Is there a better way to do this? We might think that blanket secrecy is a necessary evil. After all, these are Britain’s most elite units, and if we open them up to transparency then the enemy will learn their secrets, putting lives at risk. It is a frightening argument, but one that the New Internationalist can reveal is deeply flawed. Our investigation looked into four of Britain’s closest military allies and found that their special forces regiments are measurably more open about when exercises go wrong.

Take the US to start with. Their Freedom of Information Act is several decades older than the UK’s, dating back to the 1960s. New Internationalist asked the US Department of Defense Combat Readiness Center for the number of training accidents involving the US army’s Special Operations Command (known as ‘USASOC’) from 2015 to 2017. USASOC is based at Fort Bragg, reportedly the largest military installation in the world, and oversees elite American Airborne, Rangers and Delta Force units.

Despite its vast scale, USASOC had fewer training accidents in that three year period than the Royal Marines: 491 versus 774. Of course, this could be accounted for by differences in what injuries are recorded, but it still suggests that US Special Forces are safer than some of Britain’s conventional troops. The other remarkable finding from the US was the level of detail that they were prepared to disclose. Far from being concerned about giving away individual details, they sent us an entire spreadsheet listing all 491 accidents – which we are embedding below for you to explore.

By sorting the columns and scrolling through, you will see that there were nine deaths among the accidents. These included one fatality on a ‘Free-fall Airborne Operation’ and another when a ‘Soldier was participating in closed circuit night dive’ – which sounds similar to Richard’s drowning. Another death was from ‘Demolition Explosives’, clearly a high risk course. But some of the deaths seem easily preventable. Someone died in an ‘Administrative Movement’ and another perished while ‘Operating a Commercial Bobcat’ – a small digger.

Trawling through the data dump gives a raw picture of life in the US Special Forces, the drudgery of long runs and the danger of working from heights. One operator needed days off work after a mishap trying to ‘complete the Nasty Nick O-course’, which sounds like an ominous training exercise. There were 49 accidents of various severity from ‘static line airborne operations’ – that’s the kind of traditional parachuting technique used on D-Day.

Like Britain’s Royal Navy, the US Navy also has its own special forces, the famous SEALs unit. These elite divers use similar covert infiltration techniques to the SBS, especially the miniature submarine that Richard drowned in. To see if this equipment had become safer since Richard died, New Internationalist made a Freedom of Information request to the US Naval Safety Center for data on what they call ‘training mishaps’ involving the swimmer deliver vehicle from 2015 to 2017. (Remember the equivalent data on SBS accidents would be impossible to obtain in the UK).

After two months, the US Navy sent us a spreadsheet listing six accidents with the mini-sub over the last three years, with the number rising steadily from one mishap in 2015 to three in 2017. Although there were no fatalities, the most serious accidents involved an ‘unconscious diver in water column’, requiring three days in hospital, and an incident where the ‘Diver lost consciousness on decent due to improper gas in SCUBA cylinder.’ There was also a near miss when a ‘Diver surfaced conscious without an air source.’ The data shows he ‘complained of being dragged behind’ the swimmer delivery vehicle. The recent rise in accidents involving this equipment should worry UK special forces, who have just ordered three more of the mini-subs from the US at an estimated cost of $90 million. (The sale was announced by the US authorities, and not by Britain’s Royal Navy).

Some might argue that the US special forces have to be more transparent than the UK, because they are so vast. It’s impossible to keep a secret in an organization with some 70,000 members (around the size of Britain's entire army) and $13.6 billion budget. There might be some truth in this, but it is not a decisive argument. Even allies with smaller special forces units than the UK, like Australia and New Zealand (which has less than 5,000 regular soldiers), gave New Internationalist data about their training accidents. (We also asked the Canadian special operations forces, which has not yet responded to our investigation, although by law it should publish similar statistics).

The Australian military opened a new special forces academy in Sydney last year, called the Special Operations Training and Education Centre (SOTEC). We asked them for details of any accidents there in the first 12 months of operation, where mistakes are most likely to occur as recruits and instructors alike adjust to new surroundings. It emerged that there had only been seven accidents in that time period, although three people were hospitalized and several require ongoing treatment. One soldier broke his legs from hitting the ground too hard during some kind of descent that went wrong. Several of the injuries involved nasty rashes, probably from the hot weather.

The Australian special forces seem to take heat related injuries, understandably, very seriously, which is something their British friends might learn from. On October 25, 2017, at 10pm, medical staff noticed that an Australian soldier was ‘struggling’ while ‘conducting a water resupply activity, involving water jerries, as part of the Course.’ The medical staff removed him from the activity and ‘The doctor diagnosed the member as having heat stress as well as being dehydrated. He was given fluids through IV and initiated cooling measures to lower body temperature. The member recovered and wanted to continue with the activity, however the medical staff removed him from the course.’

Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology local weather records confirm that the maximum temperature that day was 32 degrees Celsius, and two members were taken off the training course. Remember that the three SAS recruits collapsed in the Welsh mountains while training in similar temperatures to these.

New Zealand’s Defence Force was one of the most transparent jurisdictions we investigated, with help from Green Party activist Umesh Perinpanayagam. Within a day of filing the request, he had a signed response from the Chief of Staff, an Air Commodore. Admittedly, there was not much data to trawl, or the true figures were revised downwards, but nonetheless records were available to the public. It turns out that New Zealand’s Special Operations Forces only suffered four accidents that required hospital treatment between 2015 and 2017. Half the accidents occurred in military training, and half during sport and physical conditioning. Three out of four accidents were in 2017, suggesting a slight rise in risk, but still very little to worry about.

Although New Zealand has had an Official Information Act (OIA) since 1982, this transparency law has not stopped the country’s special forces from alleged participation in human rights abuses, including war crimes. In 2010, New Zealand’s Special Air Service (NZSAS) took part in a raid on two Afghan villages, Naik and Khak Khudday Dad. There are allegations that six civilians were killed in the raid, including a 3-year-old girl. Another 15 civilians were wounded, and no enemy combatants were found.

These shocking claims only surfaced seven years later when New Zealand’s top investigative journalist, Nicky Hager, and his colleague Jon Stephenson, published a book exposing what looked like a massacre, which they titled Hit and Run. Lawyers for the Afghan villagers immediately demanded the New Zealand government launch a formal inquiry, but the country’s then Prime Minister, right-winger Bill English, refused to act. He also lashed out at the authors, claiming their book contained inaccuracies.

However, a breakthrough happened later that year when English lost a general election, and a Labour-New Zealand First-Greens coalition took power. The new Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, soon announced an inquiry. Since then, the military has reluctantly confirmed that the NZSAS did raid the village, but still disputes claims of civilian casualties.

Perinpanayagam, the Green Party activist, told New Internationalist that ‘The current government came in promising more transparency, but I can't say whether or not any progress has been made on this. For example in the NZ Labour – Greens confidence and supply deal it states that a priority for the Green Party was to “strengthen New Zealand’s democracy by increasing public participation, openness, and transparency around official information”.’

Hager was equally reserved. Communicating via encrypted email (he is not a fan of mobile phones), he said that the new administration had become ‘a bit’ more responsive to OIA requests, noting that ‘The political environment always has an effect on how arrogant or untouchable agencies feel.’ If his OIAs about spies or special forces are refused, he can complain to an Ombudsman, which he says ‘usually results in more info being provided’, or in rare cases he can challenge the decision in court.

‘I do regularly get information on intelligence agencies and special forces under the OIA,’ he reflected. ‘But because of national security exclusions there is a lot they don't have to give. It assists research rather than uncovering big things.’ For him, OIA is just one tool in his arsenal, and he relies more heavily on cultivating sources. ‘It is definitely still the case that serious revelations and questionable things that have been kept secret, such as in my recent Hit and Run book, need inside sources. The OIA just isn't strong enough.’

And so it seems as though transparency laws alone are not enough to stop special forces from killing civilians. British, American, Australian and New Zealand commandos have all been accused of war crimes in Afghanistan. Three out of four of these countries have transparency laws that should subject their special forces to scrutiny. So it is impossible to draw a direct correlation between opacity and atrocity. When I put this grim picture to Hager, he said, ‘No, alas, transparency laws are not enough to stop abuses of power. But they do still help ... In the end it is insiders that have most chance of making secretive agencies accountable.’

Perhaps though, the effect of transparency laws is to create a wider culture of openness. It might make sources more likely to come forward, and it might make inquiries more likely to survive. The British military’s internal probe into civilian casualties in Afghanistan, Operation Northmoor, has reportedly come under intense pressure to close cases quickly, and do so with limited resources.