I was listening to piece on the 6 o'clock news on Radio 4 about that. it does appear that he was killed by a NATO round but they cannot identify which one. They will have to put it down to the fog of war I was also interested in the comments made by the CO, who said that paras had been wounded trying to recover him from the battlefield.
It always seems so much worse somehow when you are killed in error by your own side. Does it help to know, or does it make it worse for the bereaved too? This must have happened in WW2, were the families advised?
I believe the families were always told it was enemy action or an 'accident' that killed a loved one. They knew then that telling them it was friendly fire only caused more pain.
Brian Cull, on TOCH, has been collecting air force "friendly fire" incidents and stories. Just shows how common it was: Friendly fire WWII - Luftwaffe and Allied Air Forces Discussion Forum
It's difficult to say Nana. If you mean the public's awareness of such things, then there were always some who found out through the deceased's collegues. However, the public's perception of what was happening on the battlefield really grew during the Vietnam war. As with many things, the media was abe to "expose" the true nature of the battlefield for audiences at home, whatever that meant. As the media outlets had their own political agendas, some ventured after the issues of things like "friendly fire" and others didn't.
There will always be friend fire, especially when there is little communication between units. There were lots of examples from WW2, from Korea, from Malaya, from Borneo, from Vietnam, from the Falklands, from the first gulf war, from the second gulf war and so on.
