"Friendly fire" is when friendly people shoot at their own people. The reasons can be very different: from pure psychology to elementary stupidity. For example, on the eve of World War II, the Air Force had a white star with a small red circle in its center. The Japanese Air Force also has a red circle, only a large one. Very large compared to the American one. But when the war began and American planes entered the line of fire, reports of "friendly fire" came from the pilots. It turned out that in a stressful situation of air combat or reflection of plaque, the eyes first of all see this red circle. Size is taken into account, but not by everyone. And the consequence is friendly fire! The circle was removed and there were significantly fewer cases of "friendly fire".
The US destroyer Harwood belonged to the ships of the same type as the ships transferred to Greece and Turkey in the order of military assistance and participated in the "Battle of Paphos".
There are cases when their cars and tanks were mistaken for someone else's well, simply because the "eyes were blurred" or there was poor visibility. But the most, probably, odious case of "friendly fire" was connected, however, with the actions of the relevant services, and took place relatively recently during the Turkish invasion of Cyprus, which began on the night of July 20-21, 1974. This invasion began in the very last days of the rule of the so-called "black colonels" in Greece.
It all started with the fact that on the island in 1964 and 1967 there had already been cases of interethnic strife in relations between Greeks and Turks, so the situation there was very tense.
But further - more: in July 1974, the legally elected President of Cyprus, Archbishop Makarios, with the support of the Greek junta, was removed from power, which passed to a group of radicals led by Nikos Sampson, one of the leaders of the Greek underground organization EOKA-B, who demanded to annex Cyprus to Greece … Although the new leadership declared its loyalty to the Turkish population of the island, Turkey, knowing him as an extremist and a person of anti-Turkish sentiments, in response, on July 20, 1974, sent an army of 10 thousand people to the island, as a result of which hostilities began in Cyprus. … It all ended with the division of Cyprus into North and South, and the northern part was not recognized by anyone except Turkey. The southern part - the Republic of Cyprus itself - is a member of the EU, and for many years now it has been suing Turkey for compensation for damage from hostilities. On May 12, 2014, the Grand Chamber of the ECHR in Strasbourg issued a verdict in favor of the Republic of Cyprus to recover compensation from Turkey in the amount of 90 million euros for violation of the provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights in Northern Cyprus since 1974, of which 30 million were to compensate for moral damage to the relatives of the Greek Cypriots who disappeared during these events, and the remaining 60 million will be received by the Greek Cypriots from the Karpas Peninsula. But Turkey refused to comply with this decision of the European Court, and officially. However, they can be partly understood. Although Northern Cyprus now belongs to Turkey, she got it at a high price, and the fault was just the "friendly fire" provoked … by the Cypriot intelligence!
This story was called the "sea battle of Paphos" (July 21, 1974), and it was a real battle, yes, it just happened between … the Turkish fleet and … consequences after the end of the Second World War.
And it so happened that when on the night of July 20, 1974, the Turkish army began to invade the territory of Cyprus, the Greek army was simply unable to resist it either by the number of its soldiers or weapons, and was forced to use ingenuity and cunning.
Again, it happened that on July 19, that is, 12 hours before the start of the invasion, a large landing ship Lesbos left the port of Famagusta in Cyprus, on board of which there was a replacement contingent of Greek soldiers, 450 people who served in Cyprus … This was noticed by the Turkish reconnaissance aircraft RF-84F "Thunderflesh" and reported that the ship was sailing without any escort, that is, it was an easy target.
Well, on July 20, Greek warships appeared near the island of Rhodes, and as soon as their commanders accepted the messages about the beginning of the invasion, some of them headed for Cyprus. The Turkish military knew about this from aerial reconnaissance, which was conducted by the Grumman S-2E Tracker aircraft, which reported that, judging by the course, they were going towards Lesbos. Based on this information, two orders were issued - the Air Force and the Turkish Navy, stating that these ships must be stopped at any cost. It was planned that the aviation would strike the first blow at them, and the ships would finish off what was left and, most importantly, would not allow the Greeks to land troops.
However, the Turks monitored only during the day, and at night all the Greek ships disappeared from their radars. Moreover, the Greek ships did not go to Cyprus at all, but for some reason (and why no one knows!) In the dark changed their course and went to the island of Rhodes.
Meanwhile, the three Turkish destroyers Adatepeen, Kocatepeen and Tinaztepeen at Kyrenia supported the Turkish landing with fire. And then, knowing that the Turks were listening on the radio, the Greek intelligence from Paphos transmitted a message in which it thanked the "Greek" ships for their timely arrival. The Turks intercepted it, but for some reason they did not check it, and immediately gave an order for an immediate attack on the Greek ships!
The strike was to be delivered by 28 F-100D and 16 F-104G aircraft. Each F-100D carried two, and the F-104G one M117 bomb weighing 340 kg. F-104G and F-100C fighters were to accompany the attack aircraft. A total of 48 vehicles were involved, and if we say that “the sky over the sea has turned black from aircraft”, it will not be an exaggeration!
At the same time, at about 10 am, three Turkish destroyers were also ordered to go to Paphos and attack ships flying the Cyprus flag. Both Turkish and Greek destroyers belonged to the same class, fell to both of them in the framework of military assistance, and outwardly looked like twin brothers. In addition, they did not have electronic systems of identification "friend or foe". Moreover, the Turkish command also informed its pilots that there were no Turkish ships in this area! So the pilots were ordered to "fly and bomb" … any warships and complete the mission in the shortest possible time.
The planes flew in, the pilots noticed the "Greek ships" below, but for some reason did not notice the Turkish flags, and did not pay attention to the warning signals from the ships, and at 14:35 an attack began on the destroyers. All three ships were seriously damaged. At "Kocatepeen" a combat information post was destroyed by a direct bomb hit, so the target designation systems on it were out of order and it could no longer defend itself against attacks! The pilots noticed this, redoubled their efforts, which caused an explosion on the ship in the ammunition storage, and it sank, killing 78 Turkish sailors (13 officers, the captain of the ship and another 64 ordinary crew members, 42 people were rescued by an Israeli ship and later taken to Haifa. According to some reports, one F-104G aircraft was also shot down by fire from ships, but Turkey also refused to admit the loss of the aircraft.
As always, farce went hand in hand next to the tragedy. It turned out that a Turkish plane had been shot down in the region of Kyrenia the day before, and the pilot who escaped from it, who was in Cyprus, managed to communicate by radio with the pilots of the attacking aircraft. He tried to explain to them that they were attacking their own Turkish ships. They asked him to name the code word of the day, but he could not know it, because they shot him down the day before! As a result, the pilots laughed at him and noticed that he was good, speaks Turkish well, and continued to bomb the ships off the coast. After dropping all the bombs, they flew away, and the damaged destroyers requested help and were towed to the bases, where they were repaired for several months!
At the same time, according to Turkish data, as a result of this incident, 54 soldiers were killed. However, immediately after the "battle", the Turkish media announced an outstanding victory over the Greek fleet. But then, after reports from Western newspapers about the destroyed destroyer, all these statements immediately disappeared. Turkey acknowledged the loss of the ship on July 25. Such is the kind of "friendly fire" and such are its consequences!
