During the Battle of Britain, or other similar air conflicts, how much of a risk were bullets fired at planes to the people on the ground? Do we have any records of fatalities or injuries from fighter bullets that weren't intending to strafe the ground?

by PurpleFirebolt
Bigglesworth_

I haven't come across any accounts of casualties from machine gun bullets. Why Don't Penguins' Feet Freeze?, a collection of questions and answers from the 'Last Word' column of the New Scientist, has a question on the potential lethality of bullets fired into the air during celebrations (a question that's also come up on e.g. [Slate] (http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2011/03/watch_out_for_falling_bullets.html) and [Mythbusters] (https://mythresults.com/episode50)). One of the answers was from M. W. Evans who collected spent cartridge cases during the Battle of Britain that "drifted down slowly from the sky" and suggested that a small projectile like a .303 bullet would do "nobody much harm when it lands".

More of a threat than bullets were shells and shrapnel from anti-aircraft guns falling back to earth, these certainly caused casualties but it's difficult to assemble firm data. See posts from myself and /u/Georgy_K_Zhukov in [this thread from a while back] (https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/6gyj6f/were_the_effects_of_wwii_aaflak_rounds_falling/diu81va/) for a couple of examples.