The USS Liberty Attack

Don't overcomplicate things. Maybe it's just very boring.   

NOV. 7, 1944 — A formation of American P-38 Lightnings on a routine patrol over Kosovo spot an inviting ground target: a column of enemy infantry and armour rolling through the open country. The Allied fighters streak down towards the vehicles with guns blazing. Enemy troops scramble for cover as the planes finish their first pass and come around for another run. The commander on the ground radios for help. A formation of nine interceptors hears the distress call and speeds in to drive away the attacking aircraft. The fighters jump the the American planes — a fierce dogfight ensues. Both sides lose aircraft in the melee. After five minutes, the two sides with withdraw and the brief skirmish is over.

While a seemingly typical wartime encounter, there’s more to the story. Those ‘enemy’ ground units that the American planes fell upon weren’t Germans – it was a Red Army column. The Luftwaffe interceptors were actually Soviet Yak-3 fighters. Worse, the American planes weren’t flying anywhere near Nazi-occupied Kosovo. A navigation error put the U.S. formation more than 100 miles away near Nis, Serbia — an area that had already been liberated by the Russians weeks earlier. [1] The entire affair was chalked up to a case of “friendly fire” and promptly swept under the rug by military censors. Yet sadly, the fatal air battle at Nis is just one of many examples of allies killing allies that, all told, cost thousands of lives during the Second World War.

Shit happens.