
The D-Day rehearsal that cost 800 lives (2014) - smacktoward
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-devon-27185893
======
steve19
That is fascinating, especially how the people responsible managed to keep it
hushed up for so long.

> The D-Day rehearsal, codenamed Exercise Tiger, was a disaster on a grand
> scale with the loss of life greater than the actual invasion of Normandy
> just months later

I am not sure how they did the maths on this. According to the WWII and DDay
Foundation [0] 12,000 men died in the air operations in preparation for the
landing, and 2,500 Allies troops died during the landing.

I can only thing they mean the proportion of death was higher
(death/participants).

[0] [https://www.wwiifoundation.org/students/wwii-facts-
figures/](https://www.wwiifoundation.org/students/wwii-facts-figures/)

~~~
mirimir
> The First U.S. Army, accounting for the first twenty-four hours in Normandy,
> tabulated 1,465 killed, 1,928 missing, and 6,603 wounded. The after-action
> report of U.S. VII Corps (ending 1 July) showed 22,119 casualties including
> 2,811 killed, 5,665 missing, 79 prisoners, and 13,564 wounded, including
> paratroopers.

[https://www.historyonthenet.com/d-day-
casualties](https://www.historyonthenet.com/d-day-casualties)

So it was actually pretty close: ~800 US troops killed during the rehearsal vs
1465 during the actual landing.

Somehow, from "Saving Private Ryan", I had imagined that the death tole was
much greater.

~~~
dragontamer
Most of the deaths were on Omaha beach, where US Bombers completely missed
their targets. US Bombers hit the farmlands miles inland, instead of the
bunkers. In effect: the Bombers of Omaha Beach forgot about momentum and
dropped the bombs "over" Omaha Beach (instead of "over the sea", where
momentum would carry the bombs to Omaha Beach). IIRC, there were also
Paratroopers who were dropped around the bombings, to slow down any
reinforcements.

The soldiers on Omaha beach were expecting:

1\. Surprise Attack

2\. Bomber support

3\. Paratroopers preventing reinforcements

#1 and #3 were negated because the Nazis just happened to be holding practice
drills at the time and were on the beach anyway. #2 was negated because the
bombers missed.

Sometimes, it comes down to luck.

~~~
Bartweiss
Do you happen to know why the Omaha bombers missed as a group? The failure to
'lead' the target makes sense, I'm wondering why it wasn't individual to
planes but systematic for the beach.

My guess would be that the time to drop was called wrong by a flight commander
or computed wrong beforehand, rather than assessed individually in each plane,
but if you happen to know more I'd be curious.

~~~
dragontamer
Good question.

I looked it up, and it seems like the operation was way more complex than I
thought (and it already sounded quite complex to me!)

1\. The skys were overcast, so the bombers were dropping blind through the
clouds.

2\. The Omaha-beach bombers erred on the side of caution: they didn't want to
release the bombs too early, because that would be "Friendly Fire", hitting
the Allied Troops instead.

Its quite possible that the bomber squadron simply all missed because the
clouds were just over Omaha beach (but not necessarily over the other
beaches).

I'm mostly reading this: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omaha_Beach#Pre-
landing_bombar...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omaha_Beach#Pre-
landing_bombardment)

\-------

It sounds like there's widespread agreement that the Naval commanders didn't
offer enough battleship bombardment support as well.

\-------

So the full set of events are:

1\. Bombers missed (clouds blocked their view + worried about friendly fire)

2\. Navy commanders made a strategic error, and failed to deploy enough
battleship support.

3\. Commando Paratroopers failed to stop reinforcements, because
reinforcements were already at the Beach holding a training drill.

4\. 27 of the 29 amphibious tanks sank due to heavy waves. The landing
infantry had to run up-hill in the beach sand into machine guns without any
tank-support.

5\. Bad waves meant a lot of infantry landed off-target of their initial plan.
The amphibious vessels hit a sandbar, meaning many infantry started their
journey not on the sands of the beach, but wading in the water 50-feet into
the water still.

Pretty much every bad-luck event possible happened on Omaha beach.

------
pjc50
I thought this was going to refer to Operation Smash
[http://www.bbc.co.uk/dorset/content/articles/2009/05/18/dday...](http://www.bbc.co.uk/dorset/content/articles/2009/05/18/dday_exercise_smash_feature.shtml)
, but that was ten days earlier and not quite as deadly.

Or even
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dieppe_Raid](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dieppe_Raid)
two years previously, which demonstrated all the things that could go wrong
with a cross-channel raid at the cost of thousands of lives.

(People would do well to remember that even the successes of WW2 were written
in blood, especially when invoking them in a contemporary political context)

~~~
redis_mlc
Windsor, Ontario, Canada has Dieppe Memorial Gardens, and it had a Lancaster
bomber mounted on a pedestal in Jackson Park for decades:

[https://windsorstar.com/news/local-news/windsor-to-swap-
part...](https://windsorstar.com/news/local-news/windsor-to-swap-parts-
overseas-to-help-keep-lancaster-bomber-flying-in-britain)

The Lancaster was used to incinerate German cities, and the only clearly
superior bomber was the B-29, used to incinerate all of the Japanese cities,
save 5 for atomic bomb targets.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avro_Lancaster](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avro_Lancaster)

Of course, as a child, I had no idea of the solemn significance of any of
that.

------
jokoon
I always wonder what is keeping the world away from WW3. I guess that nuclear
weapons make it too frightening to start any large conflict if it can involve
mushroom clouds.

I don't think leaders would really retaliate a nuclear attack, since it always
is preferable to de-escalate a nuclear conflict than to escalate it. Mutual
assured destruction is something nobody is interested in.

~~~
wnkrshm
But it would have happened. The Sovjet Union had developed an automated
retaliatory system, named 'Perimeter'. In the case of an alarm, it would have
given the government executive the option to flip a switch and activate the
system. Or, if there was no signal from the executive anymore and nuclear
explosions are detected, the system activates by itself. If the system detects
actual nuclear explosions on its territory, the retaliatory strike would be
executed.

All this was mediated by command & control ICBMs (i.e. rockets without
warheads but with detectors and comms) that the system would launch on warning
and by switching the system on, the actual silos would respond to automated
commands from these rockets. A system very hard to disable from outside.

The craziest thing about this: The Sovjets didn't even advertise this system
existed but it did.

Perimeter is rumored to still be in operation, since Vladimir Putin likes to
drop comments from time to time along the lines of 'we will never launch
preemptively but retaliation will be swift and certain'.

Edit: typo

Edit2: So this system was created to automatically ensure retaliation even if
the Sovjet union was effectively wiped out or if nobody wanted to make the
decision to conduct a retaliatory strike while missiles are incoming but
haven't hit yet.

~~~
rdtsc
One of the purposes for Perimeter was to keep the hotheaded generals in check.
That is, if the detection system has a glitch, they don’t rush to launch
everything, but instead just turn on Perimeter.

I also think it was a large enough system that Western intelligence probably
knew about it, but couldn’t publicly acknowledge it, as it might expose the
source of their knowledge.

~~~
blaser-waffle
It would absolutely in the Soviet's interest to make sure people know that the
weapon exists -- it helps keep them alive! To paraphrase Dr. Strangelove,
what's the point of the doomsday device if they don't know you have the
doomsday device?

I agree with your assessment that NATO intel probably knew of it, but kept
quiet to avoid political drama and keep sources secret.

------
wayanon
The cock-up of the destroyer being absent and radio error reminds me of the
channel dash
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Channel_Dash](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Channel_Dash)

------
adrow
This event was also a plot line in an episode of Foyle's War (Series 5 "All
Clear").

