Were people on the ground ever killed by bullet casings?

[herman1rg]

My father (sadly deceased) served as a private in the British army during WW2 in the Middle East and Italy.

At the battle of Monte Cassino January- May 1944 (approx) he was around the environs of Monte Cassino when he was hit on the back of the neck at the joint between the skull and the neck (C1 vertebra)by a spent bullet (or perhaps shell casing) certainly not shrapnel. This resulted in a bloody but not deep would which required a dressing. He retained a small skin depression there for the rest of his life.

There is another story to tell but not related to this thread.

 

[Maxrobot1]

I believe that shell casings would fall base first and make a slight whistling sound as they fell. As for injury, a 20MM or 37mm casing would be dangerous but "rifle caliber" not as much.
Hatcher's experiments showed that a projectile fired from a rifled barrel at a 90 degree angle from the earth would remain point up as it rose and then fell back to earth. This was due to gyroscopic action.
He experimented by firing M1917 Browning machine guns vertically over a lake from a pier ( so he could see the splashes and then had the bullets fall into a boat.
If the projectile was angled off of 90 degrees the air resistance over the rotating projectile would make it point along it trajectory and it would strike nose-first.

 

[Jigger1958]

When a plane fires it's guns, all the casings fly off the bullets into the air through little holes beneath the guns. If the plane was say 5,000 feet in the air, those little casings have got to fall a long way. Even something tiny like that can have a powerful impact when it hits. And there are tons of them from even 15 seconds of firing.

Was any soldiers on the ground, or even civillians ever killed or injured by this tiny pieces of metal?

Just curious.

I remember my father who, was a pilot officer with the RAF telling me of being stood on the sea shore at southend on sea. He was only there because he had been given leave. He and a guy stood next to him watched the contrails of the aircraft in the sky as they fought that day 15th September 1940. Suddenly, the guy next to my father groaned and fell backwards. It just so happened that he had been hit by a 'spent' shell case from one of the aircraft in combat. Spent cases were ejected from the aircraft after firing. On there own they were not particularly harmful, but if an aircraft is flying towards you at 200 mph and from 15-20,000 feet, it just makes sense that the shell case is travelling towards you at that speed. The guy wasn't seriously injured, just badly bruised. Lucky it wasn't one of the bullets that hit him, that would have been fatal. My profile picture is actually that of my father taken in 1943.