Last time in this space I started the story of Exercise Tiger, a little-known training disaster in the English Channel which occurred 80 years ago this past weekend. The exercise was a dress rehearsal for D-Day for the 4th Infantry Division and attached units, held at Slapton Sands, a beach chosen specifically for its resemblance to the coast of Normandy. Naturally, where and when this meticulously planned assault would occur was the utmost secret of the war, so much so that top brass fretted that if the Germans discovered where the practice landings were being held, they might crack the veil of secrecy.
In the morning hours of April 28, 1944, a flotilla of eight LSTs loaded with various vehicles and men of the 1st Engineer Special Brigade were steaming through Lyme Bay awaiting their assigned landing time. As described in my last columns, the Landing Ship, Tank was the all-essential vessel for the coming invasion, necessary to bring vehicles, supplies and troops to the beaches after D-Day. Many sailors quipped that the initials actually stood for “Large, Slow Target.”
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Only one British warship was present to protect the column; another had been damaged earlier and its replacement had not yet arrived. In another example of bad planning, the LSTs and nearby British ships were unable easily to communicate, operating on different radio frequencies. At about 1:30 a.m., a flotilla of nine German E-Boats (fast torpedo boats) stumbled onto the LSTs.
Apparently unsure what type of vessels he had encountered or what they were doing, the German captain ordered an attack. Two LSTs were sunk and another severely damaged, but able to make port. Many men who abandoned the stricken ships soon succumbed to hypothermia in the frigid waters. All told, although estimates have varied through the years, 749 American soldiers and sailors, mostly Army engineers needed for the invasion, perished. The German E-Boats escaped. It was a disaster for the Allies by any reckoning.
The loss of so many men certainly stung, but the loss of three all-important LSTs, already in short supply, left no reserves for the invasion only weeks out. Worse was the threat to Allied security. Did the Germans now know that practices were being held in a region reminiscent of Normandy?
Potentially worst of all, 10 officers were missing who had top-secret clearance and knew essential details of the invasion plans, including where it was slated to happen. These “Bigots” (“Bigot” was the codeword for top-secret clearance prior to the invasion) in enemy hands might give up their secrets. If any of them drowned with Bigot-level documents or maps on their persons and their bodies were recovered by the E-Boats, the German high command could be reading the invasion plans by dawn.
These fears, fortunately, did not come to pass. The bodies of the 10 “Bigots” were soon recovered. And if the Germans gained any clues about the invasion, it ultimately did not seem to make much difference. Historians disagree on what if anything the enemy discerned, but many top German officials continued to suspect the invasion would happen around Calais, not at Normandy.
Still, secrets had to be protected, and survivors of the attack, medical personnel who treated them, and sailors on nearby vessels were sworn to secrecy. The dark secret of Exercise Tiger was concealed, but it is not entirely true that it was unknown entirely for decades. The Army newspaper “Stars and Stripes” made mention of the disaster (albeit with scant details) later in the summer of 1944, and it was mentioned in postwar memoirs by top military officials.
But if not a closely guarded secret for long, neither was it a well-known event until relatively recently. Perhaps it’s more accurate to say it was forgotten and unmentioned — an embarrassment more than a cover-up. Only in the 1980s did the story begin to gain some traction and books on the subject begin to appear.
If the Germans failed to learn any lessons from Tiger, the Allies did, and put them to good use on June 6, 1944. Radio frequencies were standardized, rules for maneuvering ships to prevent E-Boat attacks were instituted, E-Boat pens in Northern France were targeted by bombers prior to D-Day, better training with floatation devices was given to all personnel, and a network of small rescue craft was assembled to save stranded men. In the end, the actual losses on D-Day by the Utah Beach contingent were only a fraction of those who met their end in Exercise Tiger.