| Al Zimer |
6th Jun 2012 08:47 |
It's not only pilots that have problems. The following is from "Australia in the War of 1939 - 1945", Series Two, Navy, Vol II, RAN 1942 - 1945, p.581 -
In this encounter history repeated itself when an innocent watcher came under ineffective fire from the Allied ships. In the first volume of this work it was recorded that during an air attack on the Mediterranean Fleet in the preliminary stages of the Battle of Calabria, "the height of the attacking aircraft, and their appearance as glittering specks, led the 7th Cruiser Squadron to open fire during the afternoon on the planet Venus. It was an indignity the Goddess of Love, in her day-time manifestation in the sky, was often to undergo during the Mediterranean campaign." She was to undergo it in the South-West Pacific also. On this afternoon of air attacks on TG .77.2 on 4th January 1945, Midshipman Francis in Shropshire recorded in his diary: "The planet Venus was taken for a high flying aircraft, and, with other ships, Shropshire wasted many rounds of ammunition in this direction."
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