Lessons Learned and Final Reflections

From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies, history is riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now. or learn this stuff they don't want you to know. uction of IieHarb radium Hello, Wlcome back to the show. My name is Matt. My name is Nul. They call me Bed. We're joined as always, with our super producer Dylan, the Tennessee Pal Faggan. Most importantly, you are you. You are here. That makes this the stuff they don't want you to know I think it's fair to say tonight, we are taking a cue from our sister show, Ridiculous History. Now we all remember in a previous episode of Stuff They Don't Want You to Know, we looked at systemic corruption and conspiracies haunting the US military, especially when it comes to covering up assault and murder. That was a grizzly one, but I'm still glad we did it. Oh, for sure. And it's come up a couple of times in other contexts since then, just in terms of like systematic issues that are sort of swept under the rug. And I just thought that was such a really good kind of go to deep dive into how these things can work Yeah. and as we were looking you know, through the research for that episode, we happened upon a couple of different things that happened I suppose they're more of cover upps or embarrassments, things that the military you know, in combination, especially during large conflicts, didn't want the public or maybe international audiences to know about, at least for a time. Yeah, along the way in that earlier episode, folks We ran into so many other things as well, including, of course, the saga of the USS Liberty. Stay tuned for that episode We also, as you were saying, Matt discovered another cover up. It's one A lot of people even in the U.S probably haven't heard of in the modern day and folks Uncle Sam K kind of happy with that They don't want you to know about a little thing called exercise Tiger. And to learn about that, we're going to have to travel across the pod. and while we're on the water Why don't we talk about our next maritime adventure? Hey, yeah, this episode's all about ships. We're gonna be on a ship that stays afloat while it travels its way to Bermuda. A paintfullly non battle oriented ship. Yeah. In fact, the opposite. It's for relaxation and you know, Merriment. goodood times. Maritime, merriment. I love that. I would call the lady Valgant because that is the name of the vessel, the valant lady The rumors are true from october second to the seventh of this year. We are heading back with our friends at Virgin Voyages. So please do join us. We're also We going alone, right fellowas? No, we're not going it alone. We're going with our buddies, Josh and Chuck from Stuff You should Kn who you may have heard of and our pals Sam and Annie from Stuff Mom Never Tld you, who you likely have also heard of. And guys, I'm happy to hear that it's the Valiant Lady again because I still have a hundred dollar poker ship from the Valiant Lady. did It ended up in a suitcase and but silly me, But hey, got an opportunity to strike it rich on that. makeake good And we love Chuck and Josh and we love Sam and Annie and Most importantly We love the idea of getting to hang out with you in person. We'll be doing live shows. We'll have some secret adventures on and off the boat. Yeah Come hang with us. But you got toa be on the ship. If you want to experience these things, just go ahead and search for stuff at sea. You'll find the official Virgin Voyages website and it has everything you need there to go ahead and book yourself a cabin You and a bunch of friends, hopefully And with that, we'll be right back This is an IiHart podcast guuaranteed human. You know, we've all tumbled down an internet rabbit hole trying to self diagnose, and it usually leaves us more anxious than informed. Our feeds are full of wellness trends, but how do we know it's real? What's exaggerated? and what's just wrong? Health versus hype from the American Medical Association. They break it all down with the Emy nominated science communicator Trace Dominguez who talks to doctors, influencers and real people trying these trends. Not to cancel them understand them. becausecause when it comes to your health, who you listen to matters Soe listen to health versus Hype wherever you find your favorite shows. Ggo presents a thirty second podcast between your podcast. Today's story is shared by one of our listeners. It's called Betrayed by Bill It was in that moment I caught who was staring back at me in betrayal, or more like what? My insurance bill. With trembling hands, I grabb my phone and switched to Geio, saving about nine hundred dollars in the process, and never to be betrayed again Now that was bloody riveting. It feels good when the story ends with savings. It feels good to Gaeiko guysys, Stuff at sea is a five nights adults only sailing trip that brings the Stuff podcast universe to life onbard. This voyage is a culture soaked to escape where pink sand paradise meets curious minds, like ours sailing round trip from New York City to Bermuda on october second through the seventh, twenty twenty six. This voyage drops you straight into the Iheart podcast stuff universe. Also'll be there too, so let's hang out. And on top of the adults only experience you already love, you'll get live podcast episode recordings behind the scenes sessions, themed activations and more unmissable onboard moments. Learn more at virginVoyages d. com slash stuff. Patrick loves dining out. Omar loves takeout. And Katie, she cooks from scratch Because no two people are the same So their credit cards shouldn't treat them the same That's why we made the TD cash credit card. It lets you choose which spend categories earn unlimited three percent cash back, like on dining, groceries, or gas. It's how TD is making banking more human Terms and conditions apply Ctd dot com slash cash for details Here are the facts. We're traveling to a place okay, let's set the stage for this conspiracy by heading across the Atlantic to a place called Slapton Sands. And Slapton Sands is, I would argue notot the most accurate name. Yeah. It's definitely like a beach essentially an area of beach. You can find it if you check out your maps. It's not really near Plymouth or Exeter. These are places you may have heard of. But it is down in the UK near the southwest side Yeah, it's far to the southwest. Slept in Sands is a beach. It's near a Buolic very tiny village called Slapton, which is located in a place called South Ham's, Devon, England. And I'm sorry, but I always when I'm making up British names, I always add ham or sandwich into the thing. Yeah, there's there's a very famous football club, I believe it's from West Ham quite fond of And whenever I hear slapped on sands, I just picture getting slapped on sands. ike Like like like someone trying to start a duel It's it's so far to the southwest of the United Kingdom. If you look on a map and you pulled up easily. If you're looking for driving time or another reference, it's about four and a half hours from London. And the reason I'm saying it's a misleading name is because sllapped in sands doesn't actually have a lot of sand. It's not a sandy beach Its sort of a gravelly beach, right? More like a parking lot Yeah, but ultimately it's a thing that connects the ocean to the land, right? which is the most important part about it's going to function for us in today's episode. And it is just across the English channel from France a large swath of France, actually all of France is right across the way there So it provides proximity to the place that is being simulated for today's episode or this thing that we're going to get into, but it it's also similar enough that it's going to provide all the functionality of, let's say, a beach someomewhere in France. Would this for our military purposes be considered a beach head? It would be considered a good place to have a dress rehearsal Be make a beachhead. A beachhead would be enemy territory, but a relatively secure bit of enemy territory and whether or not this is secure or not was up for debate. I guess the timing enters into that a lot. Beachhead is like u in terms of analogy of Beachhead is like when you're trying to enter a house, to do some shenanigans and you manage to get your foot in the door so the door can't close. like a foot hold is a beach head tactically. And sllpped in sands We're not here to deniggrate it. It's technically, to your point, Noel, it is grally. It's called a shingle beach, like a shingle water roof. The view is breathtaking. It's not necessarily the kind of place where you would layout comfortably for hours on a beach towel they do have a great deal of tourism even now, the sea is safe and calm and clean, there are a lot of water sports. This is a water sports beach. You sur if you cane kayak. And there are plenty of other beaches in the UK and in Europe that would have this similar, you know teexture, I guess. Yeah, international hotspot, maybe not, but it is similar, it's a regional hotspot. It's similar to how familyam in Atlanta might take a summer vacation for a week at Hilton Head or Tybey Island. And if you're in the area, by the way, folks, pro tips. makeake sure to pop by the nearby nature reserve because slaaped in sands has a very specific geography. In addition to the way the shore is It's got a strip of land behind it. That's kind of our nature preserve And then it has a lake behind it There are only a few places in the world that have that exact sort of similarity or only a few places in Europe, I should say, Normandy be one if you have ever had the fortune. to visit Souththam or to visit Devin entntyire or especially to visit Slapppedon Sands, we would love to hear from you, fellow conspiracy realists It's not just a fun weekend excursion spot. for the locals. It has a disturbing history and to understand that history We have to go back to the height of World War I So in nineteen forty three, it was becoming pretty obvious that the Allies were ready to make some serious pushes against the Axis powers, specifically in France as an attempt to push those Axis powers back towards Germany. And the Germans knew that the Allies wanted to do this and the Allies were Um playing a bit You know, Ki with it, but also yes, we're doing this. Remember, there's a spy game happening at all times throughout the war on all sides So whenever, you know commommanders on any side or from any force are thinking about doing things. There's all kinds of planning and logistics that goes into it. and then everybody else kind of begins to figure out because everybody's got buy plananes and all kinds of stuff going on in Intel One of the major things the Allies wanted to do though was go into France to get a bunch of of troops, a bunch of artillery m like military m into France And that's kind of how we set the stage because They're attempting to figure out how in the heck are we going to do this feasibly? Yeah, ye, the Allies are growing increasingly desperate. This actually guys this story inspired me to reread an awesome unfinished graphic novel series called Uber. which is about World War two, if superheroes existed or superpowers existed Anyhow, it shows a lot of the calculations. and the mad desperation of both sides of the war at this point The Allies are well aware, they're cognizant that they're in an all or nothing war. So they start planning these increasingly bold and audacious and arguably mad. plans to turn the tide One of the most infamous turn the tide That was an accident. One of the most infamous examples is something called Operation overlord which you can't say without gravitas. Operation Overlord is the codeename for the looming Battle of Normandy D day invasion, if it works out going to be the largest military seaborn invasion of human history. Sorry, Phoenicians. Well, for sure. And to pull something like that off, one would imagine requires a lot of planning. So the lead up to the invasion was incredibly hectic, larger than life. It was just utter insanity. The AxS and the Allies both employed extensive misinformation campaigns feeding the other incorrect location details so that they would be in the wrong place, timeline, incorrect timelines, all of those things, all of those Sci ops. The Axis powers buil numerous fortifications and the Allies obsessed over every single contingency and possible outcome detail very, very detail oriented planning. So Operation Neptune was the initial foray launched on june the sixth of nineteen forty four with nearly one hundred sixty thousand soldiers crossing the channel on that day. By the end of August, there were more than two million Allied troops there stationed in France hanging out in France. And to our statement about to our statement about having a hundred dollar chip at a at a casino or at a blackjack table. The Allies were pretty all in on this. They were very much aware this is a one shot deal. If you win Normandy, can win the war in Europe, but if you lose due to the sheer amount of resources already committed We're spelling disaster for future conflicts. and we're not being hyperbolic here folks, the free world could fall if D day did not work. addition to all these dizzying logistics, these times competing strategic proposals and people arguing back and forth, the Allies realized they couldn't just get to the shore and, you know sort of wing it doing cool free form jazz They decided pretty early on They had to exercise for this. They had to rehearse Before we get into the full rehearsal of the day we're talking about, I'd love to spend a second on the other operations that were put in play. I found these to be really fascinating you guys U Operation Bodyguard and Fortitude and glimmer, taxable, big drum. These are all operations that were a part of this thing. We're talking about the Allies taking it so seriously So they They had to do a whole bunch of things to try and throw off the German forces And they knew, again, we're talking about spies earlier The Allies knew, specifically the UK, Britain knew that there were Quite a few German spies working in country. So they worked assiduously to get false information to those spies that they were aware of fairly confident that they knew most of the spies. Of course, they didn't know all of them, but they knew most of them So they fed them information about specific dates Most of them there were going to be further in the future than actually D day actual was going to be They did things like, I think you guys talked about this before. Yeah hiding hiding fake plans on a corpse That's one of them. Yeah. and setting up Putting small fleets of Tiny little ships that had radar reflectors on them and things to make it seem as though if there's a radar operator in Germany or in France in one of the forward positions, looking out at the radar, they would think, oh my God, there's a huge fleet that is beginning to accrue in this area when it's actually just a couple of small ships that are throwing them off They even set up inflatable planes and artillery and tanks and things so that spy planes flying over would think that the Allies are accruing forces in another area Um, it was just fascinating to see how much went into throwing off the other side. so that you could have that sneak attack because it was it was so vital that it was a sneak attack. I didn't realize how outgunned the Allied forces were when when it comes to the fortifications that Germany had all along France's coast if they didn't do all of these things, no matter where they attempted to land, Normandy or wherever and whenever They would have been just blown completely out of the water. But all of these little things, all of those operations, you can go back and search every one of them allowed for this sneaky thing N occur is which is you know, its deception at its finest, perhaps. Yeah, because you know, any student of war, anybody who's been to a war college knows very well a funny little truism, which is that until the rubber hits the road until the bullets really start flying and the actual operation begins A lot of the lead up is misdirection. It's a lot closer to stage magic than you would think. And that's why we know as early as nineteen forty three, the Allies begin these training exercises specifically for this thing they're calling oververlord Rravatas We had paratroopers executing maneuvers under the eyes of Winston Churchill, under the eyes of Eisenhower, other top officials. The Navy was running drills in Northern Ireland combined militaries of the Allies We're practicing landing craft and using live ammo in Scotland. There were a lot of smaller operations that went into D day and down in London, this part's especially grizzly medical teams, well not just in London, but also in military bases and other urban centers, the medical teams Game out tenaciously best to handle the forthcoming waves of casualties. even the most optimistic leaders A lot of people were going to die during D day on either side. They knew thousands would no longer be with us and that was the best case scenario. Sorry. I know we're moving on to the next part. I just want to One last thing that I found interesting here was this concept that There was an entire army group fitious army group that was created, like a general patent run army group where They put the paperwork in in the United Kingdom to show that there's this whole U S. Army, what is it the U the United States First Army Group And it was all false. it was all fake, but they did all the paperwork, they did all of these false, you know, blow up things to make it seem as though I forgive me guys, I don't know how to pronounce this correctly. Cha Cala maybe Cal It is vacation spot. ye. Don't be toed by the S at the end to make it seem like they were going from essentially like Dover in that area directly across the channel, which is a super short run Calais, at least compared to anywhere else you would try and cross the English channel there. I just think it's a really cool thing that That was part of it. just before we get into exactly how we they We did this test run Yeah, because why do we have rehearsals We have rehearsals Because we know we'll make mistakes and we don't want mistakes to happen on show night, right the most infamous of these rehearsals is something called exercise Tiger. You may also see it called operation Tiger It was a disaster And then C cover up We'll be right back Gkyo presents a thirty second podcast between your podcast Today's story is shared by one of our listeners. It's called Betrayed by Bill It was in that moment I caught who was staring back at me in betrayal, or more like what My insurance bill. withith trembling hands, I grabb my phone and switched to GeCo, saving about nine hundred dollars in the process, and never to be betrayed again Now that was bloody riveting. It feels good when the story ends with savings. It feels good to Geio. 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If you ever wanted to feel what it's like inside an episode of a show you love, hang with podcast hosts beyond the mic, or maybe swap screens for sunsets with curious, like minded people, then stuff at sea is your kind of voyage. Stuff at seea is a five night culture soaked escape where pink sand paradise meets curious minds Sailing round trip on october second through seventh, twenty twenty six from New York City to Bermuda. This voyage drops you straight into the Eheart podcast's Stuff Universe On top of the adults only experience you already love, you'll get live podcast episode recordings behind the scenes sessions, themed activations, and more unmissable onboard moments. I want to spoil it, but just come hang out. With overnight stays in Bermuda, there's no rush, just long sun drenched days to explore Or do absolutely nothing at all. Back on board, curiosity sparks connection through conversations, experiences and a lineup designed to keep things as thought provoking as they are unforgettable. Stuff at Sea is a part of our new specialty sailing collection that transforms beloved podcasts into immersive at sea experiences exclusively with Virgin Voyages So, expect more stories, more hosts, and more ways to experience the voices you love. Book now at virginvoyages dot com slash stuff Here's where it gets crazy. Nole, can you take us to nineteen forty three and kind of paint the scene here? Oh my gosh, Ben, it would be my great honor. In nineteen forty three, late in the year, the British government and Allied powers over sllaapppedon sands the aforementioned slapped in sands. It was where that force you, the American group that was meant to land on Utah Beach, would do a bit of a dry run for what was to come sllapped in was selected because of its similarity to Utah Beach, which was that gravelly shore, behind which was a small strip of land and then a lake becausecause of the scale of the operation, there wasn't really an ideal way to keep the whole thing a secret. It's really hard to hide this kind of activity when you are having to evacuate the nearly three thousand residents in the region, as well as, you know, it's just tough to hide level of military personnel. So the landing operations kicked off in December and exxercise Tiger place in April and May of the following year. It was a multi day process, a multi day rehearsal. Nathan Fielder would have been proud. Yes, yes, very much so. It runs from april twenty second to april thirtieth and the big climax, the apex event is a mock landing at Slapton Sands with nine large what they called STs. I think it's a funny name because it's short for landing ship comma. So these are chunky boys, and they're very slow and they' Their job is not to win a speedboat competition. theirir job is to very heavy machines of war. from the from the ocean to the shore Along with this, we have thirty thousandousand Allied troops And we have live fire, which as any veteran in the crowd knows kicks training up a notch, The Allies. Again, are in desperate times at this point and they have planned to protect the area during the operation. The maritime history of World War two itself is fascinating and one heck of a rabbit hole, but we can tell you The Royal Navy K had stationed destroyers and torpedo boats and motor gunboats along a place called Lime Bay, the entrance to Lime Bay. This was a maritime path to Slapton Sands And the thing is they knew Germany had a stranglehold on France. They knew that German e booats were based in a town called Cerbor and the British because of that, they also stationed torpedo boats there. and they were thinking, you know, if these e boats are coming at us We can nip them off, right at the pass. We could stop could stop the poison at the root e boat is not a U boat, by the way. It's the Allied designation for Germany's vast attack Those things e boats The subs are the U boats. The e boat isn't exactly the same thing as a Corvette. It's smaller, right? Yeah. But little more cable The Corvette is like close to kind of what was used I don't know. It's I imagine a cororvette being about twice as size. I don't know the like the link of of an e boat. I can't find it quickly right here Corvette is the thing that the Allies were using, at least the Royal Navy would be using to protect a ship or, you know, exercise like this And we'll get into that because there is a cororvette involved, right? They have at least one One ship and they were supposed to have a destroyer, which is like one hundred and fifty to two hundred feet larger than a cororvette But there's a problem with that. We'll get into it. Right, R, right, right. Scheduling is always the great enemy of any group project Exactly. But just the real threat of these e boats, they are fast attack ships. They're not the same thing as encountering a larger ship that's got some of the crazy large caliber ammunition that will just Tar through boats in the same way, but these things are very, very dangerous and these LSTs are so interesting to think about We've all seen like World War I movies, right? and D day movies where there' depictions of it and all kinds of different things from saving Pri Ryan all the way on to Just everything. Yeah. there's a couple. I actually looked up the list. There's some other ones, Overlord, D Day the sixth of June, Breakthrough Storming Juno, Band of Brothers. that's depicted. And I think there's actually a horror fantasy kind of revisionist history version of it. also called Overlord that came out in twenty eighteen. But I think the one everyone pictures is saving Private Ryan probably. Most likely But the LSTs aren't correct me if I'm wrong, guys, the LSTs are different from a lot of the smaller ships that actually end up on the shore that are delivering the troops, right? That's completely different vessel. Yeah. Those other vessels are people movers. Yeah. These are tank movers, which means of course, they have more weight They're slower. Like I said, they're chunky boys Well but they are the ones that have the troops on them. The troops are just up above and then they would be moving through different vessels to actually to the land as part of the test or, you know, get the ship far enough in. So it's just that's just pointing out perception My perception, when I heard the LSTs and was reading this on paper, I saw those D day ships that are just the people movers you're talking about Ben And then just imagining that these things, these huge slow chunky boys are supposed to be out there somewhat alone. Even if they have the protection they're supposed to have while they're doing this exercise, it's still only Two ships A teeny, tiny one and a slightly bigger one. Yeah, two ship escort. idedally, right? And that's still not enough. So on paper, everything is in place Everybody signs off on it, Ebody green lights it. Things begin to go wrong pretty freaking quickly. So the the I'm laughing because it's terrible folks. The first The first thing that goes disastrously wrong occurs on seven thirty AM When he said it This is our first assault practice. It is a live fire scenario. And the idea is not to kill the soldiers and the sailors training. The idea is to acclimate these troops to the experience, the sound, the sight, the smell. mortar shells, right? of of ammunition being fired at you This idea was championed in special by General Eisenhower because Eisenhower strongly felt that soldiers Some of these soldiers, we have to remember had little wartime experience. He strongly felt these soldiers had to be harded by exposure to conflict conditions that were as real as possible without actually killing them So Yeah, so fifty minutes before the actual landing. Again, at's seven hundred and thirty The force you that you mentioned the force you bombarkment group would start firing on the shore And thenZ When you get to the shore as these hapless kids training for this. you're also going to have other soldiers on the land firing above your head This is hazing to the max. This is hae maxing The three of us have no experience being fired upon in a situation like this just like in any situation, frankly, I've never been fired upon in my life knock on wood. Well we just don't, especially not in e conditions. No. We again, we've seen it depicted. We've seen the shock of that moment and what it's like. We've seen attempts at through artistry showing a viewer what that might sound and look like There's no I can understand why Eisenhower would think you have to have this or everybody's just going to freeze up because it seems like a panic inducing moment even for a hardened soldier Uh or, you know, or sailor. It it seems like that, right? But again, I have no actual understanding of that whatsoever personally. Um This concept though of firing, as you're saying, Ben Hay'e maxing By firing live ammunition over these ships means if there's any issues with where the ships are located with timing. I'm assuming they're not doing this with a bunch of lights flashing everywhere so that everybody knows where everybody is. because remember This is This has to be a secret to be pulled off as an exercise. And let's also remember that nothing ruins a perfect plan like real world conditions, right? The enemy of a plan is practice. So separate in the real world. So several of these landing ships get delayed There's a little bit of weather. It's more radio communication, which wasn't standardized. And so the officers in charge this day They said, okay, we're going to call an audible. We're going to delay our practice landing by one hour. So it's no longer going to be seven thirty. It's going to be eight thirty Not everybody got the update So some of the craft showed up at the original time, an hour before they were expected thenen the second wave coms, right? This is raggedy at this point is not coordinated. They got hit by the training fire. This is where weve got to go G a great author, great historian who looks into this, a guy named Nigel Lewis the author of a book called Exercise Tiger the dramatic true story of a hidden tragedy of World War II and't were Obviously, they were seeing their fellow their fellow soldiers die use of this exercise that was again, supposed to be kind of like the real world. safe and death free. There were internal rumors saying as many as four hundred and fifty men died. to this friendly fire. Dude. I mean, if you're dying during the practice run, I mean, that does not bode well for the real thing. R? A damning harbinger of things to come. That is higher than I would have expected just knowing the total number or official total number casualties in this event. because that's well over half. But we still again, we still don't have We'll see this with the second big screw up. We still don't have Vverified U or universally accepted estimates of the death toll and that four hundred and fifty number has also itself never been fully verified for reasons cururrency later. Because we're talking about nine of these large transfer shhips, the LSTs coming in at least some portion of them making it early, some portion of them coming in late And I It's hard to believe that many people could have been killed by live fire without anyone knowing. But just going back to as you're saying, Ben You're talking about radio communication radio communication that was Plagued with issues throughout this whole event, right? There's several other issues we're going to get into where the radio played a major role and why people either got hurt or killed hard it's hard to believe that it would Screw up that badly from the jump Right. Yeah. it's Not a good sign. I don't love it. but to be toldally accurate about this. And we're giving you some off the book stuff here, folks Some officials privately argued that this was Indeed, the brutal reality soldiers would have to face when inde they actual And so the exercise Continue And things just got Wse And we'll get to that Final twist after a quick word from our sponsor How is TD making banking more human Easy with less bank talk and more real talk. Less, your call is important to us, and more, how can we help? Less confusion and more clarity. It's things like tapping your phone to use your TD card and getting your paycheck two business days early. It's getting more of what you want, and less of what you don't. That's how TD is making banking more human If you ever wanted to feel what it's like inside an episode of a show you love, hang with podcast hosts beyond the mic, or maybe swap screens for sunsets with curious, like minded people, then stuff at Sea is your kind of voyage. Stuff at seea is a five night culture soaked escape where pink sand paradise meets curious minds Sailing round trip on october second through seventh, twenty twenty six from New York City to Bermuda. This voyage drops you straight into the IiHart podcast's Stuff Universe On top of the adults only experience you already love, you'll get live podcast episode recordings behind the scenes sessions, themed activations, and more unmissable onboard moments. I want to spoil it, but just come hang out. With overnight stays in Bermuda, there's no rush, just long sun drenched days to explore or do absolutely nothing at all. Back on board, curiosity sparks connection through conversations, experiences, and a lineup designed to keep things as thought provoking as they are unforgettable. Stuff at Sea is a part of our new specialty sailing collection that transforms beloved podcasts into immersive at sea experiences exclusively with Virgin Voyages So, expect more stories, more hosts, and more ways to experience the voices you love. Book now at virginvoyages dot com slash stuff We've All done it. We've tumbled down an internet rabbit hole trying to self diagnose. And sometimes doing our own research can leave us even more anxious than informed And your feet is packed with wellness trends telling you to cold plunge or protein max or detox or track your sleep, but what's actually real and what's exaggerated and what's just plain wrong That's exactly what health versus Hype from the American Medical Association and IHart Media's Ruby stududio is here to find out. That's right, each episode, Trace Dominguez, Emmy nominated science communicator interacked a billions of views across PBS, Discovery channel, and YouTube, talks to doctors, influencers, and real people who are trying out these trends, not to cancel them, not to hype them even more, but to actually understand them Because when it comes to your health, who you listen to matters. Start asking better questions and listen to health versus hype on the iHart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your favorite shows. This july fourth comes celebrate at America's Block Party, hosted by America two hundred fifty. America's Block Party is a canampt miss Fth of July concert happening at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. Experienced music performances by major artists, patriotic tributes, and the kickoff to Giving forth, helping to make july fourth the largest day of giving in American history. It's more than just firework Join this landmark celebration and get your America's Block party tickets now for seventeen dollars seventy six cents at America two fifty. org slash L And we have returned, Gutentog S the German forces inc coming Yeah, Vill Coleman in the least nice in the least Vilical mean way. Yes. Yeah, because the very next day after this disastrous friendly fire incident The Germans do arrive are eight tank landing vehicles that are attacked by nine German e boats in Lime Bay. And as we noted, the tacticians had already predicted Lime Bay would be a potential conflict point These e boats, which the Allies knew about, they left Cerborg around midnight. And they successfully avoided those British patrols, those torpedo boats we mentioned earlier because they're small, nimble guys And there were tons of other accidents. The Allies were unprepared. They were supposed to, I believe you mentioned this, Matt, the LSTs were supposed to have an escort of two vehicles, but one of them make The big one Right. Which sucks. the destroyer had to go in, I guess for repairs, maintenance and things pretty close by. I think think collided with a boat Yeah, but it wasn't close by enough. to be close enough to help in an emergency. And on top of that, the radio frequencies were wrong Yeah LSTs were on a different radio frequency than the Corvette which was on a different frequency than the spotter shhips, the ones that are around in the area to to give the heads up you know, like more of a private vessel that is not going to raise any flags for e booats going by. It's like a little It's a workout. Yeah. they were on the different frequency and there was this need for radio silence and there were orders for essentially radio silence unless it was an emergency So nobody is checking to make sure everybody's on the same frequency and to realize that problem before there's an emergency. Yeah, and this is. This is disastrous. This is darkly ridiculous because alsoso note that the one escort ship that made it, which was supposed to be leading the LSTs to the shore, violated established standard doctrine It violated the u typical move that you would do, which is to zigzag Right? moveove around, be a moving target. It took everybody in a straight line, like a mother duck with her ducklings. and in the next ten minutes as a result when these I keep thinking of the u I keep thinking of the LSTs as young elephants. and of the eboats as Hyena So when these hyena approach in just the space of ten minutes One of the LSTs, LST five thirty one is torpedo. It sinks into the cold waters. Another one LSD two hundred eighty nine is hit. Its stern is blown clean off. someomeone smacks it across the stern and it doesn't sink But it is crippled. It's not going to be useful during D day. And remember, there are hundreds of human personnel inside these things like where they're holding the tanks and those big holding areas as well as on top of the ship u in And they all believe they're taking part in an exercise with live fire So imat like put yourself in that headace like It's Is this is this exercise? is this real? What's happening? and when you think about the radio problem on top of that Corvette, the ship that we're talking you're talking about Ben mother ducking everybody in, it got the warning that the e boats were coming in because it was on the right frequencies with the lookout ships, but the LSTs were not So they had no idea The actual troops and the people inside these things that are being attacked had no idea it was coming. The Corvette knew and they thought the LSTs were on the same frequency. So they thought they knew too. It's such a good point you make there because I it It reminds me of hearing a fire drill. in an office building And you always have to ask yourself Is this the scheduled fire drill Is there an actual fire In this case This was not part of the drill and that's such an excellent point that a lot of the service members board probably did not realize that Another six hundred and thirty nine troops died. If you're depending on the estimates you find, this leads experts like Lewis and others, the author we mentioned earlier estimate that seven hundred and forty nine service members passed away as a result of these two events, but even here Again The estimates vary so widely because you can find other fully credible historians who will say the death toll from these two incidents was way closer to one thousand. They would say nine hundred forty six doars And not of not all of these people, by the way, died as a direct result of fire from an e booat die because they drowned or they succumbed to hypothermia while they were doing their best to float on the surface and get rescued. It's a it's an ugly way to go. Well And also Ben, isn't there another further grizzly detail about these packs that they had? you got to do it. Yeah. Well, I just you know, as if what you mentioned thus far were wasn't, you know, awful enough, some people either drowned or perhaps were suffocated or choked to death. strangled to death by their own flootation devices. Yeah. So again, as we said, this is a desperate all or nothing play. This is when you have one one hundred dollars chip at the Backjack table putut the whole thing down As a result because the Allies are in such a hurry and in such eleventh hour calculations The officials left blind spots in their shake and bake training Basic stuff Like you were saying, No, like, how to properly put on a life preserver And I think I misspoke a little bit. It wasn't that they were strangled. They were they the only way they could get it on because of the bulkiness of their packs was around their waist, But then the bulkiness of the packs made them so top heavy that they flipped upside down like you know, like one of those Bobble head things that you punch and just pops back up but the other way around. Y. And it's not funny. it's terrific. And then they, you know, were so weighed down by that pack that they they couldn't write themselves. They drowned upside down. Yeah Yeah. Yeah. And others were just inside those ships. and you know, when as water fills in, you just imagine those final moments. It's all horrifying No way of egress. Yeah, a Kobiashom of an escape room. Well, it's freezing cold water in the channel, right? I mean, that's the other You're even if you don't drown, you are probably going to freeze And I mean you know, we can all understand we've already laid it out there the need for a dry run of this kind, but it certainly seems that there were some preparations not made correctly. or at the very least some they're talking about weighing all these contingencies, but What a foolish thing to You know end the lives of so many of your troops in advance of the thing where you really need them I mean, not that any any situation is acceptable for the loss of life, you know of service members, but it just seems like a really Desperate move, maybe. I just don't under Absolutely. Yeah. must be it It is desperation, it is one of those rare ticking time bombs situations and The thing that I think escapes a lot of people who don't study this or haven't had to study this is that Every that happens in a conflict theater like this becomes new data, all the horrible stuff. all the successful stuff, you actually focus more on the missteps. So this is horrific the exercise tiger is horrible in terms of what we were expecting versus what happened also brings with it another thing, even worse There is a new precedent established. Now both the Allies and the Axis powers realize the enormous damage, the eboat hyena can weak on any slow moving landing craft So this means if you are Germany you look at what happened and you say, Wow. We could just repeat this on a larger scale Whenever the Allies attempt to invade France, which also our spies tell us They are definitely doing and grass rememinds me a little bit of our discussions about these extxtremely expensive missiles and missile defense ammunition and all that stuff versus drones. where like these little hyenas are relatively cheap to produce versus some of these other larger warships And if you can just be like mass manufacturing these things and having them patrol around. That's going to be as effective, if not more effective at times than the huge, you know, ship that's twenty times as expensive. U My God that as you're saying, just justust with the drones now that exist in our really the technology that is pushing forward front lines in several conflicts across the world right now these eboats are very similar That's an excellent point. Yeah, because now both both sides of the conflict discovered asymmetry L like we see now why build a carrier when I can build a missile. Chilly carrier Let's exercise a little bit of empathy for General Eisenhower. Let's take ourselves to the moment where he learns about all of this. And let's also feel very sorry for the person who had to give them the news becausecause this live fire thing, again, he was the main proponent of it. when he learns about all this stuff He is livid. Furious does not even approach the levels of rage the genereral has when he learns about this disaster. Do we have a quote or anything from him? We have a quote from some of his boys, like Vice Admiral Kirk gets quoted a lot, but unless you've got one, Matt I'm just I'm still stuck in the uh Oh Godd. I hate to laugh. I feel so horrible for the person who had to be in the room Eisenhower and say, you know general Not a great day at sllap Like he probably got he probably got backhead You know, just from the jump Oh yeah. Well things as you said, things did not happen the way they were supposed to I think the correct me if I'm wrong, I think the biggest deal for like military command, like someone in Eisenhower's position someomebody in some of the major generals positions and admirals is that those LSTs were it's not like they had an unlimited number, right the fact that two were sunk was a big freaking deal Yeah, here's the stuff he's pissed about and rightly so. What's the word we tectonic This is what he' tectonically pissed about. First, that convoy of landinghip They had violated policy because they sailed in that straight line. They should have zigzag. And he was like, guys, we talked about this But he said it in a way less chill way. Second to your point, Matt Now the Allies are short several LSTs. These are crucial to D day. and at this point, they are impossible to replace in time. America's in a war economy now in a total war economy. and they're making all the cool toys including, you know, the atomic bomb They are limited in their time window of manufacturing. So now we have two less LSTs for D day. way I've I'm trying to understand through maybe through the lens of car stuff, Ben, in this idea that you've got a fleet of vehicles And you've got two of those vehicles as your reserve ones in case one or Hopefully not, worst case scenario two have a major problem right before the race begins So you can just put those in and they'll be up to speed and ready to go. Because of the loss of these two LSTs, there's not a single reserve. of those ready to go for the big show. That's well put it's it's all the chips and You know,, as we were talking earlier, they they're There are a couple of other reasons that Eisenhower is just on words anotherother word for it. The German that one, that's a good one though. the German forces can now rightly assume All their spy info is correct. The Yanks are on the verge of their rumored invasion They're actually doing it. because what else are they practicing for? Oh, dude. This I you're right Yes. I don't want to take away from that stment been just I saw something about The two LSTs, there were ten total human beings on board those two ships that went down that had pretty intimate planning knowledge of D day actual. So the actual Normandy invasion versus all this other disinformation that's being thrown around, right And wasn't that a One of the big parts of this We're ye. These guys, these ten individuals had to be accounted for because it was thought that the enemy would perhaps know exactly what's about to happen. Later historians will say, hey, this information led Adolf Hitler to specifically order reinforcements in Normandy because they figured out this training exercise and they said, what other beaches look like sllapped in sands There's one we know of Uh and like you were saying, Matt the Perhaps most troubling for the top rass for Eisenhower Especially and for the thousands of people who are putting their lives on the line. N All of the attacked officers were found. There were ten, at least that we know of who had sensitive Intimate is the word often used. Kowledge of was actually going to go down on D day in terms of what forces went where, what times, how they connect, how they communicate, had these ten missing officers drowned quite a likely possibility or had they been captured by the hyena by those little e booats and if captured They would have almost certainly compromised the whole of Operation Overlord when they were put to the question And it's now we get into even weirder stuff because now The Allies are saying, okay thing German craft. Right? or even little ten civilian craft that's run by German Intel We're seeing them searching the wreckage can't fire upon these vessels. Because if we fire on them We're going to teach the Axis powers more stuff. We're going to show the Germans where our fortifications are. Once you fire enemy knows where you're at So they had to just sit there and bite their lips those officers were not Take it as POWs. Wn't that crazy? they had to hope that they were dead had to hope that they were dead. And as it turned out as a result of this watching, at least according to several different plays, including the Naval History and Heritage Command those ten officers had drowned. L they confirmed those specific individuals had drowned which is as messed up as it is, was a good thing because D day could continue. Yeah. And as a result of all these considerations, You know, let's exercise some more empathy. Let's say the five of us are in these operations in exercise Tiger and We survive colleagues do not, our fellow soldiers and sailors die We are now swn to secrecy cannot tell anybody what happened to our friends, to our brothers in arms That's why even now, and we're recording this, by the way, folks on Monday, june eighth, twenty twenty six Even now, we do not have a ton of information on exactly how many individual sailors and soldiers die We have Yes very good estimates from enterprising historians. It's interesting that DOD made a public statement. way later nineteen eighty eight, they said Here's why we didn't talk about it that much. Let's throw this around. Let's riff this and see if we accept this official explanation They said, look, record keeping is lax on these ships And they did a bad job. and the majority of the relevant log books that would tell us who was on the ship Those got lost at sea in the attacks So we don't know What do you guys think You buy it? I mean, Certainly convenient but also it was chaotic. So sure You're being it's very fair. You're being very fair. I wish I could be that fair, but I think they I mean, just given the information here, I was trying to be diplomatic I guess No, I mean, you know Do you think the government used to be more trustworthy or have they always been the worst? It depends on whether you're in the government. Yeah, fair enough But that's a great question I mean, it does, it feels like a cover Well, it does It's weird to read back through the history and to see that there is an official acknowledgement in lookook at my hand in this much of way by the military only a couple of months later, like was was like a month after D day. that this that this occurred. An acknowledgement through a press release through Stars and Stripes. But he was temered Yeah that is like specifically for military folks. and I don't know, man. it seems It's weird because you can you can point to that and say, well, we acknowledged it. we released the information. Whatever Yeah, no, you're right, you're right. And Noel, I think you landed on the perfect word with convenient. There's some really interesting historical debate over terminology where you'll hear people saying this is definitely cover up. and then you'll hear other historians pointing to, you know, like that stars and Stripes article and they'll say It wasn't so much of a cover up as Watch the air quotes, folks quQietly forgotten. Yeah, and they sort of did the least, right? Like it's like a quick mention buried in the back pages of variety about something going on in Hollywood. You know what I mean? Like like a planted story in a sort of a niche publication that isn't gonna to reach everybody. Other than that, my American cousin got pretty solid reviews That kind of thing. I mean, this is like there rumors. Okaykay. so there this is why we can argue cover up you guys. there were There was a narrative war happen concurrently on a much smaller level than World War two. It was the official record versus the memories of the surviving eyeewitnesses. They were sworn to secrecy, but they were talking with themselves. This is where historians find U sworn accounts of mass unmarked grapes hidden somewhere away in farm fields in Devon That's pretty gnarly stuff Yeah It'd be difficult to cover it up now or would it reat Right Let's talk about the motivation for the cover upp. O last thing that I didn't think about until just now It's reminding me of our recent episode we did on the Lucy Letby case with Amanda Knox We're talking Yeah, we interviewed Amanda Knox. Yeah. where we're talking about The the The necessary protection of something like the NHS, the National Health Services,