Mossie wrote:
What a shambles !. Ex RAF/RCAF American volunteers, mistaking RAF spits for Egyption spits and killing their old comrades. Egyption spits mistaking an RAF airfield for an IAF airfield. RAF pilots, not recognizing IAF spits as hostile and paying the price. Dear oh dear what a terrible time
http://www.spyflight.co.uk/iafvraf.htmThat’s the same article I was getting my information from.
The following adds a little more light. It's from "Rufus Remembers," an autobiography by Rufus Heald, a British pilot with experience on Spitfires, Tempests, Vampires, Meteors and Hunters.
“Some two months later, on the 7th January 1949, my aircraft had been used in the morning by another pilot for an escort job and for that it had been fully armed. Since there was a war in progress between Egypt and Israel, for some flights we were armed and on others, we were not.
The aircraft always carried full ammunition tanks, but when ‘unarmed’ the mechanism to feed the ammunition to the guns was removed. This was a bit of kit called a BFM or Belt Feed Mechanism. If these were fitted, a card was hung on the control column saying ‘Guns cocked - ready to fire’.
On this particular day, the wing was stood down for the afternoon and we all retired to the Mess for lunch followed by a bit of recreation. In my case that meant working on an Air-Sea rescue boat which we had salvaged and were trying to get seaworthy again.
Not long after lunch, the Tannoy burst into life, recalling all personnel and instructing the Wing to Scramble. I stopped a passing Army lorry and told the driver to give me a ride up to the Flight Line, where I grabbed my helmet and parachute and ran to my aircraft.
I pulled the chocks away, the ground crew having not arrived there yet, scrambled up to the cockpit, opened the canopy, got in, chucked out the card saying ‘guns cocked - ready to fire,’ pressed the primer pump motor, and fired a starter cartridge.
The engine burst into life so, releasing the brakes, I rolled towards the runway and caught up with the Station Commander who was my ‘Number 1’ on such occasions. My own ‘number 2’ went as spare man for the Squadron, and in fact he ended up in one of the empty slots, where a pilot had been off base when the alert went off and so couldn’t take his own place.
We got airborne, still doing up our harness and settling into the routine. The Wing climbed in a ‘Battle Formation’ to around 10,000 feet. What most of us didn’t know at the time was that a formation of four Spitfires from another airfield had gone out in the morning for a reconnaissance of the battle field area and none of them had returned. Our primary task was to try and find out what had happened to them.
In fact, all four had been shot down. The first one, flown by a friend of mine, F/Sgt Frank Close, had been hit by ground fire, the pilot having been forced to bail out, and the other three were shot down by Israeli fighters. The Israeli Airforce had both Me109s and Spitfires while the Egyptian Air Force had also got Spitfires and some Macchi 205 aircraft which look very like the Me 109. So identification of friend from foe was not easy, to say the least.
Anyhow, we proceeded towards the area where the Spitfires had vanished and as we approached the ‘nominal’ border with Israel, we were attacked by the Israeli Air Force. Sadly, my own number two, Pilot Officer David Tattersfield was hit in the first attack and was killed when his aircraft crashed in the desert.
In my own case, I found myself head on to a Me109 who was happily shooting at me. Flicking the safety catch to fire, I pressed my trigger but to my dismay, nothing happened. The only thing that entered my head was that, like an idiot, I had forgotten to turn something on, so my hand flashed round the cockpit and the best I could do was put the navigation lights on!
The Me109 pilot was not over frightened by this! He broke over the top of me, so I turned hard to try and get behind him, while I sorted out why my guns would not fire. I found a Spitfire on my tail who was firing happily (and hitting me) so I jettisoned my drop tanks (which almost hit him) and took fairly violent evasive action.
I gather that I was reported by the Israeli pilot of the Spitfire as ‘last seen losing height rapidly with smoke pouring from the engine.’ This was correct, but the smoke was due to my over-boosting the engine and I was losing height because although the Spitfire could out turn me, my aircraft was quite a lot faster and I needed that speed.! The official Israeli Air Force report claimed me as a ‘probable’. I’m delighted that this was an over assessment!
In due course, I joined up with the Station Commander again and when the skies had cleared, we went home. I still have a bullet which was removed from the armour plate behind the seat.
Incidentally I have since met two of the Israeli guys who were there that day. One of them had an entry in his logbook stating that he had shot down an RAF aircraft that day. Sadly, I was able to countersign the entry confirming his claim. The second Israeli pilot was on the same Weapons Instructor Course as I was, at the RAF Central Gunnery School at Leconfield in Yorkshire, in 1951. It’s a small world in aviation. The reason why my guns would not fire was because, the Wing having been stood down, the armourers decided to service all the BFMs and had taken them out, intending to replace them later - but had left the cards in the cockpits.”
Another interesting twist. At the beginning of the war, the Iraqis loaned two or three (Sea) Furies to the Egyptians for some 20mm ammunition. The British had supplied the Iraqis with Furies, but were hesitant to sell them 20mm ammunition for the guns.
The Israelis mistook the Tempests with their drop tanks for Furies carrying bombs.
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