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The Forgotten Dead: The true story of Exercise Tiger, the disastrous rehearsal for D-Day
27 April 1944. Exercise Tiger. German E-boats intercept rehearsals for the D-Day landings... On a dark night in 1944, a beautiful stretch of the Devon coast became the scene of desperate horror. Tales began to leak out of night-time explosions and seaborne activity. This was practice for Exercise Tiger, the main rehearsal for the Utah Beach landings...This fiasco, in which nearly 1,000 soldiers died, was buried by officials until it was almost forgotten. That is, until Ken Small discovered the story, and decided to dedicate the rest of his life to honouring the brave young men who perished in the disastrous exercise. Pulling a Sherman tank from the seabed, Ken created a memorial to those who died and started to share their story, and his, with the world.This updated edition of a bestselling classic is a gripping tale of wartime disaster and rescue in the words of the soldiers who were there, and of one man's curiosity that turned into a fight to ensure that they would never be forgotten.
272 pages, Kindle Edition
Published June 28, 2018
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
March 18, 2024
3.5 Stars!
You’ve probably never heard of this military exercise before have you?...That’s because it was such a vast military blunder which brought so much shame on American forces it was blacked out for decades afterwards, which was not only one of the most costly exercises of WWII but also resulted in the needless death of around 800 American servicemen.
So this is really two books, it’s mainly the story of Operation Tiger, which took place on and around the coastal village of Slapton Sands, Devon on 28th April 1944, but it’s also concerned with telling the story of the author’s long, drawn out process of trying to find out just what happened on that terrible day, as well as trying to buy a 32 ton tank which has been sitting under the English Channel for over 30 years. He eventually gets it for just $50 from the US government, but then came the rest of the bureaucracy and then the logistics of exactly how to lift out said tank from the bottom of the sea and back onto land?...
General, later President, Eisenhower was actually in charge of the whole fiasco and it was he, who insisted that live ammunition be used in order to make the preparations as real as possible. This resulted in many Americans being machine gunned to death on an English beach by their own men. This horrific confusion was all down to poor and non-existent communication within the American camp.
It’s darkly ironic that nearly 1000 men perished during this criminally incompetent exercise on Allied territory and yet only around 200 died at Utah beach in occupied Europe, the event they were training for. This catastrophic failing was essentially a dry run for the D-Day invasion. Hundreds of those men died as they had never been told or trained how to wear life jackets properly, many wearing them upside down.
When the injured and dying were brought back to shore and taken for emergency treatment, the emergency department were given no background information and weren’t allowed to know what the injured and dying weren’t allowed to tell them. It’s the kind of dark and sinister behaviour which we tend to associate more with other more “oppressive nations”.
Later on when Eisenhower was writing his memoirs there would be no mention of the disastrous Exercise Tiger or his crucial roll in it. Eisenhower like the institutions he was very much a part of specialise in secrecy and self-preservation and when those don’t work there is always mis-information, dis-information and mal-information.
Small proves to be fairly stringent and dogged in his investigation too, never just accepting the first impression or the one perspective, ensuring that he verifies, checks and double checks all sources, information and historical background before jumping to any conclusions or getting ahead of himself. It’s this stubborn approach and his gritty determination which allows him to gain so much facts in the first place and is why he has succeeded in where so many failed before him.
We see the cold-hearted cruelty of US government and the relevant bodies who stonewalled grieving families for not just years, but decades. It’s hard to comprehend the misery and frustration of how it must feel when not only did your loved one give their life to your country but then your country turns round and thanks you by refusing to tell you something as simple where and how they died?...Absolutely incredible.
The British authorities are no better and of course it reminds you that no matter what they try to get you to believe and what they say, when it comes down to the day to day reality what these institutes do better than anything else is protect their own and hide behind bureaucracy and obscure or antiquated laws which give them licence to behave appallingly and avoid scrutiny or consequences.
Without doubt Small did some great work and brought so much help, comfort and closure to so many grieving relatives, certainly far more than those whose responsibility it was to do that in the first place, though this often reveals the limits of his ability for storytelling, as he occasionally gets bogged down in frivolous or laboured detail, which can sometimes muddy the waters more than give detail.
One peculiar aspect which I found frustrating was towards the end when he is contacted by an elderly farmer who didn’t have too much longer to live, he sought no money, recognition or reward, seemingly only a desire to share the truth and its through him that Small learns about mass graves, and is even taken to the site, where he finds suspicious presence of concrete in the middle of a field. But Small finishes by saying that he had no desire to dig there or retrieve the bodies, which I found strange and it left me wondering if anyone ever did check the site?...
You’ve probably never heard of this military exercise before have you?...That’s because it was such a vast military blunder which brought so much shame on American forces it was blacked out for decades afterwards, which was not only one of the most costly exercises of WWII but also resulted in the needless death of around 800 American servicemen.
So this is really two books, it’s mainly the story of Operation Tiger, which took place on and around the coastal village of Slapton Sands, Devon on 28th April 1944, but it’s also concerned with telling the story of the author’s long, drawn out process of trying to find out just what happened on that terrible day, as well as trying to buy a 32 ton tank which has been sitting under the English Channel for over 30 years. He eventually gets it for just $50 from the US government, but then came the rest of the bureaucracy and then the logistics of exactly how to lift out said tank from the bottom of the sea and back onto land?...
General, later President, Eisenhower was actually in charge of the whole fiasco and it was he, who insisted that live ammunition be used in order to make the preparations as real as possible. This resulted in many Americans being machine gunned to death on an English beach by their own men. This horrific confusion was all down to poor and non-existent communication within the American camp.
It’s darkly ironic that nearly 1000 men perished during this criminally incompetent exercise on Allied territory and yet only around 200 died at Utah beach in occupied Europe, the event they were training for. This catastrophic failing was essentially a dry run for the D-Day invasion. Hundreds of those men died as they had never been told or trained how to wear life jackets properly, many wearing them upside down.
When the injured and dying were brought back to shore and taken for emergency treatment, the emergency department were given no background information and weren’t allowed to know what the injured and dying weren’t allowed to tell them. It’s the kind of dark and sinister behaviour which we tend to associate more with other more “oppressive nations”.
Later on when Eisenhower was writing his memoirs there would be no mention of the disastrous Exercise Tiger or his crucial roll in it. Eisenhower like the institutions he was very much a part of specialise in secrecy and self-preservation and when those don’t work there is always mis-information, dis-information and mal-information.
Small proves to be fairly stringent and dogged in his investigation too, never just accepting the first impression or the one perspective, ensuring that he verifies, checks and double checks all sources, information and historical background before jumping to any conclusions or getting ahead of himself. It’s this stubborn approach and his gritty determination which allows him to gain so much facts in the first place and is why he has succeeded in where so many failed before him.
We see the cold-hearted cruelty of US government and the relevant bodies who stonewalled grieving families for not just years, but decades. It’s hard to comprehend the misery and frustration of how it must feel when not only did your loved one give their life to your country but then your country turns round and thanks you by refusing to tell you something as simple where and how they died?...Absolutely incredible.
The British authorities are no better and of course it reminds you that no matter what they try to get you to believe and what they say, when it comes down to the day to day reality what these institutes do better than anything else is protect their own and hide behind bureaucracy and obscure or antiquated laws which give them licence to behave appallingly and avoid scrutiny or consequences.
Without doubt Small did some great work and brought so much help, comfort and closure to so many grieving relatives, certainly far more than those whose responsibility it was to do that in the first place, though this often reveals the limits of his ability for storytelling, as he occasionally gets bogged down in frivolous or laboured detail, which can sometimes muddy the waters more than give detail.
One peculiar aspect which I found frustrating was towards the end when he is contacted by an elderly farmer who didn’t have too much longer to live, he sought no money, recognition or reward, seemingly only a desire to share the truth and its through him that Small learns about mass graves, and is even taken to the site, where he finds suspicious presence of concrete in the middle of a field. But Small finishes by saying that he had no desire to dig there or retrieve the bodies, which I found strange and it left me wondering if anyone ever did check the site?...
March 16, 2024
Good book for telling the story of the total disaster that was the practice for the D-Day landings which took place at Slapton Sands, Devon.
It seemed a very personal book at time, not sure about some of the writing but it was written a while ago.
It seemed a very personal book at time, not sure about some of the writing but it was written a while ago.
June 29, 2023
A story with two halves. The first about Exercise Tiger, which is interesting. The second half focuses on the challenge to build a monument to the incident at Slapton Sands in the UK which is laid out in a meandering confusing way, with unnecessary personal details.
October 3, 2020
Good book
I had heard about this event but never gave it much thought until I went to Devon for a holiday and the book was in the cottage we rented
I had heard about this event but never gave it much thought until I went to Devon for a holiday and the book was in the cottage we rented
October 25, 2020
Very interesting book ,well written and heart wrenching at times but just had to finish it it was a compelling read and sugest anyone interested in WW2 to read it!
July 20, 2023
Thought provoking…
I loved reading this book and Slapton Sands is now on my list as must sees. Highly enjoyable, very moving and recommended, 5 stars…
I loved reading this book and Slapton Sands is now on my list as must sees. Highly enjoyable, very moving and recommended, 5 stars…
May 5, 2025
This is very much a book of two parts, about two thirds covers the events of Exercise Tiger including some firsthand testimonies from survivors, and the other third is about Small's quest to get the losses of this exercise recognised and a proper memorial established. The exercise itself was meant to be a practice run for the D-Day landing at Utah beach but a series of poor decisions, bad luck, and lack of sensible thinking all led to the losses of at least 750 US servicemen, nearly four times as many as during the actual landing exercise. Small was clearly dogged in his mission to find out the truth about the events of the exercise and didn't take no as an answer, finding survivors willing to talk, and uncovering the truth several decades on. This leads him on to not only recover the Sherman tank, the tank that started it all, from the seabed but to set up near the beach to recognise the sacrifices that those servicemen made and the weight of the pain and guilt the survivors felt, feelings that they were told to bury even after the war was over. And, despite the personal costs, he did just that.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews