Never heard of this before. Eisenhower ordered Exercise Tiger which was a practice run for the landing at Utah Beach. They picked a stretch of the British coast and decided to do a live fire secret exercise landing. Well someone forgot to tell the Germans it was a secret and the proceeded to sneak in 9 boats into the exercise and sink numerous landing craft killing 700 Americans. Then there was a mix up in the times so troops landed on the beach just in time for the beach to shelled killing even more Americans. The whole thing was covered up and soldiers were threatened with court martial if they ever talked about it. It's estimated that up to 946 people were killed during the exercise.
Exercise Tiger
- Thread starter ArmedGinger
- Start date
Greenhorse six
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
Never heard of it before, just read some of what happened, at least they did learn a lesson from it , the vulnerability of LSTs with limited escorts to German S boat attacks
So they hunted them down and bombed them out of existence.
So they hunted them down and bombed them out of existence.
Apparently many US soldiers died because they had not been properly shown how to use their life jackets. When they entered the water with their battle packs on they were inverted by the life jackets and drowned. Many died from hypothermia as well. There were supposed to be two ships watching for E Boats but one was damaged the day before and didn't make it there in time. Different radio frequencies used by the Brits and Americans caused a huge communications breakdown.
Terrible waste of lives.
ht tps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exercise_Tiger
Terrible waste of lives.
ht tps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exercise_Tiger
Also known as the Battle of Slapton Sands.
Americans were not taking the landing process seriously: just walk ashore, sit and light a smoke or whatever. Monty, being a stickler for timing and training, was screaming that the Yanks weren't ready for actual combat. It was bad enough that he wanted to postpone D-Day, which simply was impossible at that time. So they did one more night-landing exercise.
The meeting with the E-boats was pure accident but a batch of 20mm tracers ripping into your boat and shredding your buddies will give you a very different idea of what an "exercise" might be all about.
It was such a complete screw-up that the horrific casualties were mixed-in with the even-more horrific casualties from the real D-Day landings a few days later.
The Americans finally learned to take things seriously..... at Omaha Beach.
Monty may well have been right: better training -- and more of it -- and a better attitude toward it -- could well have saved a lot of American lives.
Requiescat in pacem.
Americans were not taking the landing process seriously: just walk ashore, sit and light a smoke or whatever. Monty, being a stickler for timing and training, was screaming that the Yanks weren't ready for actual combat. It was bad enough that he wanted to postpone D-Day, which simply was impossible at that time. So they did one more night-landing exercise.
The meeting with the E-boats was pure accident but a batch of 20mm tracers ripping into your boat and shredding your buddies will give you a very different idea of what an "exercise" might be all about.
It was such a complete screw-up that the horrific casualties were mixed-in with the even-more horrific casualties from the real D-Day landings a few days later.
The Americans finally learned to take things seriously..... at Omaha Beach.
Monty may well have been right: better training -- and more of it -- and a better attitude toward it -- could well have saved a lot of American lives.
Requiescat in pacem.
Which brings up the question, did the Americans get the worst beaches , or was it a matter of training ?
Grizz
Omaha was the worst beach. Utah wasn't, but I think it's said they didn't really land in the right place, so perhaps if they had it would have been. Juno was pretty hard fought, if I recall correctly the Canadians suffered more casualties than either British landing force at Gold and Sword.
As to the Americans, I do think Monty had a point. But then, he was criticized viciously for not counterattacking immediately that Afrika Korps had been stopped at Alamein. To his credit, his insistence on "training, training, training" did pay off when he finally did move. His troops knew exactly what to do and how to do it and what to do it with. Casualties were remarkably low when compared to the "Benghazi Sweepstakes" which had been running a couple of years and littering the desert with so much smashed equipment that junk metal was Libya's sole big export industry until the oil came in.
Training IS important and training for a campaign-ending assault is quite different from training for a retreat under superior forces. Monty knew how to do both AND how to train men for either option; he might have been a bit of a jerk but he brought his troops through with MINIMUM casualties. His overview was completely professional (if pedantic) but he had learned the HARD way about wasting manpower: he had seen enough of it as a very junior officer in the Great War.
As to the Americans, it really helps if everyone knows exactly what they are supposed to do, where they should be and so forth BEFORE the assault. Proper preparation might cut down on the medal count but it also cuts down on the casualty rate. The wrong ATTITUDE can get a lot of men killed who should have walked through. I think this is demonstrated by some of the problems at Omaha especially. Of course, it is really handy if your men and your ammo both land on the same side of an obstacle.
AND it helps if your Navy is not afraid to get their paint scratched and actually SHELL the target area BEFORE men try to take it.
And if you are going to shoot surrendering enemy forces, don't let them SEE you doing it: just makes them fight a lot harder.
The bestest, mostest modern equipment in the world.... and the mostest of it...... have to be COMBINED with a PROFESSIONAL ATTITUDE in order to keep your casualties at an acceptable MINIMUM. HEROES are great to have.... but only a very small number should be NECESSARY.
After writing this, I expect I will never be allowed to cross the US border again!
Training IS important and training for a campaign-ending assault is quite different from training for a retreat under superior forces. Monty knew how to do both AND how to train men for either option; he might have been a bit of a jerk but he brought his troops through with MINIMUM casualties. His overview was completely professional (if pedantic) but he had learned the HARD way about wasting manpower: he had seen enough of it as a very junior officer in the Great War.
As to the Americans, it really helps if everyone knows exactly what they are supposed to do, where they should be and so forth BEFORE the assault. Proper preparation might cut down on the medal count but it also cuts down on the casualty rate. The wrong ATTITUDE can get a lot of men killed who should have walked through. I think this is demonstrated by some of the problems at Omaha especially. Of course, it is really handy if your men and your ammo both land on the same side of an obstacle.
AND it helps if your Navy is not afraid to get their paint scratched and actually SHELL the target area BEFORE men try to take it.
And if you are going to shoot surrendering enemy forces, don't let them SEE you doing it: just makes them fight a lot harder.
The bestest, mostest modern equipment in the world.... and the mostest of it...... have to be COMBINED with a PROFESSIONAL ATTITUDE in order to keep your casualties at an acceptable MINIMUM. HEROES are great to have.... but only a very small number should be NECESSARY.
After writing this, I expect I will never be allowed to cross the US border again!
