The Lancastria (1 Viewer)

What a tragic story! Didn't a similar cover up occur with a small British aircraft carrier sunk off the coast of England? I remember seeing a History Channel show about a carrier that sank and burned with almost the entire crrew lost, but it was "classified" by Churchill to protect morale. According to a famous American journalist, the Bush administration is presently engaged in a similar cover up about the situation in Iraq.
 
Not heard about that either Louis, do you know the name? There was also the debacle in training for DDay when the E boats got amongst a convoy which was kept very quiet, I wonder what else? Secrets...
 
The E-Boats disaster could have cost the Allies the Normandy landing, as 12 of the officers involved had knowledge of Operation Overlord. Ike really sweated for several days until all of their bodies could be accounted for. Kind of makes you wonder, what were officers with this type of special knowledge doing in the exercise in the first place?
 
It is easy to imagine though what an effect this news would have had on the British public coming hard on the heels of Dunkirk.In a war like that you did whatever you had to do to win and keep the public on side.Sure don't envy the people who had to make these decisions.There were other famous cases that were kept hush hush,such as the bomb that penertrated an underground station and killed dozens.Also the terrible panicked stampede that killed many people at (i think)Bethnal Green.

Rob
 
Hi Guys,

We cant begin to put this kind of news into perspective with out having been there and or been in a Country that was on the verge of total collapse and under the threat of invasion. The English Empire was being assailed on all fronts at this point and had suffered massive sets backs and losses of men and material and if this news had been made public it is quite possible the English peoples will to prevail would have been broken. We have to remember that the English had suffered massive losses during the first war and then again when the Spanish Influenzia hit and when the Depression hit it was a very very difficult time to live through. We modern era people have no idea what this was like and can't even imagine the way these people thought.

To try and answer Louis' question of why Officers who were in the know on the information on D-Day were participating in a Training Exercise, well that simple, they were conductioning rehearsals for the real asault and had to have folks that knew what was being planned so they could look criticallly at the training and see where the weak spots were and try and come up with solutions for any training short falls. We still do these kind of rehearsals in the Military from the individual squad all the way up to the Chief of Staff of the Army because we are always trainging and looking at plans to see where they have holes of short falls in order to be a better trained Army.

As for the notion that there is some kind of cover up going on in Iraq, I'll simply say it like a British friend of mine. Bollocks! Open your eyes and look at the media from places other than the US, the BBC or Reuters France Germany whereever. If they are saying there is something being hidden I sure must have missed that. People need to stop with the conspiricy theories and wake up! Everything isnt an X-file. If you think this is a sore spot for me you are right. I have a vested interest over there my wife is there and I have many many dear friends over there and have lost friends and had friends badly wounded in this war and the 9-11 attacks so I see things a little differently than a lot of other folks. I'll stop here because I dont want to cross over the line of politics and personal attacks.

Dave
 
Dave,

If in fact, the contents of the book I referenced are true, and there are more than 1000 attacks a month on U.S. forces that go unreported by the military authorities, than there is a terrible cover up. Our government just dramatically changed as a direct result of the American peoples disgust with both the war in Iraq and the corruption of our public officials. When government officials affirmatively lie to the electorate, trust in any government will erode. I have had absolutely no trust in our government from the time when I was in Junior High and I realised that people who gave money goods and services to our elected officials for the express purpose of influencing their vote (the statutory definition of bribery) were called "Lobbiests" rather than "felons". With this as a backdrop, I find it rather difficult to stand back and "trust" the government to "stay the course" when American Troops are at risk in a war founded on what at best was extrememly poor intelligence and at worst is blatent fabrications like the "al Queda connection to Iraq" and the "weapons of mass destruction".

As far as the rationale you provide for 12 high ranking officers with knowledge of the Normandy invasion participating in a dress rehersal, all I can say is are you kidding me? Those 12 officers couldn't have stayed safe in England and listened to the exercise on the radio? Excuse me, but only rank incompetence and stupidity explains that kind of a mistake. Sadly, our military leadership is sometimes best described as "rank stupidity" (pun intended).
 
Louis,

What is the source of your information, Book title ISBN etc.

Dave
 
I didn't want to schill for the author (as the book is a present best-seller), but the book I am referencing is Bob Woodward's new hardcover "State of Denial".
 
Yeah I though you were refering to Mr Woodwards latest book. I will not comment further until I can find time to read it and look at the sources.
 
Louis Badolato said:
Dave,

As far as the rationale you provide for 12 high ranking officers with knowledge of the Normandy invasion participating in a dress rehersal, all I can say is are you kidding me? Those 12 officers couldn't have stayed safe in England and listened to the exercise on the radio? Excuse me, but only rank incompetence and stupidity explains that kind of a mistake. Sadly, our military leadership is sometimes best described as "rank stupidity" (pun intended).
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Louis,

I believe we have already had a discussion of how poorly things can go when the Generals who are resposible for the attack are miles away in some safe headquarters, (Huertegen Forrest) I have to take the stance that they were doing what was needed and proper to conduct an assault on a heavily defended beach and we needed to have people who knew the basic plan in order for them to conduct the training necessary to ensure as good a result as possible when the real assault took place. This sort of training is conducted even today so everyone will know what the missions intent is and in the chaos and fog of war they will continue the mission to try and achieve these goals. So I dont think it was a case of rank stupidity unless you factor in the lack of security by the navy at blocking the eboats they knew were working the area.

Dave
 
Another good room for an argument. :D

I take your points Dave, protecting civilian morale is important, as well as protecting important information from falling into the hands of the enemy. But why keep it buried under the official secrets Act for 30 years - they are still trying to do it in the age of the internet:confused:

As for training, I liked the comment in Hackworth's book 'more sweat on the training ground less blood on the battlefield'. He and Monty might have got on.....

But as for Louis' points, do your politicians send their children to Iraq and Afgahnistan? I don't see our politicians kids out there.....:mad:

Things have changed since the 20th century when they did send their children as part of mass mobilisation, we had a programme about Rudyard Kipling and remembrance this weekend, showing how he was actively supporting recruitment and helped his son get a commision in the Irish Guards when he was technically medically unfit. His son was killed near Loos in 1915 in WW1, he never got over it. BTW they just found the previously unidentified grave recently.

Have we returned to a Malborough style age of professional armies again so we don't have the ravages of war at home and none to many close reminders?

Sanitised? Where does propaganda and news merge? Where did it ever? e.g. I taped all the news broadcasts before Gulf War1 - they may as well have been written by Walt Disney :rolleyes:
 
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