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D-Day rehearsal Which Killed 600 Soldiers
Also known as Operation Tiger
It was a wet gloomy and in a coastline in English channel British and American troops were landing under heavy artillery fire. Losses from the landing allied side were mounting, but the arrival didn’t stop. The action is not the D day landing, which happened in the Normandy beaches in June 1944 but a rehearsal to D day landing, which killed more than 600 men in friendly fire.
D day landing was the largest amphibious ever attempted by any army in the world. The Allied army needed to check the feasibility and causality in case of such a landing attempt. To check the landing idea, Slapton Sands along the coast of British islands were selected for the exercise as they are similar to the Normandy beaches. The activity planned from 22 April to 30 April 1944.
Three thousand residents of Slapton evacuated so to safeguard the secrecy of the mission. On 27 April the first lading on the Lyme Bay on Slapton Sands was planned to start. General Eisenhower wanted to have live fire from the defensive position to check the landing possibilities in a real case. The landing was supposed to begin at 7:30 but was delayed by an hour to 8:30. This delay was not communicated properly, ensuring one batch of landing troops landed without any firing. The second batch met with fierce fire from a…
