Operation Tiger...

[FifteensAway]

...which somehow in my reading of history I had never heard of until by shear happenstance I saw a documentary today about Operation Tiger on Slapton Sands. 

I'm sure many who read this will have long known of this but I missed out.  And I'd often wondered why I hadn't heard of major rehearsals for D-Day.  And this was it - with its terrible consequences.

Might make for an unusual war-game with deployment of German E-boats. 

Mostly just a reminder of how we can think of ourselves as reasonably well read only to find gaping holes in our knowledge. 

[jon_1066]

Surprisingly there is a Michael Morpurgo kids book about it: The Amazing Story of Adolphus Tips.

[Rick]

...which somehow in my reading of history I had never heard of until by shear happenstance I saw a documentary today about Operation Tiger on Slapton Sands. 

I'm sure many who read this will have long known of this but I missed out.  And I'd often wondered why I hadn't heard of major rehearsals for D-Day.  And this was it - with its terrible consequences.

Might make for an unusual war-game with deployment of German E-boats. 

Mostly just a reminder of how we can think of ourselves as reasonably well read only to find gaping holes in our knowledge.

It's actually a 2 part disaster; the first part was the live fire exercise of the landing where a large number of soldiers were landed at the wrong place and were killed by live artillery fire, how many we still don't know. The second part of the disaster was the E-boat attack on the return journey which claimed the lives of more soldiers and sailors. The exact number of casualties of Tiger has never been released but it is estimated to be between 750 and 950 from both parts of the disaster.

[jon_1066]

I believe more men were killed in the rehearsal than on Utah beach

[Harry Faversham]

Seem to recall once reading, the casualties from Slapton Sands, were conveniently tagged onto those from Omaha beach.
 

[Rick]

Seem to recall once reading, the casualties from Slapton Sands, were conveniently tagged onto those from Omaha beach.
 

I think you're right - it may be that the same unit was at Slapton Sands and Omaha, which might have been one reason why it was done.
I think it was also political (aside from the careers of the officers involved) as the 'european war' wasn't popular in America and, if the public had found out they'd killed their own troops, Roosevelt would've been under far more pressure to pull the plug and concentrate just on defeating Japan.
As an aside, because some (about 10 I think) of the engineers knew the details of D-day, it was nearly cancelled until they were able to identify all of their bodies (the E-boats had been seen going through the wreckage of the ships).

[Tommy20]

I believe more men were killed in the rehearsal than on Utah beach

I've been listening to James Holland's excellent podcast series "We Have Ways of Making You Talk".  In one of the episodes on D-Day, he pointed out that the total number of casualties during the preparations for the invasion, including Slapton Sands, training accidents, etc... was actually higher than that of the first day of the invasion.

[Rick]

I've been listening to James Holland's excellent podcast series "We Have Ways of Making You Talk".  In one of the episodes on D-Day, he pointed out that the total number of casualties during the preparations for the invasion, including Slapton Sands, training accidents, etc... was actually higher than that of the first day of the invasion.

Hmm. Maybe. The casualties of D-day totalled over 9,000 allied personnel; the casualties in the preparation for D-day may or may not have exceeded this figure, depending on how they are compiled. If you push the timeline back to the beginning of D-day planning and account for casualties in the ETO then yes, they were significantly higher, but if you only include casualties from activities directly related to D-day then they are probably lower. Either way, it's a close call and huge numbers of allies died in the run up, on the day itself and afterwards.