OUR ALLIES (May 3, 1945)
On this day the British 6th Airborne and the US 7th Armoured Division captured the north German town of Wismar. The actual capture was carried out by men of the 1st Canadian Parachute Battalion. Just outside the town were the Russian front lines from where drunken soldiers, fuelled by a mixture of vodka and rocket fuel, were flocking into town in search of wine, women and song. The main hospital in Wismar was now occupied by the Paras. That night, a group of Russian soldiers approached the main gate of the hospital and demanded that all German nurses be brought out. Told that no women were here they pushed the sentry aside and entered the courtyard. A half dressed Para pocked his head out of a window and shouted 'They are our girls, get lost'. Suddenly a shot rang out followed by the rattle of a British Sten-gun. The drunken Russians scattered as shooting broke out on both sides. It was all over in minutes, the Russians retiring to their own lines. In the cobbled courtyard of the hospital lay the bodies of six dead Soviet soldiers.
I believe there were a number of shooting incidents between Allied and Soviet troops when they met, usually under simlar circumstances as the one you describe. I've heard of a couple involving US troops getting into it with Soviet troops who were attacking German refugee women. There were also some instances of Red Army columns getting blown apart by Allied fighter-bombers mistaking them for Germans (who had learned back in Normandy that they could only travel at night).