Ivan Kozhedub's last two kills

[2stony]

I just got done reading an Osprey book about the Lagg 3,5 & 7s. In it, they tell about Ivan Kozhedub's last two kills. It seems he and his wingman were over Berlin late in the war on a fighter sweep and they see a flight of fighters below them. Kozhedub dives down and shoots down two of the fighters. He climbs up and starts down for another pass. As he gets closer, he notices the insignia on one of the planes and it's in U.S. markings. The two planes he shot down were P-51s. He did not shoot any on his second pass. Upon return to base, he told his C.O. about what happened and they confiscated his gun camera film and told him to keep it quiet as they didn't want the possibility of an international incident. Needless to say, he didn't get credit for the two P-51s(or should he have).

[Westy]

Not an uncommon occurance in 1945......


http://216.91.192.19/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=40703

[Guppy35]

359th FG P51s bounced a bunch of LA5s and Yak 9s on March 18th, 1945 downing a number of Yak 9s without a loss.  Stalin has the surviving Russian pilots shot and demands the Roosevelt do the same for the American pilots.  Needless to say that didn't happen.

Much earlier, on November 7, 1944 the 82nd FG flying out if Italy in P38s accidently straffed a Russian convoy and shot down 3 Yak 9s, killing two of the pilots and killing a number of people in the convoy while destroying 20 vehicles.  This was over Yugoslavia.  Needless to say the Russians were not please nor were the Allied brass


Dan/Slack

[Rasker]

It was so common for both Allied and Russian air forces to be active in daylight over Berlin toward the end of the war, I wonder that they didn't start some kind of traffic control or coordination to preven this sort of thing, as well as collisions etc.

[LWACE]

In "The Blonde Knight Of Germany" Erich Heartmann tells afew stories about escaping because the Russians and US mistaked each other.