r/todayilearned • u/RainbowApple • Apr 28 '16
TIL of 'Exercise Tiger', a D-Day training exercise by Allied forces which - due to miscommunication, friendly fire and a few German E-Boats - led to the death of 946 U.S. soldiers. It was nominally reported afterwards and thus labelled "forgotten".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exercise_Tiger•
u/HauschkasFoot Apr 28 '16
I was actually there for this. It was so traumatizing I wasn't able to lie on the Internet for years.
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Apr 28 '16
What was it like while the LSTs were being sunk by German E-boats? Was it hard for you to have to look up what those things are and then make up stories about your personal experience and an anecdote about bodies floating in the water?
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u/HauschkasFoot Apr 28 '16
Yeah and it kept raining, and I really had to pee. Such a bad day. I remember telling Jackie Onassis about it when she was complaining to me about her not-so-great trip to Texas.
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u/BWarminiusNY Apr 28 '16
S Boats.
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Apr 28 '16
E-boats. German designation S-boot.
That's like saying U-boats were U-boots.
Who's side are you on?
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u/BWarminiusNY Apr 28 '16
I am German but did 21 years in the US Army, why? E boat just means enemy boat, S boat is the specific type of craft, Schnell as in fast.
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u/beerdude26 Apr 28 '16
Friendly fire was pretty common in WWII. Hell, it took a few months until there were forward radio operators that could actually talk to the pilots above them in case of friendly fire. Before that, it regularly happened that fighters lit up friendly troops.
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u/liarandathief Apr 28 '16
That number is dwarfed by the total number of US soldiers killed in combat in WWII, 291,557.
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Apr 28 '16
[deleted]
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u/Lurkerking2015 Apr 28 '16 edited Apr 28 '16
That's because we armed our soldiers and didn't kill those that reteated ourselves
Interesting post to be down voted on....
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u/[deleted] Apr 28 '16
If it had gotten out we would've failed D-Day