Forty years ago today, six part-time soldiers, including five who were based in Scotland, were killed while taking part in a training exercise in Germany.

At the time, the deaths of the five men from the 15th Scottish Parachute Battalion and another from Liverpool's 4th Battalion were regarded as one of the worst peace-time tragedies ever to befall a territorial unit. But on the 40th anniversary, veterans of the exercise believe there has been a cover-up over what happened. The Ministry of Defence has some questions to answer.

The most important is what happened to the report conducted into the tragedy. A joint Royal Air Force and Army Board of Inquiry was carried out in the wake of the incident, which occurred during Exercise Bold Guard over the Kiel Canal. When the men parachuted down and missed their landing zone, they landed instead in the canal and drowned.

On the face of it, the inquiry appears to have been thorough. Many witnesses were interviewed and, on the basis of the report, then Defence Secretary Roy Mason said that the wind encountered during the exercise was stronger than predicted. On the basis of that report, Mr Mason told the Commons that he was satisfied every reasonable precaution had been taken to protect the men.

However, the report has never been published and the need to do so has been underlined by the emergence of another report by German police which has been obtained by veterans of the incident and seen by The Herald. The German report concluded that there could have been criminal negligence on the basis that the soldiers had jumped too early, a conclusion that appears to contradict the board of inquiry's report.

Publication of the British report could help resolve this discrepancy - one that has bothered Jim Carey, who flew on the mission and survived. Mr Carey believes that the incident in which his colleagues died was not just down to the weather conditions and that they were dropped too early.

The Defence Secretary's statement at the time of the report does appear to indicate that some lessons were learned.

He assured parliament for instance that there had been a full review of all procedures for parachute drops to reduce or eliminate the chance of a similar accident happening again, including the methods used to determine wind speeds. Additional measures were also taken to ensure the maintenance and inspection of lifejackets

The law around the care of employees, including soldiers, has also changed considerably since the 1970s. The Ministry of Defence now has the same responsibility of care towards its employees as any civilian employer would.

However, the fact remains that the report has not been published and should be. Yesterday, 28 people representing the battalions to which the dead men belonged flew out to Germany to mark the anniversary. It would be a good time for the MoD to track down the report and publish it or explain why it feels it cannot do so.