U.S. Downing of RAF Planes Told

British military commanders ordered a cover-up of a 1945 incident in which American fighter planes shot down three British aircraft, killing 24 airmen, the Glasgow Herald newspaper said Tuesday.

The Scottish paper said that Lord Mountbatten, as supreme Allied commander in Southeast Asia during the latter part of World War II, ordered the incident kept quiet in an attempt to defuse tension between British and American forces carrying out secret maneuvers over what is now Vietnam.

The incident, which took place in January, 1945, as Royal Air Force planes were dropping supplies to clandestine British-backed troops on the ground, was first brought to light by a U.S. Air Force officer, Col. Peter Dunn, researching the period for his doctoral thesis.

The three lost aircraft were part of an 11-plane squadron of RAF B-24 Liberators that had taken off from northern India to drop arms and equipment to troops operating against the Japanese.

The 24 missing fliers included one Canadian, one Australian and one New Zealander.

Dunn’s hypothesis is that the RAF planes were shot down by an American fighter as part of a bitter Anglo-American rivalry over the future of Indochina.

Britain favored a restoration of French colonial rule in the area, while the United States at the time backed Vietnamese nationalist troops led by Ho Chi Minh.

A highly secret RAF investigation into the incident was ordered, but no record exists of the report, the paper said.

Opposition Labor member of Parliament Chris Smith said he plans to raise the issue in the House of Commons, demanding that the government release information on the incident.

The Ministry of Defense confirmed that aircraft had disappeared on that date but would make no other comment pending the parliamentary question.