Did you know that the Royal Navy had a friendly fire incident that was a double “historic first”?

HMS Oxley, friendly fire victim and the Royal Navy’s first loss in World War II (Photo: naval-history.net)

On September 10, 1939, shortly after World War II broke out, several British submarines were patrolling off Norway in search of German ships. One of them, HMS Triton, spotted what seemed like a German submarine in the dark at 20:45. Triton sent several identification signals with lamp and signal grenades, all of which remained unanswered. Satisfied that the target was a German U-boat, Triton launched torpedoes and sunk it. Fishing the two survivors out of the water revealed a tragic mistake: the submarine was in fact HMS Oxley, one of the other British boats in the patrol, which somehow neglected to respond to the signals. The lethal friendly fire incident became both the Royal Navy’s first kill in World War II, and its first loss.

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Soldiers of the 463rd Combat Engineers near the German border observe Christmas in 1944; note K-ration cans as ornaments (Photo: U.S. Army Signal Corps)

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