"Sincere question inspired by a book & old movie" Topic

Reading the final book in Atkinson's liberation trilogy (recommended by the way). Right now I am just finishing up Cobra where there were a large amount of casualties from miss-dropped bombs.
This reminded me of a Viet Nam movie I saw many years ago (starring Carrol Burnett in a dramatic role of all people). I don't remember the name, but the basic plot is that the Burnett character's son is killed in the war by "friendly fire" and thus not entitled to a Purple Heart. The rest of the movie goes on about her crusade to fix that.
Assuming that is true – was that a problem in WWII also? Were all those thousands of men killed/wounded by "friendly fire" denied a Purple Heart (and related benefits).
If so, "that ain't right."

Courtesy of Google, this is the Carol Burnett movie to which you referred -- "Friendly Fire." link

Jim

link

This has a pretty detailed discussion of the award.

Mike Bunkermeister Creek
Bunker Talk blog

The criteria for the award changes with the times. The PH was not authorized for friendly fire wounds or death until 1993, at which point it also made friendly fire PHs retroactive to Dec 7, 1941.

I am sure some friendly fire PHs had to be awarded because no one could tell how the wound was caused. If you are on an ammunition ship that just explodes because of error, sorry about your luck. If you are standing in the chow line and a P-51 straffs the area by mistake, oops. If you are in the middle of a battle and small arms and artillery rounds are are being fired by everybody and their brother, no one is probably going to care that the tree splinter that killed someone was from an American 75 instead of a German 88.

I don't see the logic of not giving the PH just because the wound was caused by friendly fire -- that's not the wounded guy's fault!

donlowry

That was my thought.
My grandfather was wounded in the face in WWI (required experimental reconstructive surgery to his jaw). He never did get his PH while he was alive (died in 1965), because some idiot clerk wrote "none" instead of "One" on his papers.
My dad & I finally got it corrected in the 1990s because dad knew a congressman and we found the proof.

I just hope the guys who got bombed by their own air force in WWII (and I think there was a lot) got their due.

"When the United States Air Force flies overhead, even the Allies duck." (German saying. But we weren't the only ones: we just brought more tonnage to the party.)

Knew an officer who'd been Special Forces late in Vietnam. Purple heart from a rifle shot in the leg--but since, as he pointed out, he'd been in a red light district in Saigon when he was hit--presumably on patrol: I didn't ask--he couldn't even be sure the shot was fired in anger.

I think, as 79th PA points out, there was and is a tendency not to look too closely at sources of fire. But I can see where the "enemy fire only" clause in the regs would come from. Do you rate a Purple Heart for a firing range accident? Or "Joe, you shoot me in the foot: then I'll shoot you in the calf and we'll both get out of here?"