Dan Snow's History Hit - Disaster Before D-Day: Exercise Tiger

Episode Date: June 3, 2021

The D-Day landings of June 6 1944 were the largest amphibious landing in the history of warfare, and are famed as a major turning point towards Allied victory. But they weren’t without planning and practice. In late April 1944, the Allies launched one of their trial runs, Exercise Tiger, off Slapton Sands in Devon. The aim was a closely choreographed landing, the result was a disaster. In this episode from our sibling podcast Warfare hear Dr Harry Bennett from the University of Plymouth discussing the players in this trial run, and how it became the Battle of Lyme Bay.Watch The Lincolnshire Buffalo: With Dan Snow where Dan was given exclusive access to the WWII Buffalo LVT recently dug up in Crowland, Lincolnshire.

Some things just take too long. A meeting that could have been an email, someone explaining crypto, or switching mobile providers. Except with Fizz. Switching to Fizz is quick and easy. Mobile plans start at $17 a month. Certain conditions apply. Details at fizz.ca. Hello, everybody. Hello. Welcome to Dan Snow's History Hit. Good to have you listen. This week in 1944, British and Allied forces were preparing for D-Day, the Normandy landing. It's the greatest amphibious assault of all time. And we have got some big news coming up, folks. I guess we have. History Hit, working with

brilliant historians, have uncovered a D-Day shipwreck for the first time. That podcast coming up later this week. In the meantime, we've got an episode from our brilliant sister pod, Warfare, where we talk about Exercise Tiger, the disastrous exercise that took place off Slapton Sands when German e-boats got amongst a dress rehearsal for D-Day and sank transports packed with attacking infantry. It's a remarkable story. And we've got Dr. Harry Bennett talking all about it from the University of Plymouth. Speaking of amphibious assault, I want to tell you about another little project we've got going on at History Hit TV at the moment. We're hugely honored that we're invited by the discoverers of a Second World War tracked vehicle, a Buffalo,

a landing vehicle tracked that was found in Crowland, Lincolnshire, in the Fens in eastern England. This brilliant team of enthusiasts and volunteers had grown up with stories of these Second World War vehicles that were buried 30 feet below the soil just outside their town. They went away, did the meticulous research required, and discovered that there was truth to these stories. They did some geophys, they went digging, the meticulous research required and discovered that there was truth to these stories they did some geophys they went digging and they excavated an extraordinary tracked landing craft of the kind that you usually associate with the great campaigns of the pacific war going ashore in iwo jima for example but these lvts were used they were used in the war in Europe. Allied forces crossed the Rhine in 1945 into Germany proper in the last months of the war in these landing vehicles tracked. Then many of

them were brought back to the UK and bizarrely in 1947 several of them were used during a terrible flood to block a hole in the dike that basically became a dam. Some of these were then washed away and remained underground ever since. It is a truly extraordinary tale, and this LVT is in such good condition that much of its parts still work. The mechanism for raising and lowering the ramp, for example, is still in working order because it's been entombed in clay for all these decades. If you want to watch a short film that we've made on this extraordinary discovery, please head over to historyhit.tv or look at my social media feeds.

We're making it free, so no password, no login, no emails, nothing on historyhit.tv right now. Please head over there and do that. But in the meantime, meantime folks enjoy this podcast about exercise tiger hi harry welcome back to the warfare podcast how you doing today i'm doing good and i hope all your listeners are doing equally as well well it's almost summer is it almost the end of term there in plymouth no we continue forever we carry on all the time with our quest to go boldly and drive back the frontiers of knowledge. Wow, I'm inspired. Good stuff. Now, tell me, Harry, we're approaching D-Day, the anniversary, June 6th, the Normandy landings.

But one thing that we often forget is just how much planning and practice went into this in the weeks and months beforehand. And I know that some of this took place not a million miles away from you at Slapton Sands. So what happened there 77 years ago? Well, in a way, you've got to see this in the wider context, not actually weeks or months, but in fact years with the bolero planning for d-day i mean literally from 1942 onwards they're planning for an invasion of western europe and that takes an awful long time and it also takes a significant amount of time both to create the circumstances the vehicles the landing craft to train the troops but also to train them. And Devon becomes home to two important training centers for the United States Army stroke Navy. In the north, we have a thing

called the Assault Training Center. It's there that they begin to practice the kind of assault techniques that they're going to use to try and crack the Atlantic wall on D-Day. So in other words, you've got mortar rangers, you've got flamethrower rangers, you've got big beaches, which people can practice combined operations and amphibious landings under fire. You've got pillboxes, which are mocked up. But then the question is, you know, as you begin to put small units through these training programs, you've got to build up to the big day. You need a big canvas, which is why in 1943, the Americans take over a region of South Devon called the South Hams. Now, this is a very rural part of the world.

Big beaches. Yeah, no problem at all. Very, very rural, quite remote now the americans choose this partly because it is so remote in other words there aren't so many prying eyes and indeed they're going to evacuate most of the villages from both the training area and the immediate vicinity around it to keep things fairly private because here they're going to bring together sea air land to practice the amphibious landings that they're going to put into practice on D-Day. So this big training area at Slaptam becomes home to a series of amphibious operations as they build in late 1943 early 1944

towards what they hope will be a kind of orchestrated symphony of violence, which is what's going to take place on D-Day. So they've got to get it right. They've got to train, they've got to practice. And in Devon becomes for the United States military one of their principal training centres. And so tell us a little bit about the geography around here. What does Slapton Sands look like is it a kind of almost direct mock-up of the Normandy beaches are they identical or similar in a lot of ways no but in some ways yes in other words you've got an expansive beach you've got a nice approach into the beach you've got deep water interestingly immediately behind the beach at Slapton, you've got an area of freshwater called Slapton Lake. It's basically a large lake. Now, there's some talk that with the area behind Utah Beach having been flooded this large piece of water that you've got to get round,

it creates some interesting tactical problems that you need to engage with, that actually in some ways there were some similarities between Slapton and what you'd expect to find on Utah Beach. But I think generally speaking, the fact that it was a remote area, you could clear it of people, there was a decent beach there and some decent off-water anchorages that was its principal attractions rather than the kind of lie of the land immediately behind it and of course in terms of the maritime conditions i assume they're relatively similar i mean it's bloody choppy in the channel isn't it it is choppy in the channel in terms of actually landing quite Quite different in a lot of

respects. To land on Utah Beach, it's a beautiful place. It's a beautiful place. It's a gently sloping beach. You've got lots of sand. You've got dunes behind. Slapton is a bit more hairy in terms of actually an amphibious operation. But as it you know the conditions being the conditions and nothing's ever going to be ideal it's a pretty good option a pretty good comparison that they can utilize for the purposes of training so tell us and they've been practicing as individual units doing the mortars doing bits of landings doing practice of what it would be like to go through urban environments as well and they're going to bring all of this together. When does this come together as a crescendo? And who's in charge? Well, who's in charge is kind of one of the interesting debates. Because one of

the problems in terms of the kind of joint Anglo-American command is its jointness. There is nobody in sort of overall charge. So as it were, these landings are going to take place under the Plymouth command, headed by Admiral Ralph Leatham. But under him, you've got various American officers who are in charge of particular aspects. So there is an issue of coordination now they build towards exercise tiger which is going to take place from the 22nd to the 30th of april now this is when force u the force that's going to land on utah beach is going to do its stuff this is really going to be one of the last big dress rehearsals this is the point when it should be all singing, all dancing, everything's working, even down to the kind of subsequent landings where

you're going to get the reserve troops, the truck companies, the ordnance companies, even the graves registration units are going to be coming ashore to practice what they've got to do following D-Day. So you're dealing with an exercise here, which is going to involve literally more than 200 ships. You're going to have aircraft involved. You're going to have tens of thousands of troops involved. Now, the organization of that, you can imagine, is massive. Not only do they have to get it right on D-Day,

but they've also got to get it right in terms of these practice landings. And of course, the coordination of all of this is going to be a massive job at a point when you've still got people arriving in the command area, people are still working up towards what they hope will be success on D-Day. Even the facilities which are going to be required on D-Day and afterwards, even some of those are not wholly complete in terms of command and communications and control. So in other words things are a little bit chaotic to put it mildly but as it were you know their window of opportunity in the summer of 1944 is fast approaching. They can't afford to say especially in the circumstances of a Joseph

Stalin, is saying, where is your second front? I don't recognize your bomber offensive. What's going on in Italy? I don't really rate that either. In terms of the politics of the war, this amphibious landing has been years in the preparation. And if it doesn't happen in 1944, in the summer of, when's it ever going to happen? So as it were, the pressure is on to carry out the big rehearsals in order to get success on D-Day, which has got to be in the summer of 1944. Did everybody know that this was an exercise? Did the soldiers know down to the minute what it is they were meant to be practising and doing? Yes and no. The commanding officers, the senior officers do.

In other words, you have a very, very detailed operational order. Literally, you are trying to coordinate the movement of hundreds of vehicles, thousands of troops, hundreds of ships so you've got everything that's got to be planned from getting these people from the camps that they're in in places like Cornwall and Devon to the ports to load them to depart at the right time to move in literally a kind of synchronized ballet around the sea lanes before they actually come into Slapton Sands to actually land. It's a massive operation. And of course, this isn't happening in peacetime. This is happening in a combat environment. The risks are enormous. The risks simply are inevitable. So as it were, the seniors know they've got a very, very detailed plan and they hope it's going to go according to practice. Now, the people at the

bottom of the food chain, the ordinary rankers, they don't know. In other words, what they want is to be given a kind of sense of this could be it, here we're going, this is probably an exercise, but you never know. So, as it were, while the people at the top know the details, the people at the bottom really don't. But like you say, this isn't peacetime, and it's not exactly like the waters that they're moving 200 300 ships

through and thousands of men through are um well peaceful waters isn't this going to cause quite a lot of attention well it's inevitable and this is one of the interesting things about exercise tiger there's something that eisenhower says in his post-war report on the operations in Europe, which almost suggests that one of the things that they're actually trying to factor into the operations, the principal purpose is to expose soldiers and sailors and airmen to the realities, some of the realities of what the landings are going to be like. But Eisenhower's report does suggest, I think, that there was an intelligence aspect to the operation. And what I think that intelligence aspect was, we want to see if we start putting

large convoys of ships in the English Channel, at what point do the Germans become aware of them? How long does it take them to react? And do they react so in other words there's almost a kind of double-edged purpose to this the primary purpose is training but as it were if we can learn something about german reactions how long it takes to get us on radar when they see what they see how do they respond and how long does it take them That might be very useful intelligence to have. Now, the Allies hope, and indeed I think, that they're in a position to respond effectively to any thrust that the Germans make against the rehearsal operations taking place under Exercise Tiger in Lime Bay. In other words, they have some fairly strong naval forces at operation. So, in other words words they have forces stationed off cherbourg cherbourg is the home to the fifth and ninth german s boat flotillas what the british

and the americans largely label them e boats e for enemy boats but the germans call them s s for schnell boat fast big well-armed motor torpedo boats, almost like mini destroyers rather than the kind of torpedo boat that we might imagine. So they're literally just outside the port, they're waiting. And then they've got forces in mid-channel. So in other words, if they get past that layer, we've got another layer waiting. And then with the convoys, they've've also got close in protection to give them a further layer so they've got three layers of naval protection as it were so they hope that if the

germans detect them they learn something in the process and if they do come out well if we happen to catch them we might annihilate that threat before d-day and that might itself be quite a good thing in any case. So as it were, they're quite hopeful that they've got the basis covered, if we can use that kind of American phrase. Listening to Dan Snow's history, I've got an episode of Warfare. We're talking about Exercise Tiger, the disastrous rehearsal for D-Day. More after this. Certain conditions apply. Details at phys.ca. We're stepping into feudal Japan in our special series Chasing Shadows, where samurai warlords and shinobi spies teach us the tactics and skills needed not only to survive, but to conquer.

Whether you're preparing for Assassin's Creed Shadows or fascinated by history and great stories, listen to Echoes of History, a Ubisoft podcast brought to you by History Hits. There are new episodes every week. So there's a little bit of probing and poking going on here, maybe with a hope that they could annihilate some of the threats before D-Day. How does it play out? Well, it doesn't go so well, and it doesn't go so well in some interesting ways. So what we have is, in the early hours of the 28th of April, we have an attack on what they call the T4 convoy, T for training. The convoys that are taking part in Exercise Tiger, the landings on Slapton, they're all given a series of these code numbers. So this is just one of a series. Now that night, 27th, 28th of April, at sea, in Line Bay or at anchor in the same vicinity,

there are something like 200 Allied vessels. Now you just think about that for one minute. 200 Allied vessels. Now these convoys are rotating around Lime Bay, almost like it's a kind of giant traffic island, for the purposes of you know navigating at night working together following what the escort actually wants going along some fairly precise navigational lines so that they can work their way through the gaps in minefields to come to the beach at the appropriate hour to discharge their cargos of personnel and vehicles it's a massive great battle but 200 vehicles now on the night of the 27th 28th this convoy t4 is attacked it is eight tank landing ships eight lsts now two of those tank landing ships are sunk by torpedo a third is badly damaged but she ultimately manages to limp away

into Dartmouth so out of a convoy of eight LSTs two are sunk a third is badly damaged the official death toll is subsequently put at 749 soldiers and sailors. Now that is not an inconsiderable number in anybody's calculation. We've got to imagine always that sort of we have a different culture of loss in the 21st century than say a general or an admiral would have in April 1944. But even that it's quite a number. April 1944. But even that, it's quite a number. So we have a critical loss which has taken place. Now, there have been many sort of theories as to, you know, why this happened and what happened and whose fault was it. And very clearly, a number of things went badly wrong that night. There was a breakdown in communications between the British and the Americans. Effectively, the British who are controlling the sort of naval defences actually find themselves, in terms of the radar plot,

overloaded by the fact that we have nine motor torpedo boats that come out of Cherbourg. Instead of barrelling directly towards the English coast, they head westward out towards the Channel Islands before they then begin to track upwards. So they avoid the, what might be described as the close blockade. Halfway across the English Channel, those nine S boats break up into four groups, three groups of two and one group of three and they then begin to prospect the whole of lime bay from one end to the other and there are some very very interesting engagements that take place so for example two s boats manage to make absolutely no contact with anything and simply return home. Two other S-boats off Portland encounter part of the destroyer screen, which is there to sort of protect Lime Bay. And they begin to move into a

firing position and they fire off their torpedoes and they actually think they've got a hit. They think they've got a hit. There's a large explosion. They see what they think is a torpedo hit and they see a destroyer which seems to disappear. Now, what's actually happened, because we've got the English record of what took place, is yes, torpedoes were fired and one of them seems to have exploded in the wake of one of the destroyers that was patrolling off Portland. in the wake of one of the destroyers that was patrolling off Portland. So close was it to a hit that part of the casing for the torpedo actually fetched up on the deck of the destroyer by the funnel. Now, that's about as close a hit as you can possibly get

without actually striking. And then, you know, they're busy searching for these German S-boats. So they clearly disappeared from view. And these two S-boats decide, you know, we fired off the torpedoes. We've done the job. We're going home. Because these are hit and run tactics. They know that if they are still at work on the sea as dawn breaks,

fighter aircraft are going to come out of the sky and they're going to be raining hell in their direction that's without the destroyers actually coming looking for them which is another thing that they're thinking about two other s boats s-140 and s-142 they press deeper on into lime bay and sure enough they encounter a group of invasion craft. And they begin to fire off torpedoes. And then they get absolutely mystified in that they're firing these torpedoes off and there's no result. And so mystified are they that they actually come together in mid-channel to say what's going on. And at that point, there appears to be a conversation and a realization that what they're shooting at are not actually landing ships. They're shooting at landing barges, part of a convoy, which is behind the T4 convoy, which is composed of landing barges, which are so shallow draft because they're meant to be landed on the

beach that the torpedoes are simply passing underneath and as they're in the middle of this conversation they then begin to see further to the east what looks to be the silhouettes of larger vessels now by this stage they fight off all the torpedoes but they go off in pursuit and when they realize that hey we're dealing with a larger target here, they then begin to open up with their machine guns. Their purpose is not to try and sink these tank landing ships. It's just not going to happen. But their goal is to alert the last group of S-boats, the group of three, which do have torpedoes on, and they're going to guide them to the target using tracer fire so about 1 30 they are opening fire on this t4 convoy and of course general call to sounds all hell is broken loose you name it and if you look at the logs of ships all the way across line bay you can see them noting you know hey we've seen tracer fire in the air we've seen star shell what's going on some of them conclude it's just part of the exercise it's

just you know a way of toughening us up but the guys are on the tank landing ships on t4 they're very very well aware now sometime after 1 30 after fire has been opened s-140 and s-142 torpedoes exhausted know that by this stage the three remaining s-boats will have seen their tracer fire will know what they're shooting at and they decide right our job's done our job now is to get back to sherbrooke and they leave the scene which then leaves the three S boats which have still got torpedoes to come into the attack and it's their torpedoes that do the job of sinking two of those tank landing ships and badly damaging a third. They stick around for a little while so the action is really taking place S-140 and S-142 they open fire at about 1.30 by just after two o'clock the first torpedo is on its

way towards the tank landing ships from the three remaining S-boats so we end up with this substantial loss of life the remaining landing ships they turn away from the source of the danger the s boats are cutting in between them they're firing at them with cannon fire there's torpedoes which are being near missed in terms of the tank landing ships and they basically put their sterns towards the danger and basically head inland they're trying to get deeper into line bay to try and get away from a scene of devastation as you've got two tank landing ships which are now blazing and the whole area is being lit up and really by about 2 30 you've got this sense that the germans think okay our business here is largely done and they're going to depart the scene because the whole area is now being lit up there are destroyers coming at them from Portsmouth support

groups being sent from Portsmouth from Plymouth and indeed there are forces closing in on them at the same time they realize aircraft are probably on the way and they're after us too so their job is to get south and get away from the scene of the action. One of the tank landing ships, ultimately, when it realizes that the Germans have gone, LST 515, the senior officer actually turns the ship around and brings it back to the sinking site and begins to rescue guys from the water, even though this was really against regulations. This was not supposed to happen.

So he basically breaks orders and turns around and begins to rescue people from the water. But by this stage in the water, you have literally hundreds of men, many of whom have succumbed to hypothermia. These tank landing ships, when they've gone up, they're carrying ammunition, they're carrying fuel, they're blazing like Roman candles. And you can imagine what that's actually done to some of the casualties who've been forced to jump over the side. So LST 515 finds a scene of absolute devastation when it returns to the sinking site.

And, you know, I've spoken to some of the people who actually went through that process of, you know, one guy, and I won't give his name for obvious reasons. You know, he told me he hadn't thought about these memories for literally decades, but he was able to tell me literally as we sat having a cup of coffee at Slapton, what it was like being in the water following the sinking of his ship. And this sense of, you know, my fingers are getting cold. My feet are getting cold. All around me are my friends and it's starting to go quiet.

They're starting to go quiet, and I'm kind of very, very aware of being very cold in a very big sea under a very big sky. And eventually he loses consciousness until actually he wakes up. He literally wakes up in a pile of bodies on board LST 515. They thought that he'd actually gone, but fortunately he hadn't. So this is a scene of absolute horror. And from there, LST 515 with a cargo of casualties on board, the dead, the dying, the seriously injured, get to make her way around as quickly as she can to Portland while those S-boats are fleeing to the south. But this isn't quite the end of our story. This is where it gets kind of something even bigger could have taken place that night. A few months ago, I was contacted

by a chap whose father had been on LSTs in the European theatre during the Second World War. And he said, hey, I think my dad knew something about Exercise Tiger. And over the years, historians like me have heard a lot of, well, great uncle so-and-so knew something. And we said, well, what did uncle so-and-so know? And he said, well, he never really said, and now he's gone, so we can't find out. But this guy actually said, you know, my dad's unfortunately gone. My father's passed's passed away but i do have the log i do have the log for his lst so he's like okay that's kind of interesting and when i began to plot his father's ship's movement his father's

lst had been at sea that night and had passed to the south of the sinking shortly after the t4 convoy had been attacked so naturally i begin to get you know this is quite fascinating and working with him working with him we were able to piece together what had happened that night against an even bigger canvas in that that night in addition to the hundreds of ships roaming around lime bay you've got elements of force o for omaha beach which are also at sea that night making a move towards portland now this guy's father ship lst 51 was also part of a convoy of lsts which were proceeding around from Falmouth to Portland carrying equipment for use on Omaha Beach. Now they are being routed much deeper into the channel to make their transit because so busy

is Lime Bay. So quite literally as the action is beginning to take place in L bay this guy's father's convoy is rounding start point and coming into the mid-channel and literally it passes to the south of where the t4 convoy had taken place and using the ship's logs of that convoy what we see is that the three german S-boats, which had hit the T4 convoy, who are now making their escape to the south, with destroyers coming at them from east and west, suddenly finds itself confronted with another LST convoy. This time, what they call the Obstacle Convoy. This was the code name given to it and it appears on radar logs

and all hell absolutely breaks loose because just as it cites the obstacle convoy two o-class destroyers also come onto the scene and begin shooting now seemingly they didn't know anything about the obstacle convoy coming around from Falmouth because their job is exercise Tiger force you. So they begin to fire at the Germans and their fire is actually going over the LSTs of the obstacle convoy. And the Germans are watching this and thinking, oh, my God, you know, this is kind of like apocalyptic in terms of the British seem to be blazing away at absolutely everything. And when one of the American escorts realises they're in danger of being shot up, recognition lights are put on, the Royal Navy destroyers cease their fire and the S-boats slip between the ships of the obstacle convoy

and away to Cherbourg and to breakfast and safety. So in other words, that night something even bigger could have happened. Now, I don't know, the information isn't clear, whether or not that group of German S-boats, having shot up the T4 convoy, had actually got torpedoes on board, which they could, if the Royal Navy hadn't have turned up have said hang on a minute we can have a second helping here so instead of actually maybe 749 lives lost instead of two lsts destroyed and one critically damaged you might have had an even bigger casualty list that night with potentially quite far-reaching effects in terms of the impact on allied morale

and allied thought in terms of the forthcoming invasion so the t4 convoy events are fairly well known but the second convoy what we call the obstacle convoy has literally only come to light in the past few months as a result of somebody saying, Dad knew something about Exercise Tiger, and here's the log, and it's the logs of that convoy, LSTs plus patrol craft. When you correlate them with the British logs and the German logs, suddenly it all makes sense. So that what we might describe as the tragedy of Exercise Tiger becomes a sea air battle raging across the English channel involving hundreds of ships taking place over two or three hours and as one YouTuber commented you know really

she'd be calling this the Battle of Lime Bay and I think that is a more apt description. With so much chaos mayhem and confusion going on at this point surely exercise tiger is then brought to an end and ships return back yeah i mean that's effectively it you've literally got a foreshortening of the exercise they're going to try and very quickly recover from the situation that they're in so the exercise comes to an end they've got to begin to calculate what's gone on and especially the kind of potential intelligence impacts now what they're particularly worried about is did the germans actually hang around to fish anybody out of the water who they might subsequently have interrogated now there are individuals on those lsts that go down that know at least part of the D-Day story.

So they're very, very concerned about what the Germans might gain from the interrogation. But actually, by this stage, the German way of operating is simply hit and run. So they're not going to hang around and fish people out of the water. So fortunately, that one kind of passes away in terms of, okay, we probably don't need to think about that. They're also trying to learn all the lessons about, well, we had some pretty big failures here, folks. How do we learn the lessons of that? And then there's also the issue as well, because most of the kind of work of those people who've looked at exercise tigers focused on allied failings but the americans

and british are also sort of thinking i'm going a minute credit where credit's due you know the germans have struck us quite an important blow here now the americans in particular are thinking why if that happens on d-day what if instead of lsts they hit a troop ship instead of having a few hundred casualties we have these things coming at us literally trying to overwhelm our defenses the equivalent of sort of analog swarm attacks by drones almost what's going to happen so the americans in particular are really quite worried by this and indeed the american historian j Foster Tent has documented very ably that the Americans are so rattled by this

that at one point they come up with this scheme that they push to the British. We've got to take these S-boats out before D-Day. These things could imperil D-Day. The American plan is we're going to use the old battleship Nevada and we're basically going to head it towards Cherbourg before D-Day. And we're going to let the old battleship Nevada. And we're basically going to head towards Cherbourg before D-Day. And we're going to let us sit off the coast and try and bomb hell out of the bunker in which these S-boats are parked and protected so that that threat is neutralized.

Now, the British, in effect, turn around in absolute horror and say, if you do that, you might as well send the Führer a telegram to say, we're coming, here we are. It's such a big giveaway about what's going to take place. So that, you know, Bertram Ramsey, he's one of the ones who's instrumental as sort of head of the D-Day landings in actually saying to the Americans, look, what's happened with Tiger is terrible. We think we've got the countermeasures. We think we can protect and nullify that threat on D-Day. And ultimately, the British have proved correct. But the Americans in particular are very, very sensitized by this S-boat threat. And I do wonder the extent to which American naval forces arriving in the European theatre were really aware of just how deadly these S-boats were.

I mean, I well remember speaking to a couple of gunners who had been part of the T4 convoy, who on seeing S-130, the last surviving German Schnell boat of the Second World War, which took part in the attack on the T4 convoy. And she's now being restored in Britain. On seeing, you know, this boat for the first time, their eyes go wide. It's like, my God, is that what was hunting us that night? They had no idea of the size, the speed, and the firepower of what was coming at them. And, you know, to talk to a couple of these gunners,

they were just amazed at the threat that was facing them. Even though they were on, you know, 40mm guns, which would have been quite capable of actually dealing an S-boat a hell of a lot of damage, they were really quite shocked that what was coming at them that night was as deadly as it was. So I just wonder the extent to which the Americans were, you know, quite shocked that what was coming at them that night was as deadly as it was. So I just wonder the extent to which the Americans were, you know, keyed in on the U-boat threat, sure.

But the idea that the Germans have got these like fast motor torpedo boats that are pretty deadly, whether or not they were sufficiently alive to that threat, I think is an interesting one. Some things just take too long. A meeting that could have been an email, someone explaining crypto, or switching mobile providers. Except with Fizz. Switching to Fizz is quick and easy. Mobile plans start at $17 a month. Certain conditions apply. Details at fizz.ca. Land a Viking longship on island shores. scramble over the dunes of ancient Egypt and avoid the Poisoner's Cup in Renaissance Florence. Each week on Echoes of History, we uncover the epic stories that inspire Assassin's Creed.

We're stepping into feudal Japan in our special series Chasing Shadows, where samurai warlords and shinobi spies teach us the tactics and skills needed not only to survive but to conquer whether you're preparing for assassin's creed shadows or fascinated by history and great stories listen to echoes of history a ubisoft podcast brought to you by history hits there are new episodes every week yeah it's an interesting aspect to consider the intelligence gaps or intelligence failures there but it also kind of makes us reconsider the extent to which the germans were defeated at that point it's so easy as historians or those who love history to look back and think the d-day landings were a given it was always going to be making our way off the beaches and inland and victory was assured. But the Germans most definitely still had some fight left in them. Well, you think about the damage that those

nine motor torpedo boats were able to affect. You also think about the extent of German mine warfare as well. This is one of the things that really doesn't come through into the narrative of, well, popular narratives of D-Day. The trouble that the British and the Americans had off the Normandy coast with the kind of oyster mine, the acoustic mines and others that the Germans put in the water following D-Day was massive. that the Germans put in the water following D-Day was massive. The British and Americans were losing ships. They were having ships damaged. So you begin to put together a scenario where actually the Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe could have done a rather better job on D-Day. You know, if the mines had been in the right place at the right time, if they'd have had enough of these motor torpedo boats to actually begin

to try and swamp Allied defences, if they'd have had enough of these motor torpedo boats to actually begin to try and swamp Allied defences, if they'd been willing to press the attack to almost suicidal range and actually say, you know, look, this is it. This is the war for us in a sense. This is the day of decision. Then maybe the German army would have had an even better chance of stopping the invasion at the water's edge on the 6th of June 1944. You know, you think about how close-run things were on Omaha Beach. You don't need too many lucky torpedo shots to actually then begin to sort of turn the balance even more firmly, perhaps, towards the German side. Well, Harry, I think that that is a good point to draw this

to a close. You've given us some food for thought there as we approach D-Day. And we're going to have a series of episodes through the week that take us through those events. And this will most certainly be in our mind about what could have happened and what did happen during Exercise Tiger. Where can people read more about this? That's kind of an interesting one. I mean, there's a lot of works out there. There's a lot of works out there. They're quite variable in their nature. Some of them go down the conspiracy theory lines. And Exercise Tiger has literally become its own publishing industry. I mean, the number of documentaries which have appeared on Exercise Tiger is something else. So I won't give any specific recommendations. I will simply say that viewer and reader discretion is required because, as it were, this topic has achieved something of a life of its own. People want to emote about the subject, and it is an emotional subject. But as it were, there are some proper approaches from a historical point of view to take towards this incident to actually really begin to learn its lessons.

And to do justice to those individuals who lost their lives in late April 1944. We must never forget these people died in action against the enemy. You know, it was a training exercise, but ultimately they died in action against the enemy. You know, it was a training exercise, but ultimately they died in action against the enemy. So the one thing I would say is if you're passing, do come down to South Devon and look at the Slapton Sands training area and go up to North Devon and look at the old assault training centre. They're really quite fascinating areas steeped in history.

Well, that sounds like it's one for the list this summer. Thank you so much, Harry. You know you're always welcome on the Warfare podcast. Thank you very much. Bye-bye. I feel the hand of history upon our shoulders. All this tradition of ours, our school history, our songs, this part of the history of our country, all were gone and finished. This part of the history of our country, all work out and finish. Thank you for listening to this episode of Warfare Podcast from History Hit.

There are plenty of episodes of Warfare and wonderful new material to come. If you head to wherever you get your pods and subscribe to Warfare. Some things just take too long. A meeting that could have been an email, someone explaining crypto, or switching mobile providers. Except with Fizz. Switching to Fizz is quick and easy. Mobile plans start at $17 a month. Certain conditions apply. Details at fizz.ca. you