EXERCISE TIGER
Posted: Thu Dec 04, 2014 1:54 pm
Exercise Tiger-Eboat attack in Lyme Bay
On the day after the first practice assaults for D Day, early on the morning of 28 April 1944, the exercise was blighted when a convoy of follow-up troops was attacked by nine German E-boats under the command of Korvettenkapitän Bernd Klug, in Lyme Bay.
Of the two ships assigned to protect the convoy, only one was present. HMS Azalea, a corvette was leading the nine LSTs in a straight line, a formation which later drew criticism since it presented an easy target to the E-boats. The second ship which was supposed to be present, HMS Scimitar, a World War I destroyer, had been in collision with an LST, suffered structural damage and left the convoy to be repaired at Plymouth. Because the LSTs and British naval headquarters were operating on different frequencies, the American forces did not know this.
When other British ships sighted the E-boats earlier in the night and told the corvette, its commander failed to inform the LST convoy, assuming incorrectly that they had already been told. British shore batteries defending Salcombe Harbour had seen silhouettes of the E-boats but had been instructed to hold fire so that the Germans would not find that Salcombe was defended.
The E-boats had left Cherbourg on patrol the previous evening and did not encounter the Allied patrol lines either off Cherbourg or in the Channel. They spotted the convoy (convoy "T-4"), eight LSTs carrying vehicles and combat engineers of the 1st Engineer Special Brigade with a single corvette as escort, and then attacked.LST-507 caught fire and was abandoned. LST-531 sank shortly after being torpedoed while LST-289 was set on fire but eventually made it back to shore. LST-511 was damaged by friendly fire. The remaining ships and their escort fired back and the E-boats made no more attacks.
749 servicemen were killed: 441 United States Army and 197 United States Navy personnel (note: this adds up to only 638). Many servicemen drowned in the cold sea while waiting to be rescued. Soldiers, unused to being at sea, panicked and put on their lifebelts incorrectly. In some cases, this meant that when they jumped into the water the weight of their combat packs flipped them onto their backs, dragging their heads underwater and drowning them.
It has been said there was no "cover up" of this disaster; but it has to be said there was an immediate News Blackout. It was only after the war ended this story leaked out- to the absolute dismay of hundreds of grieving relatives
On the day after the first practice assaults for D Day, early on the morning of 28 April 1944, the exercise was blighted when a convoy of follow-up troops was attacked by nine German E-boats under the command of Korvettenkapitän Bernd Klug, in Lyme Bay.
Of the two ships assigned to protect the convoy, only one was present. HMS Azalea, a corvette was leading the nine LSTs in a straight line, a formation which later drew criticism since it presented an easy target to the E-boats. The second ship which was supposed to be present, HMS Scimitar, a World War I destroyer, had been in collision with an LST, suffered structural damage and left the convoy to be repaired at Plymouth. Because the LSTs and British naval headquarters were operating on different frequencies, the American forces did not know this.
When other British ships sighted the E-boats earlier in the night and told the corvette, its commander failed to inform the LST convoy, assuming incorrectly that they had already been told. British shore batteries defending Salcombe Harbour had seen silhouettes of the E-boats but had been instructed to hold fire so that the Germans would not find that Salcombe was defended.
The E-boats had left Cherbourg on patrol the previous evening and did not encounter the Allied patrol lines either off Cherbourg or in the Channel. They spotted the convoy (convoy "T-4"), eight LSTs carrying vehicles and combat engineers of the 1st Engineer Special Brigade with a single corvette as escort, and then attacked.LST-507 caught fire and was abandoned. LST-531 sank shortly after being torpedoed while LST-289 was set on fire but eventually made it back to shore. LST-511 was damaged by friendly fire. The remaining ships and their escort fired back and the E-boats made no more attacks.
749 servicemen were killed: 441 United States Army and 197 United States Navy personnel (note: this adds up to only 638). Many servicemen drowned in the cold sea while waiting to be rescued. Soldiers, unused to being at sea, panicked and put on their lifebelts incorrectly. In some cases, this meant that when they jumped into the water the weight of their combat packs flipped them onto their backs, dragging their heads underwater and drowning them.
It has been said there was no "cover up" of this disaster; but it has to be said there was an immediate News Blackout. It was only after the war ended this story leaked out- to the absolute dismay of hundreds of grieving relatives