Exercise Tiger
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'''Exercise Tiger''' was the code name for two [[military exercise]]s held in the [[United Kingdom]] during the [[Second World War]]:
*The first, conducted in 1942, was an Army-level exercise by Commonwealth forces and the largest ever held in the UK up to then.
*The second, in 1944, was a full-scale rehearsal for the [[D-Day]] invasion of [[Normandy]] and led to the deaths of more than 700 American troops as a result of both blunders by the Allied forces and enemy attack by German boats.
==1942==
In April 1941, when [[Bernard Law Montgomery, 1st Viscount Montgomery of Alamein|General Bernard Montgomery]] became commander of South-Eastern Command in the UK, he conducted the largest [[military exercise]] to date in the UK, Exercise Tiger, in May 1942, a combined forces operation involving 100,000 troops. Troops participating in Tiger noted that it was particularly grueling for the infantry involved, who marched over 100 miles during the course of the exercise.<ref name=Stacey>Stacey, Charles P. ''Official History of the Canadian Army in the Second World War: Six Years of War: The Army in Canada, Britain and the Pacific.'' Ottawa: Queen's Printer. 1966.</ref>
==1944==
[[Image:Slapton-Lyme-Bay.PNG|thumb|250px|right|The exercise involved traveling through Lyme Bay to Slapton Sands]]
A second exercise by the same name was conducted in 1944; this was an eight-day practice run for the [[Utah Beach]] landings of the [[D-Day]] invasion. During the Exercise, an Allied convoy was attacked, resulting in the deaths of 749 [[United States|American]] servicemen.<ref name=Small>Small, Ken, and Mark Rogerson. ''The Forgotten Dead - Why 946 American Servicemen Died Off The Coast Of Devon In 1944 - And The Man Who Discovered Their True Story''. London: Bloomsbury. 1988. ISBN 0747503095</ref><ref>Fenton, Ben. [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/04/26/ndday126.xml ''"The disaster that could have scuppered Overlord"''] - ''[[The Daily Telegraph|The Daily Telegraph - London]]'' - 25/04/2004</ref><ref>Savill, Richard. [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/04/26/ndday226.xml ''"Last of torpedo survivors remembers brave buddies"''] - ''[[The Daily Telegraph|The Daily Telegraph - London]]'' - 25/04/2004</ref>
===History===
In late 1943, as part of the war effort, the British Government evacuated approximately 3000 local residents in the area of [[Slapton, Devon|Slapton]], [[South Hams|South Hams District]] of [[Devon]].<ref>[http://www.devon.gov.uk/index/environment/historic_environment/slapton-line/sl-monument_rededication.htm?textsize=1 Slapton Line: Slapton Monument Rededication] - Devon County Council - devon.gov.uk - Updated 09 Mar 2007</ref> Some of them had never left their villages before.<ref name=stokes>Stokes, Paul. "Veterans honour 749 who died in D-Day rehearsal" - ''[[The Daily Telegraph|The Daily Telegraph - London]]'' - April 29, 1994</ref>
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 beach]], 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 in Slapton, South Devon. On board nine large [[Tank landing ship]]s (LSTs), the 30,000 troops prepared for their mock beach landing.
Protection for the exercise area came from the [[Royal Navy]]. Two [[destroyer]]s, three [[Motor Torpedo Boat]]s and two Motor Gun Boats patrolled the entrance to [[Lyme Bay]] and Motor Torpedo Boats were watching the [[Cherbourg]] area where [[Nazi Germany|German]] [[Schnellboot|E-boat]]s were based.
The first practice assaults took place on the morning of the [[27 April]]. These proceeded successfully, but then early in the morning of [[28 April]], German E-boats that had left Cherbourg on patrol spotted a convoy of 8 LSTs carrying vehicles and combat engineers of the 1st Engineer Special Brigade in [[Lyme Bay]] and attacked. One of these E-Boats was S-130 now in dry dock in Plymouth UK.<ref>[http://www.bmpt.org.uk/boats/S130/index1.htm Schnellboot S130]</ref> One transport caught fire and was abandoned, a second sank shortly after being torpedoed, a third was set on fire but eventually made it back to shore. The remaining ships and their escort fired back and the E-boats made no more attacks.
The attack caused over 600 casualties, compared to only about 200 in the Utah Beach invasion. 638 servicemen were killed - 441 [[United States Army|U.S. Army]] and 197 [[United States Navy|U.S. Navy]] personnel.<ref name=Small /> Many servicemen drowned in the cold sea waters whilst 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 LST 507, commented "The worst memory I have is setting off in the lifeboat away from the sinking ship and watching bodies float by."<ref name=stokes />
Of the two ships assigned to protect the convoy, only one was present. [[HMS Azalea]], a [[corvette]] 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. [[HMS Scimitar]], a World War I [[destroyer]] and the second boat which was supposed to be present, had checked into [[Plymouth]] for minor repairs. 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 tell the LST convoy, assuming incorrectly that they had already been told. This did not happen because the LSTs and British naval headquarters were operating on different frequencies.<ref name=Small /> Also, 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 Salcombe was defended.<ref name=Small />
When the remaining LSTs landed on Slapton Beach, the blunders continued. The British [[heavy cruiser]] [[HMS Hawkins]] shelled the beach with live ammunition, following an order made by [[General Eisenhower]], the Supreme Allied Commander, who felt that the men must be hardened by exposure to real battle conditions.<ref name=Small /> 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".<ref name=Small />
===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-Day, 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.<ref name=Small />
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.<ref name=Small />
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 [[lifejacket|life vest]] 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-up]], 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'".<ref name=Small /> [[Charles B. MacDonald]], 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 Stripes (newspaper)|Stars and Stripes]]''.<ref name=MacDonald-SS-1988-06>MacDonald, Charles B. [http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq20-2.htm ''"Slapton Sands: The 'Cover Up' That Never Was,"''] Army 38, no. 6. (c/o [[Naval Historical Center]]) - June 1988. - pp. 64-67.</ref> 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.<ref name=MacDonald-SS-1988-06 /> 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 1946.<ref name=MacDonald-SS-1988-06 />
===Memorials to the victims===
[[Image:Sherman_tank_at_memorial_for_those_killed_in_Operation_Tiger.JPG|thumb|left|200px|Sherman DD tank at the [[Torcross]] memorial]]
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 memorialize the event, after discovering evidence of the aftermath washed up on the shore while [[beachcombing]] in the early 1970s.
In 1974, Mr. Small bought from the U.S. Government the rights to a submerged tank from the [[70th Tank Battalion (United States)|70th Tank Battalion]] 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 those men killed.
[[Image:Plaque_commemorating_those_killed_in_Operation_Tiger.JPG|thumb|right|200px|A plaque at the memorial at [[Torcross]], commemorating those who perished]]
Ken 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 Mr. 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.<ref>[http://www.shermantank.co.uk/memorial.ikml Detailed account of Exercise Tiger and of Ken Small's role]</ref>
A radio play 'The Tank Man' by [[Julia Stoneham]], describing Ken Small's efforts was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on 24th October 2007. Ken 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. <ref> BBC Radio 4, 24th October 2007, 14.15 GMT </ref>
==See also==
* [[Battle of Normandy]]
* [[European Theatre of World War II]]
* [[World War II]]
* [[Slapton, Devon|Slapton]] (Slapton Sands)
* [[Torcross]]
==References==
{{reflist}}
==External links==
* [http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq20-1.htm Exercise Tiger at The Naval Historical Center]
* [http://www.exercisetiger.org/ Exercise Tiger U.S. Memorial Site]
* [http://www.slapton.org/indextiger.htm Slapton Village Tiger Page]
* [http://www.shermantank.co.uk/home.ikml Detailed account of Exercise Tiger and of Ken Small's role]
* [http://www.mikekemble.com/ww2/slapton.html An extensive research about the event]
* [http://wvmemory.wvculture.org/exercisetiger.html History of Exercise Tiger from the West Virginia State Archives]
* [http://wvmemory.wvculture.org/tigerbios.html Biographies of West Virginians Killed During Exercise Tiger]
* [http://www.shermantank.co.uk/ Slapton Sands Memorial Tank website]
* [http://www.thamesvalleypod.tv/tvall.php?tv=3 Five part video podcast documentary about S130 on www.pod3.tv]
* [http://www.exercisetiger.org.uk/index.php The Official UK Charity for Exercise Tiger]
[[Category:World War II Western European Theatre|Exercise Tiger]]
[[Category:Military exercises and wargames]]
[[Category:1942 in England]]
[[Category:1944 in England]]
[[Category:Military history of Devon]]
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