"The Tragedy of Exercise Tiger" Topic

"A Training Mission That Left More GIs Dead Than Utah Beach

Exercise Tiger is one of Britain's most harrowing wartime secrets. It involved the slaughter of young American soldiers on the shores of a Devon beach.

At the time the incident was hastily covered up, and the bodies of the GIs who were killed were buried in complete secrecy.

If Allied high command wanted to use Exercise Tiger to give their soldiers a taste of what they would experience during the D-Day landings, they cut far too close to the core. The sea ran red with their blood as corpses bobbed in the surf…"
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Am I reading this right? The main message is almost lost in the text. The suggestion seems to be that a live firing exercise went wrong and that US assault troops were massacred as they landed, by the US defenders also taking part in the exercise.

The well documented S Boat attack's contribution is almost dismissed as a propaganda exercise, to avoid any mention of a beach-head disaster. Now even this was well hushed up for years and every year will see some new TV documentary "at last revealing the last secret of D Day"….but anyone dying on Slapton Sands themselves…..????

I had heard the same about the S-Boat attacks …

S-Boat attacks, and perhaps "friendly fire" (which isn't) from other LSTs reportedly caused most of the casualties, overnight.

This is the first time I've ever read about numerous casualties being caused by live rounds being fired by Allied troops on the beaches. Live fire exercises are sometimes held, and even today, they do result in casualties regularly.

If this story is true, the coverup is a lot bigger than originally told.

when i went to slapton in the early 70's one beach was cordoned off with signs saying live ammunition do not touch ect ect. i believe some us servicemen died on or around slapton on one of the exercises.
there is of course the m4a1 dd that was pulled up from the sea in the carpark at the site.

It wouldn't be too surprising to me if while the S-boat was attacking some "friendly fire" losses occurred. You'd see the same when e.g. IJF A/C were attacking US ships in the PTO. The AA fires would fall on/hit some of the US ships. While trying to engage the IJF A/C. And not unexpectedly there were losses to friendly fire sadly.

Yea, from accounts I've read, it was so dark they couldn't see very well, and didn't know what they were firing at, at times. That will be especially true if blinded by their own tracers – apparently a regular occurrence in night combat.

Doing anything in the dark adds to the difficulty many times over.