Did Allies kill GIs in D-Day training horror?

Guardian Unlimited (UK) ^ | Sunday May 16, 2004 | Mark Townsend

[Mr. Buzzcut]

That's it ... we should forfeit WWII and return Europe to the Nazis </REACTING LIKE A LEFTY SARCASM> ;]

[Nov3]

This has been out since the 70's. They had a special on TV about it.

[Jeff Gordon]

What kind of dumb ass soldier can't tell the difference between having and firing live ammunition as opposed to dummy ammunition?

[snippy_about_it]

Does this pass the smell test?

I don't think so. Consider that many unclassified documents exist and are available. The exercise itself had secrecy surrounding it because it was after all preparation for D-Day, but by 1950 all was known and documents released.

Plus not only were our men shot but two LST's were sunk. Wouldn't they also have known immediately that they were firing live rounds? I think that this is a witch hunt for the Pentagon even all these years later.

The FReeper Foxhole Revisits Operation Tiger - Slapton Sands - May 8th, 2004

[SAMWolf]

Thanks Cholerajoe.

Hard to tell, sounds like more US Military bashing. Were there "friendly fire" incidents? Sure. But I find it really hard to believe that troops were all issued real ammo and not one person caught it. Especially on the MGs, they're linked ammo and blanks are easy to tell from live rounds. Even if they had live, someone should have caught on before the casualties got that high in a training excercise. Besides it'd really be hard to cover something like this up for this long.

[jackbill]

What kind of dumb ass soldier can't tell the difference between having and firing live ammunition as opposed to dummy ammunition?

Exactly.

[MosesKnows]

General Eisenhower feared that if German intelligence learned the details of the mock invasion, he might have to postpone or even cancel D-Day.

I have no difficulty believing that.

But history is lies agreed upon.

Battle of Slapton as it relates to WW2.
The U.S.S. Maddox as it relates to the Vietnam War.
The U.S.S. Liberty, as it relates to the 1967 Israeli preamptive attack on Egypt.
The U.S.S. Indianapolis as it relates to the Atomic Bomb dropped in WW2.
Watergate as it relates to the reason for the break-in.
Waco as it relates to the charges against the Branch Davians

The recorded history of each of the above events differs considerably from what is now known.

The dirty little secret of the Gulf War is that "friendly fire" accounted for 13,974 of the 58,226 names etched on the walls of black granite panels.

I've been told that is war.

[Nov3]

The dirty little secret of the Gulf War is that "friendly fire" accounted for 13,974 of the 58,226 names etched on the walls of black granite panels.

Here all the time I thought we only lost a few hundred total in BOTH gulf wars.

Besides how did they get such an exact figure for the VIETNAM WAR.

[fourdeuce82d]

Sounds like complete bullshit to me- certainly modern self loading weapons require an adapter at the muzzle to ensure the weapons fire properly with blank ammo. And even a private could tell instantly whether the belt or clip (yes, for a garand, we say clip) he was handling contains live or blank rounds.

I call bullshit.

[baltodog]

War is hell...

I will not second-guess the actions of heroes.

[wingnuts'nbolts]

For the same reason Churchill did not evacuate locations he knew were going to be hit with Vbombs. Didn't want the Hun to know we had broken their code.

[proxy_user]

Well, there are many accounts of incredible stupidity and inompetence in WWII. They probably used non-combat troops to play the Germans, guys who had no knowledge of weapons or ammunition.

If you read some of the stories in Paul Fussell's book, or in Eugene Sledge's autobiography, you would find this highly credible.

Sledge tells the story of actual combat soldiers being so poorly trained they didn't know to how to pull the pin on a grenade. The Japanese caught the grenades, pulled the pins, and threw them back.

[Leisler]

Just in flight training we lost over 20,000. Do your remember the movie, I think, "It's A Wonderful Life?" There was a actor, who won an Academe Award, and had two arms blown off? Well he had it happen during demo training at Ft. Bragg. I suspect we lost one in ten due to training, and non combat.

Lastly, I don't believe the being issued real ammo, and firing it thinking it was fake. Fakes have no bullets, just crimped brass cartridge filled with powder.

[PISANO]

Should have fired the SecWar, called off the invasion and congress should have had an investigation by appointing a committee to find out what went wrong. Then we should have replaced General Ike, Monte and impeached FDR.

Everyone reading this has to KNOW we could NO LONGER fight a war like WWII......the American people have turned to GHANDI like tactics while our ENEMY is killing children, their own people, women and beheading everyone in their path. WAKE UP AMERICA!!

[GreenHornet]

Imagine this in the modern media.

If the "modern media" existed back then, D-Day would have been tipped off to the Germans days in advance:

"CNN has learned exclusively that the much anticipated invasion of the European mainland will, despite the bad weather, occur on June 6th. Further, reliable sources tell CNN that the invasion will take place on the beaches of Normandy, rather than the Port of Calis, which was widely assumed to be the landing point for allied forces. Stay with CNN for continuing coverage of this historic development as the war continues".

[Pilsner]

This story is BS aimed at people whose "knowledge" of weapons comes from Hollywood. Anyone with five minutes training in firearms can tell a military ball cartridge from a blank, which generally has its end crimped shut and no bullet. (The Russians sometimes used bullets made out of soft wood with so little mass that it it is not dangerous except at very short ranges.) In fact WWII infantry were specifically trained on telling live cartridges and blanks apart because rifle gernandes of the time were fired with an adapter on a rifle and a blank cartidge. A live cartridge would detonate the rifle gernade about two inches past the muzzle with fatal consequnces.

Could a couple of lunk heads have somehow gotten hold of live ammo and plugged five or six guys? Maybe. But the idea that so many died that it took a two acres mass grave (thats 9,680 aquare yards!) to bury all the dead is about as believable as that alien who keeps showing up on the cover of the Weekly World News.

[Leisler]

"...ledge tells the story of actual combat soldiers being so poorly trained they didn't know to how to pull the pin on a grenade."

Pilots have been known to land without putting their gear down. Obviously, they weren't trained. Right? Sledge is wrong. Although it is probably true the explanation, is immense stress and fear, at a level that can't be replicated 100% in training.

[CholeraJoe]

I know from personal experience that neither the M-1 Garand nor the M-14, in full auto, will cycle when firing blanks without a blank adaptor. Firing live ammo with a blank adaptor installed will, with the first shot, split the barrel and turn your Garand or M-14 into a nifty club. I strongly suspect the Browning .30 cal MG works the same. Never was trained on it. The Thompson and "Grease Gun" submachine guns worked on a spring-loaded bolt principle, rather than gas-operated. I've no knowledge whether the recoil of a blank is sufficient to cycle the action of these weapons.

Duh. These were supposedly trained soldiers, not raw recruits. They would know instinctively whether they were using live ammo. I always did and I was just an Air Force puke.

[Hillarys Gate Cult]

True. I can even see firing off a few "blanks" before realizing they had live ammo, but in a training exercise only a moron would keep shooting. The recoil is also much less with a blank.

[CholeraJoe]

I called BS at #20 and explained in #38. Good job.