Canadian Soldier killed in 1944 friendly fire ID'd

[Annelie]

http://www.thespec.com/article/378148

Canadian soldier killed in 1944 friendly fire incident ID'd
The Canadian Press
(May 31, 2008)
Stan Beirnes can still clearly recall the day in August 1944 when he was exchanging fire with German soldiers near the French town of Haut Mesnil.

He heard aircraft behind him and turned around in horror to see Allied planes mistakenly dropping bombs on Canadian and Polish soldiers several hundred yards away.

The pilots, believing they were bombing German soldiers, kept moving forward.

"The next planes dropped right on us. In fact, one of the bombs landed right in the middle of our air defence (dugout)," Beirnes said recently from his home in Oakville.

Beirnes, a bombardier with the 3rd Infantry Division, escaped uninjured, but others weren't so lucky.

"The sergeant, I examined him. He had one leg out at right angles ... and the other leg was right back, straight back. I went to feel his pulse to see if he was alive. He opened his eyes, but he didn't live too long."

Many of the dozens who were killed were in the Haut Mesnil quarry, where the division had set up its headquarters. Dozens more were listed as missing.

The friendly fire event was blamed on mixup.

Now, almost 64 years after the incident, one of the men killed has been identified.

He is Pte. Ralph Ferns. He was born in Tipperary, Ireland, and lived in Toronto before shipping out overseas with the Royal Regiment of Canada.

He was 25.

His remains were discovered in the quarry in March 2005 by local residents, along with a badge that showed he was a Canadian soldier. For the next three years, the Department of National Defence worked to identify him, eventually finding a match through dental records.

Yesterday, after consulting with relatives, the Department of National Defence released his name to the media.

Jack Gross, a lieutenant at the time, was about 500 metres away on a road beside the quarry when the bombing started. He saw soldiers scrambling to get out.

"I can still see them, some on foot and some in vehicles, racing up past us to get the hell out of there," said Gross, who now lives in Grimsby.

"We had passed through the quarry, we were on the road out. We knew they were bombing the wrong place. We stood and watched it. It was terrible."

Ferns is to be interred in a military ceremony at the Canadian War Cemetery in Bretteville-sur-Laize, France.