Training accidents - How common were they?

Discussion in 'General' started by Ben Blackwell, Apr 10, 2011.

  1. Alan Allport

    Alan Allport Senior Member

    This being the case following the loss of H.M.S. Hood.

    I think the loss of Hood was a different situation because no officers survived, and so the normal procedures after the destruction of the ship couldn't be followed.

    Best, Alan
     
  2. Smudger Jnr

    Smudger Jnr Our Man in Berlin

  3. Alan Allport

    Alan Allport Senior Member

    Thanks; interesting. Since I suspect that the exact answer to this question is (as usual) "well, it's complicated," I'll let someone less landlubberly than me provide the definitive explanation. My understanding is that a court-martial following the loss of a ship was (is?) a longstanding tradition of the RN, though (as mentioned earlier) not necessarily to dole out punishment but to act as a definitive record of what happened.

    Best, Alan
     
  4. Theobob

    Theobob Senior Member

    My parents told me about an American bomber that crashed in our village during the war.It wasn't a training op,it got lost in fog looking for Boscombe Down and ran out of fuel.
    I thought it would be relatively easy to trace the details.
    Wow! you cannot believe how many planes crashed in the UK on the run up to D-Day, most of which were during training,it was like looking for a needle in a haystack.
    I concluded that you were lucky if one had`nt crashed in your garden.
    Must of been a lot of deaths
    Great thread.. thx
     
  5. Stormbird

    Stormbird Restless

    I did read that the American Army lost more men on the return from Iraq when they spent their back pay and purchased huge motorcycles then came a cropper.

    Also please remember that the leading cause of death - exceeding death by enemy action - in the US Army is still suicide, a third of which occur in the operations area.
     
  6. LivingLarge

    LivingLarge Junior Member

    I just completed a book called In the Presence of Soldiers by Woody McMillin. Many of the WWII training maneuvers were conducted in Middle Tennessee. I was shocked by the overall number of deaths during the three major maneuvers (1941, 1942, and 1943-44), but even more so by some of the major catastrophes. In one incident, a boat capsized at night during a crossing of the Cumberland River drowning 21 soldiers. In another incident, a deuce and a half truck went through a narrow wooden bridge and overturned down a steep embankment on to a railroad bed killing 19 soldiers. The book also goes into great detail about life on the home front as civilians dealt with the sudden influx of thousands of soldiers in their midst. A great read. I think you have to order the book directly from the author at woodyair@comcast.net
     
  7. RWM-1948

    RWM-1948 Junior Member

    It would seam that an inquiry into training deaths would be looked at by the way of an inquest

    January 1943 War diary for 3rd Recce
    12th Sjt Bell killed by unexsploded 69 ? grenade
    14th Inquest on Sjt Bell

    Part 11 Orders 13.1.43.
    2) DEATHS
    6847822 W/Sjt Bell, R. 'HQ' Died "In the field "on 12.1.43
    Location of grave not yet known.
     
  8. canuck

    canuck Closed Account

    Under the BCATP, the RCAF lost 2,367 servicemen in Canada, from all causes, or 14 percent of all fatalities recorded over the duration of the war. 850 fatal air accidents resulted in 1,690 deaths in BCATP schools between January 1942 and June 1945.
    That excludes any training or accidental deaths which occurred in the U.K. or other operational theatres.
    In all, out of the 17,001 pilots that the RCAF lost during the Second World War, enemy action played a direct role in just 54 percent of the cases (9,209).
     
  9. 26delta

    26delta Senior Member

    Accidents during basic training are all too common. During my training period prior to Vietnam, one of the soldiers in my brigade made the mistake of getting his head above the top of the barbed wire during a low-crawl live-fire exercise. Luckily, he only lost his hearing and part of his jaw as a machine gun round was deflected through his helmet. He also wound up with an honourable discharge and a full disability pension.
     
  10. Ron Goldstein

    Ron Goldstein WW2 Veteran WW2 Veteran

    In Feb 1943, after finishing my Driver/Op training at Whitby in Yorkshire, I was posted to the 112th L.A.A. Regiment, then stationed temporarily at Haltwhistle in Northumberland.

    To my complete bafflement, they were just starting a 2 week’s battle training course and willy-nilly I found myself back in denims and up to my neck in glorious mud.

    I also discovered for that our "passing out" exercise, we were obliged to crawl on our stomachs in a rain-sodden field, whilst live ammo was fired over our heads from fixed range Bren guns !

    I have no idea how many men were killed during these exercises but I'm pretty sure that there must have been fatalities and that these must have been accepted by our bosses as being the price to pay for realistic training.

    Ron
     
  11. Combover

    Combover Guest

    Even before they began, each Commando (that is to say 'commando' as a unit and not a single soldier) were 'allowed' up to 10% casualties during their realistic training. The most famous example comes from a practice assault boat landing in Cornwall in heavy seas, of which there is footage showing the lads getting thrown out if the boats and onto the rocks in a heavy swell.
     
  12. ChrisR

    ChrisR Senior Member

    Came across these details yesterday of a Lt Frankel of 19 Bomb Disposal Company, Royal Engineers who was giving a training demonstration that obviously went badly wrong.-
    [​IMG]
     
  13. williams46

    williams46 WW2 Veteran WW2 Veteran

    During Battalion Training with the 9th. Bn. RWF on Brecon mountains I noticed when one walked, the ground about 10 feet away would move much like when a child walking on a bed. A 2 inch motor crew consisting of a sergeant, a fusilier and myself were walking, each about 10 feet apart and 3 inch mortar bombs began to fall to our right, I was nearest to the closest explosion and felt dirt landing on my helmet and on my right partly exposed shoulder, exposed because my open collar tunic and shirt caused by the shoulder strap and the two carton tubes of 3, 2 inch motor bombs buckled on a way that gave free motion to hands and arms, I tilted my steel helmet to try and stop the dirt landing on my exposed shoulder. My first thoughts were, 'I wonder if I would get a sore shoulder from the dirt lodging under my shirt with the weight of motor bombs attached to the shoulder straps. I could see a bomb explode on my right making a crater about 6 feet deep in the shape of a perfect cone, the sergeant shouted to make for a line of trees on our left. We got off without getting hurt probably owing to the softness of the ground, and when we joined the platoon they said they thought we were goners. There was no court of enquiry and we heard nothing about it, it was during the 2 week Abermarlias exercises.
    Some time later, about 14 months after being transferred to a different regiment in India and became a No.1 on a 3 inch mortar (given a New York Police special .38 revolver in place of my rifle) we had a new draft of 3 inch mortar men to our mortar platoon, they mentioned when firing on the Brecon mountains they would fire the mortars until the barrels were just 12 inches above the ground then use the carriers to pull them out, I never mentioned our experience with mortar support in Abermarlias, but now i understand the reason for the error.
    I must add, often when I read of supposed trained Infantrymen having trouble using a PIAT or accidents with Stens, I wonder how well they were trained, I can assure anyone our Corps training in Derring Lines and Battalion in Llangattock was very through, and each man I knew was well skilled as an Infantryman whether RWF, SWB or WR.
     
  14. ethan

    ethan Member

    Just to look at one small sample- of the 28 'old boys' from my school who died in WW2, 12 died accidentally.
     
  15. williams46

    williams46 WW2 Veteran WW2 Veteran

    In Battalion training another incident happened about the same time, i was again assigned to be a No. 2 on the 2 inch mortar, the platoon was caught under fire in the open, we were behind, them separated by a hedge, owing to the shortage of labour the hedge had been allowed to grow, it reached about 12 feet at the time, the sergeant ordered smoke to give the platoon time to seek cover and so as 'enemy' would not have targets. The bomb struck the hedge and fell short, we moved down to a less thick part of the hedge, this time the 3 smoke bombs cleared, we then put 3 HE directed to a small hill, the supposed area of the 'enemy fire'.
    Then the results were talked over by the referee. Smoke was first used to give the platoon cover, then H.E. directed at the hill. During the discussion I looked at the branch of a large tree close by, on a branch was a scar caused by the removal of the bark, some of the bark was still hanging. At first I thought it may have been our first smoke bomb that had caused it, but we learned it was caused by a 3 Polish 2 inch mortar crew just 2 hours before, at 10 am, that morning, they used H.E. and had cause the damage to the branch, and the three were killed right at that spot. Granted we had no knowledge of this before hand, and assumed it was true, as they did play rough. Thinking back, except for the conflab. with the referee I never heard any talk of our mishap or the Poles, seems it ended right there. It was obvious, a 2 inch H.E. mortar bomb striking a tree branch just eight to ten feet off the ground and exploding, the chance of anyone surviving beneath it would be nil.
     

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