Exercise Tiger
In 1943, in the heat of World War Two, 3,000 normal people were told to leave their homes from the Slapton Sands/Torcross area, in Devon, England. They had to take all of their valuable items with them, including livestock and pets, to where ever they could find a home. Some people had lived there all of their lives-one man even committed suicide rather than leave his home. They had to leave immediately without an explanation, because if anyone was told about the training exercise, there would have been a chance that the German's would have found out about Exercise Tiger. This would mean that the German's could potentially sabotage any of the plans, or find out any D-Day plans.
Slapton Sands was chosen as the host for the landing exercises because the beach very closely resembled the beach at the D-Day landing site - Utah. Utah beach was where the D Day landings took place, and the practice for these landings had to take place somewhere.
In the early hours of 28th April 1944, with most of the infantry already ashore, eight tank landing ships (known as LSTs) were making their way towards Slapton. These ships carried engineers, quartermaster staff, signallers, medics and some infantry as well as tanks, trucks, jeeps and equipment. Then, the LSTs found themselves under attack. Unknown to the American soldiers, a flotilla of nine German E-boats had been ordered to investigate unusual radio activity in the area. The crew on the E-boats thought that they had stumbled across several destroyers, so immediately opened fire.
LST 507 was the first ship to be torpedoed. LST 507 had a crew of 165 men and 282 other army personnel, along with trucks, jeeps and gasoline. As flames quickly spread to the deck, the crew tried to extinguish the fire, but to no avail and then the ship started to sink. The ships captain, James Schwartz, gave the order to abandon ship. By this time, there was only two lifeboats remaining.These were lowered, but those who could not reach the lifeboats in time found themselves in the freezing water. Many of these men, including Captain Schwartz, died from shock or exposure.
LST 531 was torpedoed and sank within 6 minutes, with a loss of over 400 lives. LST 289 was hit in the stern, however managed to make its way back to shore before it sank.
During the attacks, other LSTs opened fire on the enemy craft and sent radio messages requesting urgent assistance. However, their naval escort was, due to a typing error, using a different radio frequency to the LSTs, so their calls initially went unanswered. In addition, due to the top secret nature of the operation, the radio stations along the coast also did not answer the calls until one radio operator heard the words ‘T-4′ and it was realised that the messages were coming from ‘Tiger’.
Everybody who participated in Exercise Tiger were sworn to secrecy, just in case the Germans caught wind of any plans for D-Day.Ten officers who had been lost, were carrying detailed plans for the D-Day landings and, until these men could be accounted for, there were fears that the Normandy Landings might have to be cancelled altogether. It would be many months before the US military authorities revealed minor details of the events of that night, and over forty years before the whole story was disclosed.
Slapton Sands was chosen as the host for the landing exercises because the beach very closely resembled the beach at the D-Day landing site - Utah. Utah beach was where the D Day landings took place, and the practice for these landings had to take place somewhere.
In the early hours of 28th April 1944, with most of the infantry already ashore, eight tank landing ships (known as LSTs) were making their way towards Slapton. These ships carried engineers, quartermaster staff, signallers, medics and some infantry as well as tanks, trucks, jeeps and equipment. Then, the LSTs found themselves under attack. Unknown to the American soldiers, a flotilla of nine German E-boats had been ordered to investigate unusual radio activity in the area. The crew on the E-boats thought that they had stumbled across several destroyers, so immediately opened fire.
LST 507 was the first ship to be torpedoed. LST 507 had a crew of 165 men and 282 other army personnel, along with trucks, jeeps and gasoline. As flames quickly spread to the deck, the crew tried to extinguish the fire, but to no avail and then the ship started to sink. The ships captain, James Schwartz, gave the order to abandon ship. By this time, there was only two lifeboats remaining.These were lowered, but those who could not reach the lifeboats in time found themselves in the freezing water. Many of these men, including Captain Schwartz, died from shock or exposure.
LST 531 was torpedoed and sank within 6 minutes, with a loss of over 400 lives. LST 289 was hit in the stern, however managed to make its way back to shore before it sank.
During the attacks, other LSTs opened fire on the enemy craft and sent radio messages requesting urgent assistance. However, their naval escort was, due to a typing error, using a different radio frequency to the LSTs, so their calls initially went unanswered. In addition, due to the top secret nature of the operation, the radio stations along the coast also did not answer the calls until one radio operator heard the words ‘T-4′ and it was realised that the messages were coming from ‘Tiger’.
Everybody who participated in Exercise Tiger were sworn to secrecy, just in case the Germans caught wind of any plans for D-Day.Ten officers who had been lost, were carrying detailed plans for the D-Day landings and, until these men could be accounted for, there were fears that the Normandy Landings might have to be cancelled altogether. It would be many months before the US military authorities revealed minor details of the events of that night, and over forty years before the whole story was disclosed.