The opening scenes of the 1998 war epic Saving Private Ryan depict several U.S. Army soldiers wearing what appears to be a strange-looking canvas belt around their waists both before and after disembarking from their landing craft to storm Omaha Beach on D-Day. Director Steven Spielberg went to great pains to ensure as accurate a portrayal of those events as possible…even down to the equipment worn by the actors.

One of those equipment items was an innocuous device most soldiers wore around their waists. It was designed to act as a flotation device, much like the gray Kapok life jacket issued to U.S. Navy sailors during World War II. The soldiers called it the life belt.

Right: U.S. Army issue life belt, author’s collection. Click to enlarge.

Unlike U.S. Navy sailors who were issued and instructed to use the Kapok life jacket, U.S. Army personnel expected to take part in amphibious operations were issued the life belt.[1] However, a thorough search through U.S. Army field manuals relating to amphibious operations, such as Basic Field Manual Landing Operations on Hostile Shores FM 31-5 (1942), reveals nothing associated with the proper wear and use of the life belt. Additionally, the U.S. Navy Bluejackets’ Manual (1943), the catch-all guidebook for naval personnel, is also silent on the life belt and contains nothing in its 1,145 pages instructing a soldier or sailor in its use. There is no solid explanation as to why some soldiers chose to wear it correctly while others did not, but those who did not were destined to drown once their equipment-laden bodies hit the water. What was supposed to be a life belt turned out to be a death belt for many unfortunate soldiers.

A chilling example of this training oversight concerns the ill-fated pre-invasion rehearsal exercise known as Exercise Tiger. Much has been written regarding Exercise Tiger and the incredible loss of life that resulted when German E-boats (torpedo boats) attacked and sank two Landing, Ship, Tank (LST) vessels in the early morning hours of April 28, 1944.[2] What has not been adequately covered until now is the gross training deficiency involving the life belt that became evident as soldiers and sailors went into the water during the horrific attack.

The Assault Training Center in North Devon, England, and the three stateside Amphibious Training Centers instructed amphibious assault troops in a myriad of skills they would need when they hit the beaches of Normandy. Areas included in the training of the regimental combat teams expected to take and hold Utah and Omaha Beach were rudimentary and designed primarily to enable soldiers to handle themselves and their equipment during an amphibious operation and to acquaint them with the landing craft from which they would both embark and disembark.[3]

Particular subjects that were supposed to be covered for selected officers and Noncommissioned Officers (NCOs) were a general orientation, doctrines and principles of amphibious operations; composition of boat teams, the proper wearing of equipment, scaling cargo nets; lowering of light equipment and weapons from piers into landing craft; methods of embarking into and debarking from landing craft; loading and unloading of trucks, artillery, and other heavy equipment; crossing barbed wire and clearing beach obstacles.[4]

More focused areas, such as the use of pole charges (half-pound blocks of TNT taped to a square board at the end of a wooden pole), the Bangalore torpedo (linked metal tubes filled with explosives used to blow gaps in barbed wire), and flamethrowers were reserved for specialized units known as Assault Teams.[5]

While these skills would undoubtedly be required on D-Day, according to a Top-Secret memo from Gen. Eisenhower, Exercise Tiger was primarily intended to rehearse the following: concentration, marshaling and embarkation of troops in the Torbay-Plymouth area, short movement by sea under U.S. Navy control, disembarkation with naval and air support at Slapton Sands, beach assault using live ammunition and the securing of the beachhead to be followed by a rapid inland advance.[6]

The tragedy of Exercise Tiger lay primarily in the fact that enemy torpedo boats, which had been patrolling in an area northwest of Cherbourg, France, were alerted to U.S. and British radio traffic, and the only escort protection for Allied ships (Convoy T-4) was the British corvette HMS Azalea. Nine German E-boats made their way to Slapton Sands and encountered Convoy T-4, which was made up of eight LSTs and one British corvette, each carrying U.S. Army assault forces and British sailors.[7]

According to Laurence B. James, who was on board LST 502 during the attack, at approximately 2:00 AM on April 28, 1944, the first of three U.S. LSTs was torpedoed by enemy E-boats. LST 507, sailing last in the line of Convoy T-4, was struck and sunk. Twenty minutes later, LST 531, sailing fourth in line, was hit by two torpedoes and sunk. Those Allied ships sailing at the head of the convoy failed to grasp the enormity of the unfolding situation and assumed this was all part of the exercise. At 2:30 AM, LST 289 was hit, severely damaging her stern. All nine attacking E-boats made it safely back to France.[8]

Because of a vast government cover-up, the general public knew very little of the disaster, and resultant casualty figures are still relatively unclear; however, a report issued by U.S. Navy Admiral Don P. Moon dated April 29, 1944, provided the basis for the “official” death toll of 749.[9] Laurence B. James cited between 639 to 749 as the number of men who perished, and Wendy Lawrance puts the figure at 749, as does a 1987 Reading Times newspaper article.[10] Richard T. Bass, however, gives the total at 1,405, nearly twice the “official” tally based upon an inquiry of the American Battle Monuments Commission.[11]

Regardless of the total number of men who died during Exercise Tiger, one salient fact is evident. The lack of proper training and instruction in the use of a simple device manufactured by a company that would become famous for making tires most certainly contributed to the overall death toll both during Exercise Tiger and on D-Day. That device was officially known as the PRESERVER, LIFE, DUAL TUBE, BELT, or the life belt. It was primarily produced by the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company in Akron, Ohio.

Technician fifth grade (T/5) Earnest Dale Rodman, one of the survivors of LST 507 during the ill-fated Exercise Tiger (April 1944), relayed the following regarding the absence of training in using the life belt.

As I recall, we boarded the ships on the morning of April 26, 1944…upon boarding each soldier was given an inflatable life belt. These belts contained two capsules of compressed carbon dioxide, which inflated the belt when punctured by squeezing at the proper location. No instruction was given as to their proper use. Because each soldier was in battle dress (backpack, rifle, etc.), the belts were worn around the waist instead of under the armpits. This would prove to be a fatal mistake for many.[12]

Right: Soldiers approaching the beach, 6 June 1944, NARA (Note the position of life belts). Click to enlarge.

Lieutenant Eugene Eckstam, a medical officer on board LST 507, elected not to jump from the deck of the stricken vessel, instead preferring to slowly lower himself down the cargo net and into the water. Unlike many U.S. Navy personnel wearing the Kapok life jacket, he recalled that he had been issued the life belt and was wearing it under his armpits. He inflated the belt and allowed it to fill before releasing the cargo net. As soon as he was in the water, he noticed that many soldiers had inflated belts around their waists, and they had toppled forward with their heads in the water and feet in the air. According to his account, those men had never received adequate training on how to use the life belt.[13]

U.S. Navy Corpsman Arthur Victor, another survivor of LST 507, noticed that “many soldiers pitched forward in the water with legs up and faces down. They were top-heavy and struggled unsuccessfully to overcome it, even though I could see they were wearing life belts. It was unbelievable.”[14]

Five days after the Exercise Tiger disaster, Convoy T-4 Commander B.J. Skahill submitted his recommendations, which underscored the problems that likely caused the significant loss of life. Among the many shortcomings he noted, he stated that “it is believed that the Kapok life jacket is more effective for holding up the head of exhausted swimmers than the CO₂-inflated single belt type.”[15]

Because it was called a life belt, it is entirely plausible that this nomenclature caused many soldiers to affix the device as if it were an everyday belt, i.e., around his waist. As relayed by T/5 Rodman, the device was designed to be instantly inflated using two carbon dioxide (CO₂ ) cartridges that punctured the cartridges upon twisting two valves, which then released CO₂  into the fabric of the belt, creating buoyancy. If the CO₂ cartridges failed, one could manually inflate the belt by blowing into the two rubber tubes attached to the outside of the belt.

Apparently, none of this information was officially part of any training regimen at either the Amphibious Training Centers or the Assault Training Center, so the fact that some men, either through providence or sheer luck, elected to wear the life belt under their armpits versus around the waist explains why they survived when they hit the water. Considering Commander Skahill’s recommendations, one marvels that U.S. Army soldiers who took part in D-Day had still not been adequately trained on where to position the life belt or had been issued Kapok life jackets. Jonathan Gawne noted in his Spearheading D-Day: American Special Units in Normandy (2011) that, unlike the U.S. Army soldiers who embarked into LANDING, CRAFT, VEHICLE, PERSONNEL (LCVP) wearing life belts, U.S. Navy and Coast Guard boat crews were issued Kapok life vests.[16]

Several eyewitness accounts substantiate the ramifications for those who chose to wear the life belt around the waist versus under the armpits on D-Day. Staff Sergeant John Robert (Bob) Slaughter, an infantryman assigned to the 116th Infantry Regiment of the 29th Infantry Division, was one of thousands who stormed Omaha Beach on June 6, 1944. He also participated in a similar D-Day rehearsal maneuver called Fabius I in May 1944. In his memoirs, he recounted how his unit was assigned the Dog Green sector of the beach. As soon as the ramp of his LCVP dropped, Staff Sergeant Slaughter found himself in the waters of the Channel. He noted that “in addition to our inflated life belts, we all wore gas masks in rubber carriers on our backs, which acted as auxiliary life preservers, so there was no trouble at all keeping afloat.”[17] Had his men not had the foresight to reverse the position of their gas mask carriers (they were supposed to be worn across the upper chest for rapid access), he may not have survived to write his memoirs.

U.S. Army medic Staff Sergeant Arnold “Ray” Lambert went ashore at Omaha on D-Day and recounted his experience that day as he saved more than a dozen men. He noted, “A lot of the guys had so much equipment on that they couldn’t stay upright once in the water. The life preservers were belts you put around your midsection…it probably seemed like a good idea to add an extra life preserver to counterbalance it. But what that did was tip them like a seesaw when they got in the water. Their upper bodies had all the weight; their bottom halves were lighter. The belts ended up helping to hold their heads under.”[18] It is apparent from SSgt Lambert’s recollection that he, too, had not been adequately trained on where to wear the life belt. 

The fact that U.S. Army soldiers were never properly trained in the use of the life belt represents just one of the many inadequacies in preparation that occurred during the period of readiness maneuvers leading up to America’s entry into World War II and even during the war. Moreover, the fact that this has never been addressed in historiography further substantiates the importance of ensuring exercises validate training or, as in the case of the life belt, the lack thereof.

Sources:

[1] The Bluejackets’ Manual, United States Navy 1943 Eleventh Edition (Annapolis, MD.: United States Naval Institute, 1943), 280-282.

[2] See Wendy Lawrance’s Exercise Tiger: The Forgotten Sacrifice of the Silent Few (2013); Edwin P Hoyt’s The Invasion Before Normandy: The Secret Battle of Slapton Sand (1999); Ken Small’s The Forgotten Dead: The true story of Exercise Tiger, the disastrous rehearsal for D-Day (2018); and Richard T Bass’s Exercise Tiger: Casualty Cover Up Revealed (2017).

[3] Becker, The Amphibious Training Center Study No. 22, 50.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Bass, Spirits of the Sand, 27-68.

[6] Memorandum from Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force, G-3 Division, subj. Exercise Tiger, 19 April 1944 in Ken Small, The Forgotten Dead: The true story of Exercise Tiger, the disastrous rehearsal for D-Day (Osprey Publishing, 2018), 19-20.

[7] L.B. James, Report. The Location of LST 502 During and Following the Attack on Convoy T-4, Exercise Tiger, Exercise Tiger Collection; Box 1, Folder 9, [Part 2 of 2], Recollections of Laurence B. James, 1991. U.S. Army Heritage and Education Center, Carlisle, PA.; Bass, Exercise Tiger: The D-Day practice landing tragedies uncovered, 60-63.; AP, “Disastrous Warm Up for D-Day Little Known,” Las Vegas Review, April 25, 1994, 7.

[8] James, Report. The Location of LST 502 During and Following the Attack on Convoy T-4, 2.

[9] Memorandum to COMINCH, CTF 122 and CTF 127, 29 April 1944 in Bass, Exercise Tiger: The D-Day practice landing tragedies uncovered, 118.

[10] James, Report, 2; Lawrance, Exercise Tiger, 88; AP, “U.S. Men Killed in Rehearsal Honored with Tributes, Tears,” Reading Times, November 16, 1987.

[11] Bass, Exercise Tiger: The D-Day practice landing tragedies uncovered, 161.

[12] T/5 Earnest Dale Rodman, Correspondence from Earnest Dale Rodman Regarding His Account of the Attack During Exercise Tiger, Exercise Tiger Collection; Box 1, Folder 3, Recollection of E Dale Rodman, U.S Army Heritage and Education Center, Carlisle, PA.

[13] Lawrance, Exercise Tiger, 74-75.

[14] Bass, Exercise Tiger: The D-Day practice landing tragedies uncovered, 85.

[15] Ibid., 150-151.

[16] Jonathan Gawne, Spearheading D-Day: American Special Units in Normandy (Histoire and Collections, 2011), 53.

[17] SSgt J. Robert Slaughter, Wartime Memories of J. Robert Slaughter and Selected Men of the 116th Infantry, 29th Division, 1941-1945, 6, 20. Robert W. Black Collection; Box 1, Folder 5, Wartime Memoirs of J. Robert Slaughter, 116th Inf. Regt., 29th Inf. Division, 1941-1945. U.S. Army Heritage and Education Center, Carlisle, PA.

[18] Ray Lambert and Jim DeFelice, Every Man A Hero: A Memoir of D-Day, the First Wave At Omaha Beach, and a World At War (New York: HarperCollins, 2019), 178, Kindle.