January 3, 2014 by reglittle1927

When America joined the 1939-45 World War in 1941, Eisenhower and Churchill started to plan the eventual invasion of Europe against the German Nazis. Interestingly, Eisenhower first met Churchill in Tetbury – the town where my son now lives in the Cotswolds – to plan the invasion !

The UK began to fill with American troops and the American Army sequestrated an area of coastline (stretching inland about 4 miles) in South Devon that resembled where they might end up in Normandy, with the purposes of rehearsing the invasion. This all took place just 4 or 5 miles from Dartmouth where I was living as a young man. But the local people knew nothing about what was going on just a few miles away…..it was all kept as secret and this was astonishing given that the US Army walked in and cleared the area of all residents – farms, cottages etc in the villages of Slapton and Torcross.

Many American soldiers were sadly killed and injured in the live fire exercises and the troops never knew if they were on a “dry run” or if it was the real thing. Each night the landing craft left the beach and circled Lyme Bay then came back and the troops landed on Torcross Beach as if it was an invasion. Sadly one night, after Lyme Bay was supposed to have “swept”, somehow some German U-Boats got into the area and sunk several landing craft with the loss of about 700 men – this only came to light in the 1970s as it was thought not to be good publicity that these troops were lost as a result of a mess up and not in warfare.

After the war in the 1950s, we used to go to Torcross and Slapton sands to swim and they were always uncovering mines and unexploded ordinance. Imagine being allowed to visit such a place for recreational enjoyment today !

In the 1980s, they even discovered and old Sherman Tank which is now on display in the car park at Torcross.

Reg Little
2nd January 2014