HISTORY
DARTMOUTH IN THE SECOND WORLD WAR
EXERCISE TIGER - BIGOT Crisis
A
Pril 2014 MArkS The 70Th AnniverSAry oF exerCiSe Tiger – A TrAgedy on The SouTh devon CoAST
ThAT ConTriBuTed direCTly To The SuCCeSS oF d-dAy, The greATeST invASion FroM The SeA in hiSTory.
But the debacle that was Exercise Tiger nearly stopped D-Day from happening – and only a miracle al- lowed it to continue. In fact, ten BIGOTS at Exercise Tiger nearly scuppered D-Day. It’s a phrase that might sound a
little strange – but it is true. Exercise Tiger resulted in the deaths of nearly 1,000 American ser- vicemen - 300 died after a friendly fire incident on Slapton beach and more than 600 died after a convoy was attacked by German E-Boats in Lyme Bay.
A catalogue of simple errors –
many of them communication prob- lems –resulted in the deaths. on April 27, the plan was for cruis-
ers to shell Slapton beach with live ammunition from 6.30am for thirty minutes, and for landing craft to drop off the troops they were carrying at 7.30am, simulating a real invasion.
The Landing Craft were delayed and the cruisers were told to delay the shelling – but no one told the landing craft. As a result soldiers were running up the beach as the shelling went on, and 197 men were killed. Despite the loss of life it was de- cided to continue with the exercise. The next part was a convoy of LSTs
Ten men on LSTs during Exercise Tiger were BIGOT level clearance
– Landing Ships for Tanks – who would sail into Lyme Bay accompa- nied by two British ships for protec- tion. They would then land at Slapton. The overnight convoy was attacked by a group of nine German E-Boats. The confusion of a nighttime attack by fast-moving boats was compound- ed by the fact that due to a clerical
ABOVE: U.S Landing Craft on Slapton Sands- note the compulsory Barrage Balloons
error the British and American ships were on different radio wavelengths. one of the two accompany- ing ships had been damaged and returned to port, without being replaced. It meant that there was less protection for the LSTs and no-one could coordinate how to defend the convoy. Soon three of the LSTs had been hit and two sank – many of the sailors were trapped below decks and went down with the ships. A huge amount of fuel gushed into the sea and caught fire – men were jumping overboard into a flaming sea. None of the seamen had been taught how to put on the lifejackets on board the LSTs – and if used incor- rectly they could actually drag a man under the water. on top of all this the confusion and lack of communi- cations meant there were a number of friendly fire incidents in the dark- ness. Shore based teams could have
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