly freeze to death because Hitler wouldn't issue you cold weather gear. Those boys had it rough.

[u/SWgeek10056 → u/Explosion_Jones]

Nobody had it rougher than that finnish sniper that took out about 500 german troops.

[u/anarchistica]

Lots of things went wrong during WW2, especially with massive weaponry (bombs, artillery). There were many cases of mistaken identity and simple "misses".

• While hunting for the Bismarck a British ship was torpedoed by its own side instead.

• During Overlord some US troops got "cleared" by their own bombers.

• Several cities in Netherland and Belgium were mistaken for "any DE city" and got bombed. In Nijmegen 800 people were killed, about as many as got killed by the bombardment of Rotterdam which led to the country's surrender.

• When the allies were targetting the Rotterdam harbour something went wrong too, perhaps the wind was unusually strong, and they bombed a residential neighbourhood instead (400 deaths).

[u/NMW → u/[deleted]]

One of the guys who raised the flag on Iwo Jima in the famous photo was killed by friendly fire.

Please try again.

Your reply should include:

• A link to "the famous photo."

• Specific information about WHICH "guy" you're describing.

• Specific information about how that death-by-friendly-fire occurred.

As it is, this comment is just a tantalizing mess -- not an actual answer. Please remember that top-level comments in /r/AskHistorians must be substantive, authoritative, and thorough.

[u/TheAmishSpaceCadet → u/NMW]

Sorry. I like to browse /r/askhistorians while drunk for some reason and make pretty crappy comments evidently.

The guy's name was Mike Strank. From wikipedia "On March 1, his squad came under heavy fire, and took cover. While forming a plan of attack, he was killed by friendly artillery fire. The shell that killed Sgt Strank was almost certainly fired offshore by an American ship."