Operation Tiger 1944

[thewideeyedowl]

Operation Tiger was a pre-D Day practice that went disastrously, resulting in the loss of nearly 750 American servicemen at Slapton Sands in South Devon in late April 1944. The disaster was hushed up for 40 years. Lots of info about it here: https://www.exercisetigerslapton.org/...tiger/history/.

I am trying to find out which American units were involved, but I do not need the names of any of the soldiers.

I am also trying, unsuccessfully, to find out the location of an American camp/base at or near Cranmore in Somerset; and also to find which units were based there.

From what an elderly relative has recently told me, I think it might be possible to link men from this American camp to Operation Tiger. She was living in the area in 1944 and has clear memories of the cheeky American soldiers. But, intriguingly, she has said that: "the soldiers just disappeared. Nobody knew what had happened but we were told that they had died. We went to a special church service for them".

So I am now wondering whether it is possible to link that intriguing snippet to Operation Tiger. Is that why these soldiers "just disappeared" and there was later a church service for them?

Has anyone got any thoughts on this?

Owl

[elsinore]

Units which appear often in a search are 29th Infantry Division and 116th Infantry Regiment. Here's a typical reference from the 29th Infantry Division Historical Society site:

https://29infantry
division.org/WWII-Stories/Burr_George_H.htm

There are plenty of results for US Army in Devon and Cornwall but not a lot for Somerset. Here's one which mentions a number of units in Bridgwater:

https://www.bbc
.co.uk/history/ww2peopleswar/stories/55/a3846855.shtml

Peter

[margarita]

Leslie Thomas wrote a novel called "The Magic Army" which I believe was based on this incident. It is a long time since I read it but it may contain some information of interest to you.

[thewideeyedowl]

Thank you for both those answers. I have checked out the Bridgwater one, which is very interesting. The problem, though, is distance. The Cranmore I am referring to is West Cranmore, the location of the little village school for the area. (The school has long since closed.)

Bridgwater is about 22 miles from West Cranmore; and the units there were involved in D-Day preparations. So that looks promising. There is also Bristol (where there were also a lot of GIs) about 19 miles away. Do you think there might have been 'Out Camps' some distance from the main base? And if so, could a little place like West Cranmore (or its smaller sister East Cranmore) have been an 'Out Camp'?

My elderly relative has often told me about these GIs. She used to cycle to her job as a teacher at the village school and while she was riding along she had to 'run the gauntlet' of the cheeky GIs singing "An apple for the teacher". However, it is only recently that she mentioned that they 'disappeared' and that there was later a church service for them 'because we heard they had been killed'. That's what made me think of Operation Tiger. Could it have been that? Plus, there's the difficulty in finding any info, e.g. units involved etc. It was all hushed up at the time, and - to a certain extent - still is.

Am continuing running searches, if and when time allows, but am still not making headway. Just for interest, though, I found this about the organisation of the US army during WW2 and the places where deployed: https://www.historyshotsinfoart.com/USArmy/overview.cfm.

Off to roost

Owl

[arthurk]

A few fairly random thoughts:

Shepton Mallet prison was the main American military prison in the UK during WW2, and besides the prisoners inside, those guarding them would have lived somewhere in the vicinity.

There's a mention of a book about American forces in Bristol and the west country on this page:
https://
ww2talk.com/index.php?threads/locations-of-us-forces-in-somerset-1944.15304/

There was a train crash involving troops in Somerset in the build-up to Operation Tiger - see
https://www.
warmemorialsww1.co.uk/ww2-train-crash

Hope you get somewhere with this - questions like this are often fascinating.

Arthur

[Heather Burdge]

Hello Owl

This is slightly off the subject you were asking about, but I used to live less than a mile from Slapton Sands, so have obviously picked up a bit of local info as a result.

Opposite to where we used to live is the son of a man named Ken Small. I don't know whether you have ever heard of him, but he's the man who discovered the American tank at the bottom of the sea after his fishing nets kept getting caught on something. He was continually ignored by the MOD, but was so insistant that there was some object in the sea damaging his nets that he dived on what he found to be the wreck of the tank and subsequently had it brought ashore where it rests in the carpark at the Torcross end of Slapton Sands to this day.

To cut a long story short, Ken wrote a book all about his discovery of the tank, and the aftermath. It's called The Forgotten Dead, and as I said, was written by Ken Small.

I've just taken a look on Amazon books and there are several copies available for as little as 1p, so it's well worth a read.

I am probably telling you something you already know, but just in case you didn't I replied.

Good luck in your research.

Heather

[thewideeyedowl]

Heather - a very warm welcome to Brit Gen and a big 'thank you' to everyone who is taking an interest in this thread. I can report that, at last, search engines are starting to deliver the goods on this one...

First, I need to correct myself (and most others here?) on the name: it was in fact Exercise Tiger and designated to take place between 22nd and 29th April 1944. (Operation Tiger was something else and had taken place in the Mediterranean in May 1941 (hope I have remembered the year aright!).)

A world naval ships forum came up in my searches and has a very long and, seemingly, authoritative thread on Exercise Tiger. It seems tht there may not have been a cover-up after all, but I would really need to read it in its entirety and then try to verify claims/counter claims in official documents. And, quite honestly, I can't see that I will be doing that. The thread, from May 2012, is here: .
https://www.worldnavalships.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-12684.html

The authoritative poster, called Harry, quotes from Orders from SHAEF [Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force G - 3Division, issued on 19 April 1944. It states that the following were to be involved in the Exercise:
VII Corps [? can't read my own scribbled notes!] Troop
4th Infantry Division
101st and 82nd Airbourne Division
1st Engineer Special Brigade
Force 'U' Support Air Force Units

There is also a whole website dedicated to Exercise Tiger: https://www.exercisetiger.org.uk Hope the link will work.

But my real interest is in the GIs that were stationed in or near West Cranmore, so now I will have to try to find where each of the above named Units were in 1944.

That's enough for now.

Off to roost.

Owl

PS Heather - yes, I did know a bit about Ken Small (from the BBC Spotlight South West programme), but didn't know about his book. Thank you.