Secret preparations led to disaster for many in Devon
Historian Malcolm Goode continues to look back at events taking place in April 1944 as preparations for D-day gathered pace. Today we look at why visitors to Slapton Sands in Devon continue to see a tank on the beach.
ACROSS the length and breadth of the United Kingdom preparations were being made to prepare the Allied invasion forces for the oncoming invasion of Europe.
Down on the south coast of Devon the United States Army carried out frequent invasion rehearsals in the shallow lagoon at Slapton Sands, their view was that it most closely resembled the Utah Beach on the Normandy coast.
On April 27th 1944, approximately 300 ships and 30,000 American troops gathered at sea at Slapton for an exercise intended to be as realistic as possible to what they might expect when they were to actually invade France.
Code-named “Operation Tiger”, this was to be the sixth in a planned series of seven rehearsals, each bigger, than the last.
An American convoy of large LST’S (landing ship tanks) entered and circled Lyme Bay after midnight on the 28th April, with only one escort ship which was a British corvette.
A British destroyer had been detailed to accompany them, unfortunately that ship had been damaged in a collision the day before and so therefore stayed in the harbour.
At around 2am the convoy was attacked by nine fast German torpedo boats using a hit and run raid, out of Cherbourg Harbour in France. Torpedoes slammed into three of the LSTS setting off ammunition and fuel explosions.
Many of the American soldiers were trapped below decks and perished.
Those who jumped clear fared no better. To make matters worse, none of the troops had been instructed on the correct way to wear their inflatable life belts.
As a result, when the heavily laden soldiers hit the water with the belts around their waists, they flipped upside down and drowned.
Two of those LSTS sank and one was very badly damaged.
Casualties included 198 seamen and 552 soldiers dead or missing, and 89 men wounded. Ironically these numbers exceeded those suffered by the Americans during their actual assault on Utah Beach that took place a few weeks later.
In an effort to prevent the Germans learning about the impending invasion, the bodies of those lost at Slapton Sands were quickly buried and nothing was revealed about this disaster until after the war.