Summer of 23 - UK Tour - Slapton Sands - Where American troops had rehearsal exercises for D-Day & Sherman Tank Memorial

Monday June 12th, 2023 - Part 1 of 2

We went to Slapton Sands, which is one of the places, in the UK, the allied forces practiced for the D-Day Beach invasions. 

I read about the Sherman Tank Memorial on the internet when searching for places to visit and knew it was a must see.  I didn't realize the extent of what had happened here until we visited.

Here is a LINK that details the exercise/rehearsal for the D-Day invasions on Utah Beach.  American Forces used Slapton Sands as it resembled the beach and landscape at Utah Beach. 

If you read the link it will give you a very detailed account of what happened here. I think it's very interesting.

Here's an excerpt:

"Friendly fire incident

The first practice assault took place on the morning of 27 April^[7][8] and was marked by an incident involving friendly fire. H-hourwas set for 07:30, and was to include live ammunition to acclimatize the troops to the sights, sounds and even smells of a naval bombardment. During the landing itself, live rounds were to be fired over the heads of the incoming troops by forces on land, for the same reason. This followed an order made by General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Supreme Allied Commander, who felt that the men must be hardened by exposure to real battle conditions.^[9] The exercise was to include naval bombardment by ships of Force U Bombardment Group fifty minutes prior to the landing.^[10]

Several of the landing ships for that morning were delayed, and the officer in charge, American Admiral Don P. Moon, decided to delay H-hour for 60 minutes, until 08:30.^[9] Some of the landing craft did not receive word of the change. Landing on the beach at their originally scheduled time, the second wave came under fire, suffering an unknown number of casualties. Rumours circulated among the fleet that as many as 450 men were killed.^[11]"

"639 soldiers and sailors died that night of wounds, hypothermia, or drowned from incorrectly fitted life belts. In all 749 lives were lost during beach landing rehearsals here. Many more men lost their lives during Exercise Tiger than on Utah Beach"

This tank was lost at sea along with American lives during the D-Day practice landings and was recovered in 1984. The link below details how it took Ken Small five years to lead the search for the tank on the ocean bed, and purchase it from the American government.  Then a further 10 years to raise it from the seabed, restore it and create the memorial.

 

This link will tell you more: Ken Small & The Sherman Tank Memorial.

The following three pictures were taken from the site of the memorial.

Across the road from the memorial.

Sue taking a picture!!

It's hard to believe so many died here in a training exercise.

There is a monument here thanking the residents in the area.

"The residents in the area had to evacuate from their homes to enable the exercises to take place and despite the tragic loss of lives here, their action resulted in the saving of many hundreds of lives and contributed in no small measure to the success of the operation."

Personal memorials at the base of the monument

Bus Shelter, across from the monument

Country fields

It was such a peaceful place in spite of the accidental deaths of troops that occurred here. 

We were very moved by the whole place, and it's significance in WWII.

However, we had another place to visit today. Dartmouth Castle, here we come.  You can read about it on the next blog and there are some fantastic pictures to come.

Summer of 23 - UK Tour - Newton Abbot, Devon & Dunkeswell Airfield Heritage Centre

Friday June 9th, 2023

It was time to move on and next we had a week in Newton Abbot, Devon. We stayed in a converted garage with a living area/kitchen and half bath downstairs and a bedroom and bathroom upstairs. Here's a LINK on AirBNB for it, which gives you more pictures. It was close to the town centre but not close enough for us to walk as well as the fact that the hills were steep. In fact the driveway was steep and we would probably have been exhausted by the time we walked to the road!!!

This picture shows the utter chaos of arrival day and finding out we have a small fridge/freezer when we've just done a big shop on the way. We also have accumulated a lot of basic items needed for meals, spices etc. etc. Anyway, I have learnt to be quite the expert of fitting everything in to small fridges and I got it all in there!!!  We did get it back to looking like the picture on AirBNB quite quickly!!!

The owners here were lovely and told us to make ourselves at home and feel free to use the back garden if we wanted and ask if we had any questions. We have found all of our hosts so far have been great.

The owners' house

The back garden was a nice area.  We didn't sit out there, as we were out and about most days we were here.

Looking back at the house

I think this was an ornamental seat!!!

Sunday June 11th, 2023

Our first trip out was to Dunkeswell Heritage Centre in Honiton, Devon. Dunkeswell was the only WW2 US Naval Air Base in Europe.

It was a small museum but was packed with exhibits in glass cases. They were very friendly and we had a good conversation with them, but they made sure that we weren't going to use our photos for commercial purposes. So, we didn't take as many as we could have.

Rescue Kite to be flown if personnel landed in sea. Radio mast to be attached.

Carrier Pigeons were used in WWII for sending secure communications. They were dispatched from the front line with important messages. Their average speed was 50 miles per hour, and they could travel up to 2,000 miles.

Lt. Little flew anti-submarine aircraft, Lockheed P2 Neptunes from the US Naval Station, Jacksonville, Florida.

It's a small world, a reference to NAS Jax, here in England!!!

When we walked out of the museum there were some parachutists coming down.

Parachuting outside the Heritage Center

We saw this on the way home.