Crusader561 wrote:

: Wow..this floors me. Were aircrews that worried by fake or captured
: aircraft that they would shoot at anything not in their formation?

Unidentified Stragglers trying to join would not
always be shot at, but quite often. And on those
occasions when stragglers from other formations
were allowed to join up, there certainly was tension
on both sides -- the pilot of the straggler knew
very well that the all the gunners in front of him
had him in their sights.

Of course gunners would not shoot at anything, but
they were trained not to care too much about markings
or aircraft types, because in combat these were too
hard to identify and a source of confusion. Instead,
they were trained to respond to the "behaviour" of
aircraft, whether they behaved aggressively or
suspiciously. The suspicion that aircraft trying to
follow a formation might be flown by Germans, also
turned ostensibly US aircraft following a similar
pattern of behaviour into potential targets.

One can hardly blame crews engaged in extremely
dangerous missions for being "worried". Sometimes,
as could not fail to happen,the limits of excusable
paranoia were exceeded; one bomber group -- IIRC
the 100th -- once produced a report complaining that
the Germans now not only had their aircraft painted
to look like American aircraft, but that they also
closely imitated their behaviour. The gunners had
fired nevertheless...

Emmanuel Gustin