Exercise Tiger, or
Operation Tiger, were the code names for a full-scale rehearsal in 1944 for the
D-DayOperation Overlord was the code name for the Battle of Normandy, the operation that launched the invasion of German-occupied western Europe during World War II by Allied forces. The operation commenced on 6 June 1944 with the Normandy landings...
invasion of
NormandyNormandy is a geographical region corresponding to the former Duchy of Normandy. It is in France.The continental territory covers 30,627 km² and forms the preponderant part of Normandy and roughly 5% of the territory of France. It is divided for administrative purposes into two régions:...
. During the exercise, an Allied convoy was attacked, resulting in the deaths of 946
AmericanThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
servicemen.
Landing Operations
In late 1943, as part of the war effort, the British Government evacuated approximately 3,000 local residents in the area of
SlaptonSlapton is a village in Devon, England. It is located near the A379 road between Kingsbridge and Dartmouth, and lies within the South Devon Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty . In 2001 the population of the civil parish of Slapton was 473...
, now
South Hams DistrictSouth Hams is a local government district on the south coast of Devon, England with its headquarters in the town of Totnes. It contains the towns of Dartmouth, Kingsbridge, Ivybridge, Salcombe — the largest of which is Ivybridge with a population of 16,056....
of
DevonDevon is a large county in southwestern England. The county is sometimes referred to as Devonshire, although the term is rarely used inside the county itself as the county has never been officially "shired", it often indicates a traditional or historical context.The county shares borders with...
. Some of the residents had never left their villages before being evacuated.
Landing exercises had started in December 1943. Exercise Tiger was one of the larger exercises that would take place in April and May 1944. The make up of Slapton Beach was selected for its similarity to
Utah BeachUtah Beach was the code name for the right flank, or westernmost, of the Allied landing beaches during the D-Day invasion of Normandy, as part of Operation Overlord on 6 June 1944...
, namely a gravel beach, followed by a strip of land and then a lake. The exercise was to last from 22 April until 30 April 1944, at the Slapton Sands beach. On board nine large
tank landing shipLanding Ship, Tank was the military designation for naval vessels created during World War II to support amphibious operations by carrying significant quantities of vehicles, cargo, and landing troops directly onto an unimproved shore....
s (LSTs), the 30,000 troops prepared for their mock beach landing.
Protection for the exercise area came from the
Royal NavyThe Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...
. Two
destroyerIn naval terminology, a destroyer is a fast and maneuverable yet long-endurance warship intended to escort larger vessels in a fleet, convoy or battle group and defend them against smaller, powerful, short-range attackers. Destroyers, originally called torpedo-boat destroyers in 1892, evolved from...
s, three
Motor Torpedo BoatMotor Torpedo Boat was the name given to fast torpedo boats by the Royal Navy, and the Royal Canadian Navy.The capitalised term is generally used for the Royal Navy boats and abbreviated to "MTB"...
s and two
Motor Gun BoatMotor Gun Boat was a Royal Navy term for a small military vessel of the Second World War. They were physically similar to the Motor Torpedo Boats but equipped with a mix of guns instead of torpedoes. Their small size and high speed made them difficult targets for E-boats or torpedo bombers, but...
s patrolled the entrance to
Lyme BayLyme Bay is an area of the English Channel situated in the southwest of England between Torbay in the west and Portland in the east. The counties of Devon and Dorset front onto the bay,-Geology:...
and Motor Torpedo Boats were watching the Cherbourg area where
GermanNazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
E-boats were based.
Battle of Lyme Bay
The first practice assaults took place on the morning of 27 April. These proceeded successfully, but early in the morning of 28 April, nine German E-boats that had left Cherbourg on patrol spotted a convoy of eight LSTs carrying vehicles and combat engineers of the 1st Engineer Special Brigade in
Lyme BayLyme Bay is an area of the English Channel situated in the southwest of England between Torbay in the west and Portland in the east. The counties of Devon and Dorset front onto the bay,-Geology:...
and then attacked.
[One of these E-Boats was S-130, now in dry dock]A drydock is a narrow basin or vessel that can be flooded to allow a load to be floated in, then drained to allow that load to come to rest on a dry platform...
in Plymouth, Devon. Schnellboot S130 One transport caught fire and was abandoned. sank shortly after being torpedoed while was set on fire but eventually made it back to shore.
USS LST-511USS LST-511 was an built for the United States Navy during World War II.LST-511 was laid down on 22 July 1943 at Seneca, Illinois by the Chicago Bridge & Iron Company; launched on 30 November 1943; sponsored by Mrs. James V...
was damaged by
friendly fireFriendly fire is inadvertent firing towards one's own or otherwise friendly forces while attempting to engage enemy forces, particularly where this results in injury or death. A death resulting from a negligent discharge is not considered friendly fire...
. The remaining ships and their escort fired back and the E-boats made no more attacks. 638 servicemen were killed
[Only about 200 were killed in the actual Utah Beach]Utah Beach was the code name for the right flank, or westernmost, of the Allied landing beaches during the D-Day invasion of Normandy, as part of Operation Overlord on 6 June 1944...
landing on 6th June: 441
United States ArmyThe United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services...
and 197
United States NavyThe United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S...
personnel. Many servicemen drowned in the cold sea while waiting to be rescued. Soldiers unused to being at sea panicked and put on their lifebelts incorrectly. In some cases this meant that when they jumped into the water, the weight of their combat packs flipped them onto their backs, pushing their heads underwater and drowning them. Dale Rodman, who travelled on , commented "The worst memory I have is setting off in the lifeboat away from the sinking ship and watching bodies float by."
Of the two ships assigned to protect the convoy, only one was present. , a
corvetteA corvette is a small, maneuverable, lightly armed warship, originally smaller than a frigate and larger than a coastal patrol craft or fast attack craft , although many recent designs resemble frigates in size and role...
was leading the nine LSTs in a straight line, a formation which later drew criticism since it presented an easy target to the E-boats. The second ship which was supposed to be present,
HMS ScimitarThree ships of the Royal Navy have borne the name HMS Scimitar, after the scimitar, a curved sword: was an S-class destroyer launched in 1918 and sold in 1947. was a patrol vessel launched in 1969 and sold in 1983. is a Scimitar-class patrol vessel, formerly the MV Grey Fox...
, a
World War IWorld War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
destroyer, had been in collision with an LST, suffered structural damage and left the convoy to be repaired at
PlymouthPlymouth is a city and unitary authority area on the coast of Devon, England, about south-west of London. It is built between the mouths of the rivers Plym to the east and Tamar to the west, where they join Plymouth Sound...
. The American forces had not been told this. When other British ships sighted the E-boats earlier in the night and told the corvette, its commander failed to inform the LST convoy, assuming incorrectly that they had already been told. This had not happened because the LSTs and British naval headquarters were operating on different frequencies. British shore batteries defending Salcombe Harbour had seen silhouettes of the E-boats but had been instructed to hold fire so the Germans would not find that
SalcombeSalcombe is a town in the South Hams district of Devon, south west England. The town is close to the mouth of the Kingsbridge Estuary, built mostly on the steep west side of the estuary and lies within the South Devon Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty...
was defended.
When the remaining LSTs landed on Slapton Beach, the blunders continued and a further 308 men died from
friendly fireFriendly fire is inadvertent firing towards one's own or otherwise friendly forces while attempting to engage enemy forces, particularly where this results in injury or death. A death resulting from a negligent discharge is not considered friendly fire...
. The British
heavy cruiserThe heavy cruiser was a type of cruiser, a naval warship designed for long range, high speed and an armament of naval guns roughly 203mm calibre . The heavy cruiser can be seen as a lineage of ship design from 1915 until 1945, although the term 'heavy cruiser' only came into formal use in 1930...
shelled the beach with live ammunition, following an order made by General
Dwight D. EisenhowerDwight David "Ike" Eisenhower was the 34th President of the United States, from 1953 until 1961. He was a five-star general in the United States Army...
, the Supreme Allied Commander, who felt that the men must be hardened by exposure to real battle conditions. British Marines on the boat recorded in its log book (the only log which has since been recovered from any of the boats) that men were being killed by friendly fire. "On the beaches they had a white tape line beyond which the Americans should not cross until the live firing had finished. But the Marines said they were going straight through the white tape line and getting blown up".
Aftermath
As a result of official embarrassment and concerns over possible leaks just prior to the real invasion, all survivors were sworn to secrecy by their superiors. Ten missing officers involved in the exercise had
Bigot-level clearance for
D-DayD-Day is a term often used in military parlance to denote the day on which a combat attack or operation is to be initiated. "D-Day" often represents a variable, designating the day upon which some significant event will occur or has occurred; see Military designation of days and hours for similar...
, meaning that they knew the invasion plans and could have compromised the invasion should they have been captured alive. As a result, the invasion was nearly called off until the bodies of all ten victims were found.
There is little information about how exactly individual soldiers and sailors died. Various eyewitness accounts detail hasty treatment of casualties and unmarked mass graves in Devon fields.
Several changes resulted from mistakes made in Exercise Tiger:
- Radio frequencies were standardised; the British escort vessels were late and out of position due to radio problems, and a signal of the E-boats' presence was not picked up by the LSTs.
- Better life vest
A lifejacket is a type of personal flotation device designed to keep your airway clear of the water whether the wearer is conscious or unconscious...
training for landing troops.
- New plans for small craft to pick up floating survivors on D-Day.
The casualty statistics from Tiger were not released until August 1944 along with the casualties of the actual D-Day landings themselves.
There is still very little documentation in official histories about the tragedy. Some commentators have called it a
cover-upA cover-up is an attempt, whether successful or not, to conceal evidence of wrong-doing, error, incompetence or other embarrassing information...
, but the initial critical secrecy about Tiger may have merely resulted in longer-term quietness. In his book
The Forgotten Dead - Why 946 American Servicemen Died Off The Coast Of Devon In 1944 - And The Man Who Discovered Their True Story, published in 1988, Ken Small declares that the event "was never covered up; it was 'conveniently forgotten'".
Charles B. MacDonaldThis article refers to Charles B. MacDonald, military historian. For the U.S. golfer, refer to Charles B. Macdonald.Charles B. MacDonald was a former Deputy Chief Historian for the United States Army...
, author and former deputy chief historian at the U.S. Army Center of Military History, notes that the incident was reported in a press release issued from the Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Force, and appeared in the July issue of
Stars and StripesStars and Stripes is a news source that operates from inside the United States Department of Defense but is editorially separate from it. The First Amendment protection which Stars and Stripes enjoys is safeguarded by Congress to whom an independent ombudsman, who serves the readers' interests,...
. In addition, the story was detailed in at least three books at the end of the war, including, Captain Harry C. Butcher 's
My Three Years With Eisenhower (1946), and in several publications and speeches in the intervening years. MacDonald surmises that the press release went largely unnoticed in light of the larger events that were occurring at the time, the battle for France in the summer of 1944, and the fact that they were just glad that the war was over in 1945. Harison mentioned it in his official Army history of the war (p. 270) and Samuel Eliot Morison also discussed it in his official Navy history, US Naval Operations, vol. 11, p. 66.
Memorials to the victims
With little or no support from the American or British armed forces for any venture to recover remains or dedicate a memorial to the incident, Devon resident and civilian Ken Small took on the task of seeking to commemorate the event, after discovering evidence of the aftermath washed up on the shore while
beachcombingBeachcombing and beachcomber are words with multiple, but related, meanings that have evolved over time.A beachcomber is someone who "combs" the beach, and the intertidal zone in general, looking for things of value, interest or utility....
in the early 1970s.
In 1974, Small bought from the U.S. Government the rights to a submerged tank from the
70th Tank BattalionThe 70th Tank Battalion was a tank battalion of the United States Army active during the Second World War and the Korean WarIt was formed as an independent medium tank battalion in June 1940, equipped with M2A2 light tanks, and began training for amphibious operations...
discovered by his search efforts. In 1984, with the aid of local residents and diving firms, he finally raised the tank, which now stands as a memorial to the incident. The local authority provided a plinth on the seafront to put the tank on, and erected a plaque in memory of the men killed. Small documents how the local villagers were of more assistance than either the US or UK military officials. Later the American military honored and supported him, when at the same time the UK military were snubbing his efforts. Small died of cancer in March 2004, a few weeks before the 60th anniversary of the Exercise Tiger incident.
In 2006, the Slapton Sands Memorial Tank Limited (a non-profit organization, one of whose directors is Small's son Dean) are seeking to establish a more prominent memorial listing the names of all the victims of the attacks on Exercise Tiger.
In popular culture
- D-Day Disaster, an episode of the Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...
documentary series Secret HistorySecret History was a long-running British television documentary series. Shown on Channel 4, the Secret History brandname was used as a banner title in the UK, but many of the individual documentaries can still be found on US cable channels without the branding...
(27 July 1998).
- Exercise Tiger was relocated from Slapton to Bereton on the Devon coast and used as the background to Kate Ellis
Katherine Margaret "Kate" Ellis, MP is an Australian politician, representing the federal division of Adelaide since 2004 and is currently the Minister for Employment Participation and Childcare and the Minister for the Status of Women in the Gillard Government.-Early life and career:Ellis was...
's book, The Armada Boy, first published in 1999.
- A radio play 'The Tank Man' by Julia Stoneham, describing Ken Small's efforts was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on 24 October 2007.
- Exercise Tiger formed the basis of the last episode of the sixth (2008) series of the ITV
ITV is the major commercial public service TV network in the United Kingdom. Launched in 1955 under the auspices of the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to the BBC, it is also the oldest commercial network in the UK...
drama Foyle's WarFoyle's War is a British detective drama television series set during World War II, created by screenwriter and author Anthony Horowitz, and was commissioned by ITV after the long-running series Inspector Morse came to an end in 2000. It has aired on ITV since 2002...
.
- Exercise Tiger features in Michael Morpurgo's book The Amazing Story of Adolphus Tips.
- Exercise Tiger provides a plot driver for the Jack Higgins
Jack Higgins is the principal pseudonym of UK novelist Harry Patterson. Patterson is the author of more than 60 novels. As Higgins, most have been thrillers of various types and, since his breakthrough novel The Eagle Has Landed in 1975, nearly all have been bestsellers...
novel Night of the Fox.
- Exercise Tiger is also the basis for the 1981 Leslie Thomas
Leslie Thomas, OBE is a British author.- Virgin Soldiers :His novels about 1950s British National Service such as "The Virgin Soldiers" spawned two film versions, in 1969 and 1977, whilst his Tropic of Ruislip and Dangerous Davies, The Last Detective have been adapted for television Leslie...
novel 'The Magic Army'.
- Exercise Tiger is used as part of the 2004 story of Ike: Countdown to D-Day.
- The Play "A Propper Caper and No Mistake" was written by Anthea Roberts and details the effect of Exercise Tiger on the local community.
External links