The 40 year cover up of the deaths of 749 US Servicemen who died at Slapton Sands, Devon, England

Many years ago now, I was with my parents and we happened to visit Slapton Sands, on a visit to Dartmouth.

In a small car park was a Sherman tank and standing next to this tank was a man who I now know was called Ken Small. He was talking about his work and selling copies of his book, which detailed the history of the disaster and how he uncovered the truth.






This is the story of how the US government and the military covered up the deaths of 700 plus US servicemen and how one man uncovered the truth, along with the Sherman tank [ which was recovered from the sea].

946 US servicemen were ultimatley recorded as killed, during this exercise.

I know it is about the past but those of you who are interested in the D Day landings might find this interesting.

When Mr Small moved to the area his interest was piqued by the rumours that there were 100s of dead American servicemen buried in the sands, locals who had been cleared out of the area by the MOD, saw the graves being dug and the dead bodies being carted about in the dead of night on trucks.

He discovered this was indeed true. However the US government had not told the families of those who died the truth and there was no memorial to commemorate the disaster, It was as if it had been airbrushed from history.

40 years after the event - as a direct result of his efforts a memorial was erected and the families of the US servicemen were finally informed of their true fate.



www.shermantank.co.uk...

www.shermantank.co.uk...

here is a link to the Guardian Newspaper which talks about the mysterious deaths of these US servicemen in an article by Mark Townsend.

One of Britain's grimmest wartime secrets, the harrowing tale of how scores of young soldiers were massacred by their own side on a Devon beach, can now be told.

www.guardian.co.uk...

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uuh this was a terrible mistake...if it was. War fxxxxng war, stop enlisting in the army.

Originally posted by sekos
uuh this was a terrible mistake...if it was. War fxxxxng war, stop enlisting in the army.

those men did not have a choice they were conscripted.

If they can keep this a secret for 40 years, you have to wonder what other secrets they're hiding.

Originally posted by WeRpeons
If they can keep this a secret for 40 years, you have to wonder what other secrets they're hiding.

Yes and you have to wonder if Ken Small did not make such a dogged effort to reveal the truth if it would still be a secret in 2013, I am betting it would,

Id lay my money down that what they say happened here didnt at all, it looks like a cover up within a coverup........

I find it hard to believe that a mistake like that would not be noticed for the amount of time it would take to kill that many soldiers. Blank rounds are very distinguishable from live rounds and they even sound different and have far less recoil.

All the belts an mags that had to be changed in that time and no one noticed they were live rounds?

Not possible imo, I call BS.

* for 700 deaths there would have had to have been 1000s of casualtys or ie witnesses..

* In any excercise using blank rounds its realy only to add a realistic effect, on training exercises you dont get boxes and boxes of dummy rounds like that and especially not during WW2 when brass and cordite would have been in short supply.

* The machine gunners would have had tracers firing off with the live rounds nobody noticed that? Blanks dont have tracers.

* No one heard the thump of the live rounds hitting the sand or sparking off landing craft ?

* No radio communication? every company would have had a radio man.

* Officers and senior NCO's would have had flares to let off that should have stopped the exercise at any time.

My guess is this was some kind of Prototype weapon that went fubar while they were testing it or some kind of gas weapon or something., hence the secrecy.

Hell there was beaches in Normandy on D-day that didnt have death counts that high.

This story is very fishy to say the least.....

Originally posted by sekos
uuh this was a terrible mistake...if it was. War fxxxxng war, stop enlisting in the army.

Why cover it up then, most people not even military, maybe even more so not military, understand the vagaries of war, including friendly fire?

Originally posted by smurfy

Originally posted by sekos
uuh this was a terrible mistake...if it was. War fxxxxng war, stop enlisting in the army.

Why cover it up then, most people not even military, maybe even more so not military, understand the vagaries of war, including friendly fire?

I wonder since it was a training exercise if they actually 'sacrificed' those servicemen as part of the training?

Live rounds that weren't meant to be fired? 700 casualties?

Maybe they needed to psychologically shock these troops for D-day?

reply to post by HelenConway

On this page there are several "versions" of what happened. However, I must trust to the dedicated research carried out so painstakingly by Ken Small, and think that his book is probably the nearest to the truth as we are ever likely to hear.

From a blog unfortunately I am unsure who wrote the blog

www.secondworldwar.org.uk...

I agree it is fishy and the various versions of events add to this fishiness.

Originally posted by yourmaker

Originally posted by smurfy

Originally posted by sekos
uuh this was a terrible mistake...if it was. War fxxxxng war, stop enlisting in the army.

Why cover it up then, most people not even military, maybe even more so not military, understand the vagaries of war, including friendly fire?

I wonder since it was a training exercise if they actually 'sacrificed' those servicemen as part of the training?

Live rounds that weren't meant to be fired? 700 casualties?

Maybe they needed to psychologically shock these troops for D-day?

I don't think that, the nub of the matter is the cover up. Friendly fire for instance is a military nightmare, and often take a whistleblower to uncover, but this was not really what happened here.
Although the article simply says that gunners were given live ammunition, and that 700 died, you could read just about anything into it. It doesn't say anything about who was given real ammo, or if it was everybody playing defensive roles, or something else, however it certainly looks like it was covered up.

reply to post by smurfy


946 died in total but many went down with the ship

Where is the conspiracy here? German subs did it.

Wtf? LIVE AMMO for a training exercise? Is that sort of thing common? Sounds like a recipe for disaster to me.

i dont believe that soldiers dont know the difference between live rounds and blank ammo when loading weapons either via magazine or belt..something not right with the story

reply to post by vonclod


THE second world war .org link - says that the Americans did commemorate this disaster in a memorial at Cambridge where all the names of the deceased are entered, It was recorded in the ? MOD archive.
However - it is the differing tales of what happened that day that is the puzzle.

The germans did sink the ship - along the coast. However, it is a mystery maybe about the friendly fire - if it happened at all.

A lot of hassle for a bunch of Yanks, thank you Mr Small.
Cheers to you sir, When I meet ya in the afterlife, beer is on me!

This story is not only fishy, it is technically impossible. Semi and full auto weapons must be set up to fire blanks in order to function properly. The 1919 browning machine gun and M2 .50 cal. which were what the US used in WWII needed 2 parts changed, one of which would not have even allowed a live round to chamber due to length of the live cartridge. As for the M1 Garand, it needs a blank adapter stuck in the end of the barrel in order to create pressure in the gas system that the bullet would usually create. If a live round were fired it would likely blow up the rifle or at least bend the op rod and render it no longer functional. For this to have happened, the weapons would have had to be set up to fire live rounds and then live rounds issued. I cannot see that being a mistake.

remibds me of the Nuclear bomb tests.
they had 100's of solders stand near the bomb test.
have they ever said how many died???

the best way to TEST wepons of war,
is to kill real people!!!
Thats why we get so many Wars.....

Originally posted by billy82269
This story is not only fishy, it is technically impossible. Semi and full auto weapons must be set up to fire blanks in order to function properly. The 1919 browning machine gun and M2 .50 cal. which were what the US used in WWII needed 2 parts changed, one of which would not have even allowed a live round to chamber due to length of the live cartridge. As for the M1 Garand, it needs a blank adapter stuck in the end of the barrel in order to create pressure in the gas system that the bullet would usually create. If a live round were fired it would likely blow up the rifle or at least bend the op rod and render it no longer functional. For this to have happened, the weapons would have had to be set up to fire live rounds and then live rounds issued. I cannot see that being a mistake.

I don't think they are saying 700 plus men were killed in friendly fire. Ithink the issue was the 946 men died, due to the boat sinking following a surprise attack by germans and that there was no memorial, it was forgotten ? There was no memorial - or though there was in Cambridge apparently.

The families were not told the truth about the incident,

Additional to that there are stories of friendly fire deaths etc how many ??? The stories are conflicting and a bit confusing, as you can see by reading the links.

Originally posted by vonclod
i dont believe that soldiers dont know the difference between live rounds and blank ammo when loading weapons either via magazine or belt..something not right with the story

Even if you're not quite that savvy regarding the difference between live and training ammo, if you're paying attention to what you are aiming at, you should be able to notice that those you are aiming at are dropping as if they were being hit by real bullets. Just how well trained were these soldiers if they continued firing long enough to kill as many as is claimed? Mind-boggling story, if true.