Image: Rehearsal landing by US forces at Slapston Sands, Devon, in April 1944.

The Catastrophe of Exercise Tiger, April 1944.

In the early hours of April 28, 1944, a convoy of eight American LSTs (Landing Ship, Tank), carrying vehicles and combat engineers of the 1st Engineer Special Brigade, took part in Exercise TIGER and were ambushed by German S-Boats in Lyme Bay, which is located in the south of England on the English Channel. The counties of Devon and Dorset front Lyme Bay. Two LSTs were sunk, and another was torpedoed but made it to port. Casualty figures continue to be disputed, but most sources agree that 749 American Army and Navy personnel lost their lives.

Exercise Tiger was one of a series of large-scale rehearsals for the D-Day invasion of Normandy, which took place in April 1944 on Slapton Sands in Devon. Coordination and communication problems resulted in friendly fire injuries during the exercise, and an Allied convoy positioning itself for the landing was attacked by E-boats of Nazi Germany’s Kriegsmarine, resulting in the deaths of over 700 U.S. personnel.

The first phase of the exercise took place from April 22 to 25, 1944, and went without incident. The real trouble began on the morning of April 27, when a few of the ships participating were terribly behind schedule, causing American Rear Admiral Don Pardee Moon to delay the whole exercise by one hour. The landing would now take place at 8:30 a.m. instead of 7:30 a.m.

Image: American soldiers on exercise rehearsing on Slapton Sands in Devon, England, in the run-up to D-Day. April 1944.