Many US servicemen met their end at the hands of their compatriots. The same has happened in all wars, on all sides. The "fog of war", panic, and just pure bad luck, as well as incompetence at times. My dad had a load of US Marines on an LST he was serving on, taking them from Leyte (from Samar?? - I am awful with details) out to a hospital ship. They had been accidentally bombed by USN close-ground support aircraft, mis-identified as Japanese, although they were well-away from the drop zone and were using fof identification - which was occasionally "spoofed" by the Japanese, btw, and not always trusted. In this case, it was a "homing beacon". Just another reason that the Marines wanted their own flyers doing the close support...
