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

reply to post by AngryCymraeg


The friendly fire was not from any HMS ship ie Royal Navy ship it was the Americans shooting their own. I will go through the links again and get you the details. However - I have left at least 4 very detailed links for further info.
It is a very complicated and conflicted story.

Originally posted by AngryCymraeg
reply to post by HelenConway

 

As far as I can discover so far the live firing was confined to the shelling from HMS Hawkins. Which was a cruiser, not a battleship.

This is from the Express Article by Paul Callan 2009 -
The Royal Navy were NOT implicated in the friendly fire it was US servicemen v US servicemen.

The Pentagon has long suppressed the details yet accounts from those present that day show that, as the GIs swarmed ashore, they were scythed down by other US soldiers who had assumed the role, for the exercise, of German defenders. One observer on a nearby vantage point recalled seeing "infantrymen on the beach fall down and remain motionless".

A British observer from the Royal Engineers watched in horror as soldiers streamed from their landing craft and were "mown down like ninepins". He said: "We later found out it was a mistake. They should have been using dummy ammunition but they just carried on shooting."

There has never been any official mention in US army records of bodies ever being found on Slapton Sands and nor has the Pentagon ever commented about there being a friendly fire disaster in the area during the spring of 1944.

They were shot by guns.

However as I said all the links I have given are complicated but they give conflicting accounts but no where did I see the Royal Navy blamed for friendly fire, just for allowing the e boats [ enemy boats ] to slip past. One of the RN ships was being fixed in Plymouth and was unexpectedly not there.

The ship HMS Hawkins did fire live rounds on Eisenhower's orders via the British equivalent in the Armed forces.
However - they are not implicated in the deaths from what I have read.

Originally posted by nake13
reply to post by HelenConway

 

I would be sceptical of claims that it was covered up for 40 years,it was certainly covered up at the time,both to prevent the Germans putting two and two together and realising this was the invasion preparation exercise and also it was witheld from the majority of allied troops slated to take part in Overlord,however,it was a great tragedy that could have been prevented had the Royal Navy provided more suitable escort vessels(i.e MTB's) as the E Boat threat was well recognised by the Navy at that time.

If you check what I have written you will see that a version of the incident was recorded by Eisehowers right hand man in his memoirs and in official US records with a war memorial at Cambridge [ 400 miles away] Also there was non classified documentation of a version of the incident in the national archives in Britain, written in 1945.

However - there WAS a cover up in relation to the fact that the friendly fire incidents are still not clear, nor the mass graves and the 450 men are they really still in the sea ?

Plus the families did not know what happened to their loved ones until the 1980s.

I understand why it was covered up immediately following the incident - a memorial was erected at the site in 1987 and Ken Small was congratulated for his work by none other then President Ronald Reagan.

The full story is still not clear.

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.

Billy - the sources are very very credible - they are not from some tin pot conspiracy theorist.
so read the information = so that you can make a balanced comment. It is not credible to just dismiss it out of hand without careful review of the evidence. Of course NOT all the evidence is presented here just some reports from experts and journalists, who have studied this incident, sometimes for years.

reply to post by HelenConway


I'm sorry, but I've checked that article and a) it DOES mention HMS Hawkins and b) I cannot find a single link to verify the claim that there was a further Blue on Blue. I did find other sites that mentioned HMS Hawkins and the friendly fire incident, such as: www.historylearningsite.co.uk... and www.information-britain.co.uk...

reply to post by AngryCymraeg


Yes Hawkins fired live rounds as agreed, into the designated area. I will read more around this and get back to you.

However - look at the express article and the guardian article they were talking about US v US gun shots.

Have you read all the links here ?

reply to post by HelenConway


Yes, but I'm very, very leery of the Daily Express. It used to be a good paper about 40-odd years ago, but it's now only good for kindling. I'm a former journalist and my father, who also used to be a journalist, absolutely loathes it.

Originally posted by AngryCymraeg
reply to post by HelenConway

 

Yes, but I'm very, very leery of the Daily Express. It used to be a good paper about 40-odd years ago, but it's now only good for kindling. I'm a former journalist and my father, who also used to be a journalist, absolutely loathes it.

there was an observer article also and one from the guardian plus other sources.
Let me do some digging again and I will get back to you tomorrow.

Originally posted by HelenConway

Originally posted by AngryCymraeg
reply to post by HelenConway

 

Yes, but I'm very, very leery of the Daily Express. It used to be a good paper about 40-odd years ago, but it's now only good for kindling. I'm a former journalist and my father, who also used to be a journalist, absolutely loathes it.

there was an observer article also and one from the guardian plus other sources.
Let me do some digging again and I will get back to you tomorrow.

I've found the Observer article, buit it's so close to the Express article that I now have a lot of reservations. It looks awfully like a freelancer sent something in and both papers printed it without much background checking. I've looked around online again and I cannot find any reference to the accidental usage of live ammunition.