Start Bay, Devon - D-Day Practice Area
Allied Forces Battle Training Grounds for the 1944 Normandy Invasion
Towards the end of 1943 the need for battle training for the planned invasion of the Normandy coast meant that about three thousand inhabitants of the Start Bay in Devon had to be evacuated to make way for the battle practice.
Many of these people had never left the region before, but they now had only six weeks to move themselves, their farm equipment and animals outside the practice region.
Operation Tiger
From the beginning of 1944, about fifteen thousand Allied troops began their landing practice in and around Start Bay. Some of this practice was with live ammunition, and over the next six months there was considerable loss of life among the mainly American forces before the Allied invasion of Normandy on the 6th June 1944. The worst incident was early on the 28th of April 1944, when German forces based at Cherbourg observed an increase in radio communications on the south Dorset coast. Nine torpedo boats were despatched to investigate, and intercepted a long convoy of landing craft enroute from Portland in neighbouring Dorset to Slapton Sands for a landing practice codenamed Exercise Tiger. Weaving in and out of the line of American boats from the rear the German boats torpedoed the Allied craft and strafed the decks with machine gun fire. Two landing ships were sunk and one was crippled, and the brief encounter led to the tragic loss of 749 US soldiers and sailors in the cold waters of the English Channel.
By D-Day the loss of life in the training grounds had crept up to a total of 946. However, the six months of practice in southwest England prepared the Allied forces for the eventual landings in France in June 1944, the beginnings of the Allied defeat of Nazi Germany.
Peaceful Haven Now
Today Start Bay and Slapton Sands are a picturesque sandy beach and extensive bird reserve in the lagoons behind the shingle spit carrying the main road.
Tank Memorial
At Torness there is a poignant memorial to the brave servicemen who gave their lives. In 1971 Ken Small, a local hotelier, learned of the wreck of a US Sherman Tank lost during a previous exercise. These tanks were made amphibious with a rubber landing gear and protective plates for the engine, but the crew disembarked without the plates in place and had to abandon the tank in 65 feet of water. The wreck was purchased from the US Government for $50, and over the next decade he prepared to lift the tank using inflatable air bags. In May 1984 the tank was lifted and towed to the shore – as it was pulled up the slipway the running gear still turned after forty years underwater.
This tanks now stands sentinel at Torness by the car park as a memorial to the victims of the tragedy of Exercise Tiger in April 1944.
References
South Hams District Council information
The recovered Sherman Tank as memorial
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Start Bay and Slapton Sands NNR
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