" In preparing for the
Normandy Invasion, the United States Army conducted various
training exercises at Slapton Sands in Start Bay and in the
nearby Tor Bay, beginning on December 15, 1943. Slapton was
an unspoiled beach of coarse gravel, fronting a shallow
lagoon that was backed by bluffs that resembled Omaha Beach.
After the people in the nearby village were evacuated, it
was an almost perfect place to simulate the Normandy
landings. The training was long and thorough. The
culmination of the joint training program was a pair of full
scale rehearsals in late April and early May.
TIGER was the code name of the
training exercise for the Utah Beach assault forces under
Admiral Don P. Moon. It was held from April 22-30, 1944. The
troops and equipment embarked on the same ships and for the
most part from the same ports from which they would later
leave for France. Six of the days in the exercise were taken
up by the marshaling of the troops and the embarkation of
the landing craft. During the night of April 26-27, 1944,
the main force proceeded through Lyme Bay with mine craft
sweeping ahead of them as if crossing the channel. Since
German E-boats, which were high-speed torpedo boats capable
of operating at speeds of 34-36 knots, sometimes patrolled
the channel at night, the British Commander in Chief,
Plymouth, who was responsible for protecting the rehearsal,
threw patrols across the mouth of Lyme Bay. These patrols
consisted of two destroyers, three motor torpedo boats and
two motor gunboats. Another motor torpedo patrol was sent to
watch Cherbourg, the main ports where the German E-boats
were based. Following the "bombardment" on Slapton Sands,
the exercise "landings" were begun during the morning of
April 27, and the unloading continued during the day and the
next when a follow up convoy was expected.
This Convoy T-4 consisted of
two sections from two different ports. The Plymouth section,
LST Group 32, was composed of USS LST-515, USS LST-496, USS
LST-511, USS LST-531, and USS LST-58, which was towing two
pontoon causeways. The Brixham section consisted of USS
LST-499, USS LST-289, and USS LST-507. The convoy joined
with HMS Azalea as escort and proceeded at six knots in one
column with the LSTs in the same order as listed above. When
the convoy was maneuvering in Lyme Bay in the early hours of
April 28, they were attacked by nine German E-boats out of
Cherbourg that had evaded the Allied patrols. No warning of
the presence of enemy boats had been received until LST-507
was torpedoed at 0204. The ship burst into flames, and
survivors abandoned ship. Several minutes later LST-531 was
torpedoed and sank in six minutes. LST-289, which opened
fire at E-boats, was also torpedoed but was able to reach
port. The other LSTs plus two British destroyers fired at
the E-boats, which used smoke and high speed to escape. This
brief action resulted in 198 Navy dead and missing and 441
Army dead and missing according to the naval action reports.
Later Army reports gave 551 as the total number of dead and
missing soldiers. The final training exercise FABIUS took
place between May 3-8, without any enemy attacks.
To keep the Germans from
possibly learning about the impending Normandy Invasion,
casualty information on Exercise TIGER was not released
until after the invasion. On August 5, 1944, Supreme
Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Force released statistics
on the casualties associated with the Normandy Invasion,
which included information about the German E-Boat attack on
April 28."
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