No other WWII training accident took so many American lives.
June 30, 2015 1:43 PM Subscribe
DISASTER AT SLAPTON SANDS Scimitar was holed when she was rammed by another vessel and was ordered to return to port. Incredibly, no one bothered to inform the operation commander of this! This left tiny Azalea to act as the sole escort. As events showed, this might have been enough except for one unspotted typographical error in the orders. The American ships were tuned to the wrong radio frequency and could not transmit to or receive from the British ship or coastal stations.
See also: The disaster that may have saved D-Day
See also: The disaster that may have saved D-Day
I'm pretty sure there's an episode of Foyle's War based on this incident ...
And yeah, it gets touched on here.
posted by philip-random at 2:57 PM on June 30, 2015 [1 favorite]
And yeah, it gets touched on here.
posted by philip-random at 2:57 PM on June 30, 2015 [1 favorite]
It hasn't really been in the public consciousness over here either. The first I heard of it was an episode of Coast on the BBC, I think.
posted by GallonOfAlan at 3:01 PM on June 30, 2015
posted by GallonOfAlan at 3:01 PM on June 30, 2015
It seems kind of hard to find good coverage of it online even at this late stage. I had to dig more than I expected to in order to come up with anything decent. So it seems to have been buried pretty deep.
posted by Michele in California at 3:04 PM on June 30, 2015
posted by Michele in California at 3:04 PM on June 30, 2015
I wonder what secrets the men and women who fought the war are taking to their graves.
My father who passed away in 1991 was in the Marine Air Corps in the Pacific during WWII and he shared almost nothing about that time except for his affection for the plane he flew in (he was not a pilot, he never said if he was a navigator, bombardier, tail gunner or what). Oh, he did say his plane went down in the ocean once, 'we all floated around for several hours before being picked up by our navy', and that was as much of the story he ever told. But over the years, I came to suspect his scary short temper, occasional brooding and anxiety over drinking (fear of losing control?) were an undiagnosed bit of PTSD. But I've also come to suspect that "The Good War" did a lot more damage to a lot more of "The Greatest Generation" than we ever will come to admit.
posted by oneswellfoop at 4:04 PM on June 30, 2015 [9 favorites]
My father who passed away in 1991 was in the Marine Air Corps in the Pacific during WWII and he shared almost nothing about that time except for his affection for the plane he flew in (he was not a pilot, he never said if he was a navigator, bombardier, tail gunner or what). Oh, he did say his plane went down in the ocean once, 'we all floated around for several hours before being picked up by our navy', and that was as much of the story he ever told. But over the years, I came to suspect his scary short temper, occasional brooding and anxiety over drinking (fear of losing control?) were an undiagnosed bit of PTSD. But I've also come to suspect that "The Good War" did a lot more damage to a lot more of "The Greatest Generation" than we ever will come to admit.
posted by oneswellfoop at 4:04 PM on June 30, 2015 [9 favorites]
That area is Slapton Nature Reserve now. The BBC did a BBC Micro laserdisc and then Mac CD-ROM simulation of the place called Ecodisc, which I worked on in the late 80s. When I visited the actual place years later it was weird to already know my way around from the simulation. When wandering around the virtual nature reserve, users were often surprised to see a big army tank, there as a memorial for the soldiers who died in the disaster.
posted by w0mbat at 5:08 PM on June 30, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by w0mbat at 5:08 PM on June 30, 2015 [3 favorites]
It's certainly true that there's little in the way of official military memorial or remembrance. But a lot of the difficulty in finding detail is because of the reliance on the internet rather than dead trees - a good few books have been published on Exercise Tiger.
posted by cromagnon at 6:37 PM on June 30, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by cromagnon at 6:37 PM on June 30, 2015 [1 favorite]
This kind of surprises me: I heard about this a few years ago, and it thought that it was pretty well-known.
Then again, my own grandpa threw away his uniforms and went to his grave without telling anyone what he had done, and I have been researching it on and off for over a decade before I finally got his unit history released! (Transcribing it is a big project but rewarding. Anyone with experience in managing and formatting old documents would be welcome to drop me a MeMail and answer a few questions!)
posted by wenestvedt at 7:59 PM on June 30, 2015
Then again, my own grandpa threw away his uniforms and went to his grave without telling anyone what he had done, and I have been researching it on and off for over a decade before I finally got his unit history released! (Transcribing it is a big project but rewarding. Anyone with experience in managing and formatting old documents would be welcome to drop me a MeMail and answer a few questions!)
posted by wenestvedt at 7:59 PM on June 30, 2015
I've also come to suspect that "The Good War" did a lot more damage to a lot more of "The Greatest Generation" than we ever will come to admit.
Probably; anecdotally...my great-uncle Joe, who died before I was born, was in the Pacific during the war, and came back changed, supposedly; he was "never the same", according to my grandmother, and more or less drank himself to an early grave. And my grandfather was with the Allied army that crossed the Rhine in March of '45; he never really said much of anything at all about his wartime service, but I do know he was still having nightmares nearly 40 years later (and had his own issues around drinking and anger that may have been signs of PTSD).
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 1:50 AM on July 1, 2015 [1 favorite]
Probably; anecdotally...my great-uncle Joe, who died before I was born, was in the Pacific during the war, and came back changed, supposedly; he was "never the same", according to my grandmother, and more or less drank himself to an early grave. And my grandfather was with the Allied army that crossed the Rhine in March of '45; he never really said much of anything at all about his wartime service, but I do know he was still having nightmares nearly 40 years later (and had his own issues around drinking and anger that may have been signs of PTSD).
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 1:50 AM on July 1, 2015 [1 favorite]
I wonder what secrets the men and women who fought the war are taking to their graves.
We recently remembered Christopher Lee here on the Blue; if memory serves me correctly, he refused to discuss his wartime activities because he considered himself bound by the oaths of secrecy he took as a member of the special forces.
posted by Gelatin at 3:32 AM on July 1, 2015 [1 favorite]
We recently remembered Christopher Lee here on the Blue; if memory serves me correctly, he refused to discuss his wartime activities because he considered himself bound by the oaths of secrecy he took as a member of the special forces.
posted by Gelatin at 3:32 AM on July 1, 2015 [1 favorite]
I wonder what secrets the men and women who fought the war are taking to their graves.
Plenty; I think. But the obfuscation has been caused not just by a culture of secrecy, a tendency to bury bad news and long-term classification of documents. Britain's Underground Propaganda Committee (UPC) was successful in releasing a number of well crafted rumours (otherwise known as "sibs") intended for the detriment of the Germans. The most successful of these was the "secret weapons to set the sea on fire" rumour (described in the link). The contemporary conspiracy theory about a supposed German invasion repulsed at Shingle Street by setting fire to the sea (which I once made an FPP about) was most probably linked to this rumour - but it still rumbles on.
posted by rongorongo at 3:42 AM on July 1, 2015
Plenty; I think. But the obfuscation has been caused not just by a culture of secrecy, a tendency to bury bad news and long-term classification of documents. Britain's Underground Propaganda Committee (UPC) was successful in releasing a number of well crafted rumours (otherwise known as "sibs") intended for the detriment of the Germans. The most successful of these was the "secret weapons to set the sea on fire" rumour (described in the link). The contemporary conspiracy theory about a supposed German invasion repulsed at Shingle Street by setting fire to the sea (which I once made an FPP about) was most probably linked to this rumour - but it still rumbles on.
posted by rongorongo at 3:42 AM on July 1, 2015
My own father fought in both WWII and Vietnam. Most of his war stories seemed to be from Vietnam. They were also typically told humorously. I was an adult before it dawned on me that these were horrible situations he was talking about.
The only one I can remember at the moment:
They were trapped behind enemy lines and out of water. (He grew up on a farm and was constantly scoffing at how ignorant all the city boys were.) He pointed out to his commander a patch of green amidst the dried out brown landscape and told him "There is water over there. We might need to dig for it, but there is water." He convinced his commander to let him and his best friend string all the canteens together with their cloth covers on so they would not clink while walking and just the two of them went to look for water.
They got to the patch of greenery and dug a little and muddy water welled up. His best friend began scooping it up and drinking. Dad said "Mojo, you can't do that. You have got to purify it." (A process that involved putting purification pills in the water and waiting 30 minutes.) Mojo popped two purification pills in his mouth, swallowed them, said "It can purify in my stomach." and kept drinking.
Dad would tell that story and die laughing at his own punchline. I heard it over and over before I had the maturity to realize this spoke of thirst and desperation I had never known, in part because, having known real privation, my parents made damn sure I ate well every day, no matter what their bank balance was.
So perhaps we can infer that if Vietnam was joke-worthy, WWII was apparently unspeakable for the most part to my father. I never thought to ask him why, so I cannot say if it was secrecy or trauma. I do know he drank heavy while he was active duty and stopped when I was 7, about 4 years after he retired.
posted by Michele in California at 10:25 AM on July 1, 2015 [2 favorites]
The only one I can remember at the moment:
They were trapped behind enemy lines and out of water. (He grew up on a farm and was constantly scoffing at how ignorant all the city boys were.) He pointed out to his commander a patch of green amidst the dried out brown landscape and told him "There is water over there. We might need to dig for it, but there is water." He convinced his commander to let him and his best friend string all the canteens together with their cloth covers on so they would not clink while walking and just the two of them went to look for water.
They got to the patch of greenery and dug a little and muddy water welled up. His best friend began scooping it up and drinking. Dad said "Mojo, you can't do that. You have got to purify it." (A process that involved putting purification pills in the water and waiting 30 minutes.) Mojo popped two purification pills in his mouth, swallowed them, said "It can purify in my stomach." and kept drinking.
Dad would tell that story and die laughing at his own punchline. I heard it over and over before I had the maturity to realize this spoke of thirst and desperation I had never known, in part because, having known real privation, my parents made damn sure I ate well every day, no matter what their bank balance was.
So perhaps we can infer that if Vietnam was joke-worthy, WWII was apparently unspeakable for the most part to my father. I never thought to ask him why, so I cannot say if it was secrecy or trauma. I do know he drank heavy while he was active duty and stopped when I was 7, about 4 years after he retired.
posted by Michele in California at 10:25 AM on July 1, 2015 [2 favorites]
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