I was just reading about bullets being fired from guns on holidays (4th if july, etc.) coming back down to earth with lethal force. I’ve also been playing a lot of IL2: Sturmovik (WWII flight simulator) lately and I realized that there were several high caliber rounds being fired at high altitude over populated areas at the time. Were there any accounts of people who may have been far enough away to not even know a dogfight was happening just suddenly be peppered by stray .50 cal or even bigger cannon fire?
And what about Anti-Air fire? :)
Just from a french diary i'm in possession of ( the source is also quoted in a couple of books by historians) :
*6 miles inland from Juno beach.
6th of June 1944 10:00
"Our roofs are riddled, the walls filled with small holes. During my village tour, I had to fall on my stomach two or three times to avoid the bullets; we don't know where they come from, where do they come from?!"
*to be fair this could be ground fire, but the village she is talking about wasn't attacked before 13:00
12th of June 1944
"I go to Creully for refueling, dogfights in the air at the crossroads of quarries I hide in the ditch. A lot of anti-aircraft bullets of all sorts, a plane shot down on the road.Everybody tries to get souvenirs from it (I had seen the aviators descend by parachute on the woods of Lantheuil)."
15th of June 1944
"Hell night, shells, anti-aircraft, the tiles are falling. And always an excruciating dust, the turns of the roads are like beaches, 30 to 40 cm of sand, 10 cm on the roadways.
Always the noise, you have to scream to get along, our head is very sore, bullets have pierced the shutters of the large living room. During the day we hear large explosions, a shell in our raspberries, the anti-air machine gun fires; we no longer pay attention to it and continue to live, we have to clean up and cook. "