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Devon war memorial beach4/9/2024 ![]() Just up the road from here is the local convenience store, where you can buy bags of special bird feed for the ducks. ![]() There are fears that this strip is slowly being eroded by the tide, and should the Ley be breached salt water would flood it and ruin it’s unique eco-system.Īside from the various wildlife in the lake itself, the shores attract a plethora of our feathered friends. It’s fascinating that it still has this distinction, as all that stands between the lake and the saltwater sea off the coast is a narrow strip of land which the main road (A379) runs along, along with a small portion of beach. Together the two halves form a lake, which also happens to be the largest freshwater lake in the South West. You might have noticed the large body of water sat behind the Tank and it’s associated memorials? This is called the “Lower Ley” which forms the Western half of Slapton Ley, which stretches 1.5 miles to the next village across, Slapton, where the “Higher Ley” is located. This memorial is a small replica of the version featured in Caen, and as the plaque next to it states has been put here to commemorate the locals who had to evacuate and leave their land whilst the D-Day preparations were under way. South Hams District Council contributed to the Caen International Commemorative Garden which remembers the Normandy Landings and all those who sacrificed their lives during the operation. The local district which covers Torcross, Slapton and Dartmouth etc is called South Hams. The tank was on one of the landing craft involved in the operation and subsequently sunk.Ī 3rd memorial is also located here, and is shown above. Ken sadly passed away in 2004, but he shall always be remembered for uncovering the fate of the soldiers that day, as his research into why the tank was out there brought the forgotten information to light. Ken then contacted the Americans to get them to put their own official monument next to the tank, and in 1987 a US delegation unveiled a plaque next to one Ken put up by the tank. It was cleaned up and put on permanent display as a memorial to Exercise Tiger and the brave soldiers who trained on the beach that day. A man named Ken Small bought the tank off the Americans, as it was one of their Sherman Tanks, and eventually had it hauled up from the bottom of the sea. The tank was one of the pieces of equipment used in the preparations, and it was found in 1984, almost a mile off the coast from the beach. ![]() ![]() The operation was known as Exercise Tiger, and was hushed up for the remainder of the war. A communication error however led to the troops arriving at the same time as the shelling and 300 soldiers were killed, resulting in a total of 1000 deaths in boths tragedies during that day. The idea was they were to land whilst the beach was being shelled to harden the troops to conditions they would face in Normandy. Later that same fateful day, the surviving boats in the convoy arrived at Torcross and nearby Slapton Sands, to complete their original exercise. Tragically 749 British & American soldiers lost their lives, but that wasn’t the only incident to befall the troops here. Sadly, the Germans also turned up, and on April 28th 1944, a group of U-Boats detected the high amount of radio transmissions related to the practice, and torpedoed part of a convey on route to Torcross and neighbouring Slapton Sands, from the Isle of Portland in Dorset. Troops and equipment from the UK, USA and other nations trained here, preparing to liberate the rest of Europe from the Nazi menace. In 1943, over 15,000 allied troops descended on the coast here to practice for the Normandy Landings in France. The legacy of the US Army activities during World War II can be seen in our landscape – you’ll find practise pillboxes, replica landing craft made of concrete and blast walls scarred with bullet holes hidden among the dunes.We arrived in a car park next to the imposing figure of the Torcross Tank, a legacy of the importance this area of Devon played during the D-Day landings. As it turned out, this stretch of coastline closely resembled the Normandy beaches and was the perfect practice ground to perfect beach invasions. Troops were stationed in North Devon to prepare for the D-Day landings and training operations took place along the coastline between Northam Burrows and Woolacombe. Paul W Thomson, Brigadier General, US Army ‘If Wa terloo was won on the playing fields of Eton, surely the sands of North Devon beaches contributed importantly to the success of the assault over the Normandy beaches.’ ![]()
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