3 ms·

> That is fascinating, especially how the people responsible managed to keep it hushed up for so long. I wonder why was this not disclosed right after Germany

by Fnoord 7y ago

> That is fascinating, especially how the people responsible managed to keep it hushed up for so long. I wonder why was this not disclosed right after Germany and Japan capitulated. That seems to be the logical time to disclose such.

pjc50 7y ago
Almost all the war defaulted to secrecy. But the war wasn't really over when the Axis capitulated; even as they were surrendering it was clear the next conflict would be with the Soviet Union (and to a lesser extent China), and so the military remained mobilized to a lower degree. Along with the same secrecy mindset. That's why things like Enigma remained secret for so long, as well as a lot of the nastier bits of the war.
Someone 7y ago
As the article says: ”News of what happened remained a secret for a matter of months - the Germans could not find out about it. Following D-Day, Operation Tiger did appear in reports and the American Army magazine Stars and Stripes. In terms of the dead, that was a loss of the men's lives, but a bad day in the office for the admirals - it was one tragedy among many. There was never a cover-up but the story was lost from the public.” Reading https://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USA/ref/Casualties/Casualties-1.html https://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USA/ref/Casualties/Casualti..., ”a bad day” seems a correct description. 5e US had, on average, about 10,000 men killed each month in 1944, or 300 a day, with over 18,000 in December, over 550 a day. That doesn’t make 800 an extreme outlier. Also, what do you put on the front page as a journalist in a country that has been at war for years: “a hundred soldiers were killed yesterday, but we made progress”, or “three months back, 800 soldiers were killed in an exercise, but we couldn’t tell because it would have endangered the D-day landings”? I don’t think that, after the initial necessary secrecy, the news needed suppression.

by Fnoord 7y ago

pjc50 7y ago

Almost all the war defaulted to secrecy. But the war wasn't really over when the Axis capitulated; even as they were surrendering it was clear the next conflict would be with the Soviet Union (and to a lesser extent China), and so the military remained mobilized to a lower degree. Along with the same secrecy mindset. That's why things like Enigma remained secret for so long, as well as a lot of the nastier bits of the war.

Someone 7y ago

As the article says: ”News of what happened remained a secret for a matter of months - the Germans could not find out about it. Following D-Day, Operation Tiger did appear in reports and the American Army magazine Stars and Stripes. In terms of the dead, that was a loss of the men's lives, but a bad day in the office for the admirals - it was one tragedy among many. There was never a cover-up but the story was lost from the public.” Reading https://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USA/ref/Casualties/Casualties-1.html https://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USA/ref/Casualties/Casualti..., ”a bad day” seems a correct description. 5e US had, on average, about 10,000 men killed each month in 1944, or 300 a day, with over 18,000 in December, over 550 a day. That doesn’t make 800 an extreme outlier. Also, what do you put on the front page as a journalist in a country that has been at war for years: “a hundred soldiers were killed yesterday, but we made progress”, or “three months back, 800 soldiers were killed in an exercise, but we couldn’t tell because it would have endangered the D-day landings”? I don’t think that, after the initial necessary secrecy, the news needed suppression.