THREE men were found to have been culpably negligent in a NATO exercise that went wrong and led to the deaths of five Scots-based part-time soldiers in Germany, it has emerged.

 

The revelation has come as the Royal Air Force and Army board of inquiry findings were released for the first time after veterans of Exercise Bold Guard accused the Ministry of Defence of a 40-year cover-up over what caused the tragedy.

The Herald revealed in September that a German police revealed for the first time that the British military was accused of criminal negligence in the exercise carried out over the Kiel Canal.

At the time the deaths of the five 15th Scottish Parachute Battalion soldiers and one from the Liverpool-based 4th Battalion was described as the worst peace-time tragedy to ever befall a territorial unit.

Veterans said that reports surrounding official inquiries into what happened have never been released, despite requests.

The Herald sought the release of documents as veterans to the village of Sehested in memory of the six who died - Capt Gerald Muir, Officer Cadet James Cooper, Sgt Richard Tomkins, Sgt Eliot Leask, Lt Cpl Brian Bett and Pte Edward Beech.

Now the Ministry of Defence has released heavily censored versions of the findings, which confirm what veterans feared, that there was negligence involved - although the board said none of their actions actually contributed to the deaths.

Two military courts of inquiry were set up to determine why the six experienced members of the part-time parachute force died in what should have been a routine night operation.

The men drowned when they came down too far north of their west German landing zone and with platforms hit the dark waters of the Kiel Canal.

They were among 15 paratroopers and four platforms that had plunged from 1000 feet into the canal. Other soldiers were taken to hospitals with serious injuries.

Some 540 paratroopers and 26 platforms were dropped, but 25 soldiers and some platforms landed directly into the canal.

The board of inquiry said the main error was through the misjudgement of the unexpectedly strong wind blowing at the time.

None of the six who died had managed to inflate their lifejackets. But the board found that only in the case of Capt Muir did the unserviceability of the lifejacket, caused by damaged screw threads, contribute to his death.

Nevertheless the board made a recommendation that parachutists' lifejackets should be checked by qualified safety equipment workers before each parachute descent.

The board found that three unnamed individuals had been negligent, two were held to be "culpable" while a third was judged to be "excusable" - but that this related to loss and damage to service equipment.

The heavily redacted document indicates that this related to the placement of drop zone markers for the stores which consisted mainly of medium stressed platforms (MSPs) carrying vehicles and trailers.

The group commander and convening officer said the evidence "makes it clear that by far the largest element of error in the early drop of personnel was caused by totally unpredicted and unforeseeable variation between the calculated and actual mean effective wind at low-level used for the drop.

He said: "Nobody can be blamed for this but as a result of it 15 men landed in the Kiel Canal," he said.

"The board find that three individuals have been negligent. In the case of two, their negligence has been held to be culpable whilst the negligence of the third has been judged to be excusable.

"The distinctions between these degrees are in my judgement of the circumstances surrounding the accident, difficult to define with precision and justice.

A German police report said at the time here should be criminal proceedings around what happened, saying that due to a "not yet known error" the soldiers jumped too early.