Posted on 02/23/2009 7:16:50 AM PST by BGHater
It was the practise run which would lead to the liberation of Europe from the tyranny of Hitler's Nazi empire. And it took place in Devon.
Secret footage of U.S. soldiers training alongside British troops for D-Day in South-West England have been unearthed from a dusty archive and seen for the first time in 65 years.
The 38 reels - lasting ten minutes each - show a variety of images including tanks rolling across beaches and soldiers wading through waves. In another sequence, troops are lined up in make-shift landing barges.
Wartime leaders Winston Churchill and Dwight Eisenhower are also seen inspecting troops and remarkably there is footage of Russian military staff observing the manoeuvres.
They, as part of the Allies lined up against the Axis powers, were part of the Soviet military mission observing training.
Tony Koorlander, who found the film, believes he is the first person in 65 years to have seen the images which have lain undiscovered in a Baltimore archive since the end of the war.
Quite when the images were taken is not clear but they are believed to be between October 1943 and June 1944 when the invasion took place.
The footage of the Russians, however, is clearly dated as February 1944.
Mr Koorlander's journey of discovery began when he started researching the wartime connections of his hometown of Bideford, Devon.
The former technical coordinator for BBC TV news worked with actor Joss Ackland on a promotional video for the project when the team suggested he looked into World War II connections with North Devon.
Initial inquiries drew a blank, but one evening while watching a war film with his son, Tony recognised the background scenes as North Devon.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
My father participated in the practice landing. He vividly remembers seeing a huge plume of black smoke in the distance and thinking they were going to great lengths to make it seem real. He later found out it was real as a German PT boat had penetrated the practice area and torpedoed a ship. Several hundred military personnel were killed.
I don’t recall any details of when and where, but there was another landing exercise which went horribly wrong, drowning thousands.
I think you all are referring to the disaster at Slapton Sands, UK.
Others will no doubt join in. Here's a snippet from Disaster at Slapton Sands - april 27, 1944: Two WW II veterans and survivors of the disaster has recently been able to visit the spot in the Channel where 946 American servicemen, have died the 27th of april 1944 in Devon, at the south coast of England, in a last exercice for the preparation for the landings in Normandy.
Slapton Sands, April ‘44 sounds familiar.
Thanks for this link.
We were in Devon 12 years ago, and we heard some rumors about this. It was odd that the great and open people of Devon were basically mute about this.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exercise_Tiger
IIRC, that left the invasion a bit ‘short’ on the number of LST’s required for the REAL landings. I believe they had to re-jigger the TO&E for the invasion force.
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Thanks BGHater. |
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