Editing Exercise Tiger (section)

==Aftermath==
===Operational consequences===
[[Alan Goodrich Kirk|Vice Admiral Kirk]] of the US Navy immediately realised the huge damage E-boats could inflict on slow-moving landing craft with minimal defences and feared that the German success in Lyme Bay could be repeated on D-day, with disastrous consequences. On 4 May 1944 he sent a signal to [[Bertram Ramsay|Admiral Ramsay]] of the Royal Navy arguing for heavy aerial and naval bombardment of Cherbourg:
{{Blockquote|text=In my opinion the E-boats must be destroyed or driven from the Cherbourg area, prior to D-day. The only successful defense against the E-boat is to sink it before it can reach an attack position.|author=Vice Admiral Kirk{{sfn|Simpson|2021|p=222}}}}

===Other consequences===
The attack was reported up the chain of command to [[Dwight D. Eisenhower]] on 29 April. Eisenhower was enraged that the convoy was sailing in a straight line and not zig-zagging, that the attack reduced reserves of LSTs, that it indicated to the Germans that the Allies were nearly ready to invade, and that ten American officers with knowledge of the invasion were missing. Each had [[BIGOT list|BIGOT-level]] clearance for [[D-Day]], giving them knowledge that could have compromised the invasion should they have been captured alive. As a result, D-day was nearly called off while Ike’s order to find the missing bodies and any incriminating papers they might have had was carried out. All ten were recovered.{{sfn|Small|Rogerson|1988}} 

The ten American officers were from the 1st Engineer Special Brigade; they knew when and where the Utah and Omaha landings were to take place, and had seen the amphibious [[DUKW]]s that were to take the [[Provisional Ranger Group|Rangers]] to below [[Pointe du Hoc]].{{sfn|Happer|2019|pages=58–60}} Merely knowing that exercises were taking place at Slapton was of interest to the Germans; the historian [[Stephen E. Ambrose|Stephen Ambrose]] suggests that the insistence in May by Hitler that the Normandy area be reinforced was because "he noticed the similarity between Slapton Sands and the Cotentin beach".{{sfn|Ambrose|1994|p=86}}

There were reports that E-boats were nosing through the wreckage for information with searchlights or torches. The shore batteries around nearby Salcombe Harbour had visually spotted unidentified small craft, but were ordered not to fire on them as it would have shown the Germans that the harbour was defended and disclosed the battery position.{{sfn|Margaritis|2019|pages=367-369}}

As a result of official embarrassment and concerns over potential leaks just prior to the real invasion, all survivors were sworn to secrecy about the events by their superiors. There is little information about exactly how individual soldiers and sailors died. The US Department of Defense stated in 1988 that record-keeping may have been inadequate aboard some of the ships, and the most pertinent log books were lost at sea.{{sfn|Lewis|1990|p=220}} A ninth LST ({{USS|LST-508||2}}) was scheduled to be in the convoy, but was damaged. Author Nigel Lewis speculates that some or all of its infantrymen may have been aboard ''LST 507'' when it went down.{{sfn|Lewis|1990|pages=232–233}} Various eyewitness accounts detail hasty treatment of casualties and rumours circulated of unmarked mass graves in Devon fields.{{sfn|Small|Rogerson|1988}}

Several changes resulted from mistakes made in Exercise Tiger:
# Radio frequencies were standardised; ''Azalea'' and ''Scimitar'' were late and out of position due to radio problems, and a signal about the E-boats' presence was not picked up by the LSTs.
# Better [[lifejacket]] training was provided for landing troops
# Plans were made for small craft to pick up floating survivors on D-Day.

Official histories contain little information about the tragedy. Some commentators have called it a [[cover-up]], but protecting the secrecy of the Normandy landings was paramount, and the urgencies created by the invasion spread non-critical resources thin. In his book ''The Forgotten Dead: Why 946 American Servicemen Died Off The Coast Of Devon In 1944 – And The Man Who Discovered Their True Story'', published in 1988, Ken Small declares that the event "was never covered up; it was 'conveniently forgotten'".{{sfn|Small|Rogerson|1988}}

The casualty statistics from Tiger were not released by [[Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force]] (SHAEF) until August 1944, along with the casualties of the actual D-Day landings. This report stated that there were 442 army dead and 197 navy, for a total of 639.{{sfn|Lewis|1990|p=228}} (However, Moon had reported on 30 April that there were 749 dead.{{sfn|Lewis|1990|p=227}}) [[Charles B. MacDonald]], author and former deputy chief historian at the [[U.S. Army Center of Military History]], notes that information from the SHAEF press release appeared in the August issue of ''[[Stars and Stripes (newspaper)|Stars and Stripes]]''. MacDonald surmises that the press release went largely unnoticed in light of the larger events that were occurring at the time.<ref name=MacDonald-1988/> The story was detailed in at least three books at the end of the war, including [[Captain (United States O-6)|Captain]] [[Harry C. Butcher]]'s ''My Three Years With Eisenhower'' (1946),{{sfn|Butcher|1946|pages=[https://archive.org/details/mythreeyearswit00butc/page/528 528]–535}} and in several publications and speeches.<ref name=MacDonald-1988/>

===Memorials===
[[File:Sherman tank at memorial for those killed in Operation Tiger.JPG|thumb|Sherman DD tank at the [[Torcross]] memorial]]
Devon resident and civilian Ken Small took on the task of seeking to commemorate the event, after discovering evidence of the aftermath washed up on the shore while [[beachcombing]] in the early 1970s.<ref>{{cite web |last=Jones |first=Claire |date=30 May 2014 |title=The D-Day rehearsal that cost 800 lives |publisher=[[BBC News]] |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-devon-27185893 |access-date=6 August 2016}}</ref>

In 1974, Small bought from the U.S. Government the rights to a submerged tank from the [[70th Tank Battalion (United States)|70th Tank Battalion]] discovered in his search. In 1984, with the aid of local residents and diving firms, he raised the tank, which now stands as a memorial to the incident. The local authority provided a [[plinth]] on the seafront to put the tank on, and erected a plaque in memory of the men killed. The American military honoured and supported him.

The Slapton Sands memorial plaque reads:
{{Blockquote|text=Dedicated by the United States of America in honor of the men of the US Army's 1st Engineer Special Brigade, the 4th Infantry Division, and the VII Corps Headquarters; and the US Navy's 11th Amphibious Force who perished in the waters of Lyme Bay during the early hours of April 28, 1944.}}

A plaque was erected in 1995 at [[Arlington National Cemetery]] entitled "Exercise Tiger Memorial". In 1997, the Exercise Tiger Association established a memorial to veterans of the exercise in [[Mexico, Missouri]].<ref>{{cite web |title=Memorials to Exercise Tiger |website=United States Exercise Tiger Foundation |url=http://www.exercisetiger.org/exercise-tiger-memorials.html |access-date=6 August 2016}}</ref> It is a 5,000-pound stern anchor from an LST of the [[USS Suffolk County (LST-1173)|Suffolk County Class]] on permanent loan from the Navy. In 2006, the non-profit  Sands Memorial Tank Limited established a more prominent memorial listing the names of all the victims of the attacks on Exercise Tiger.<ref>{{cite web |last=Casson |first=John |title=Exercise Tiger Remembered |website=Exercise Tiger Memorial.co.uk |url=https://exercisetigermemorial.co.uk/honoured-dead |access-date=6 August 2016}}</ref>

In 2012, a memorial plaque was erected at [[Utah Beach]], [[Normandy]], on the wall of a former German anti-aircraft bunker. 

An [[M4 Sherman tank]] stands as a memorial to Exercise Tiger at [[Fort Rodman]] Park in [[New Bedford, Massachusetts]].

In 2019, the US servicemen who died in the exercise were remembered in an art installation by artist Martin Barraud. Bootprints of 749 troops were laid out on Slapton Sands to mark the 75th anniversary of Exercise Tiger. Commemorative bootprints and special plaques made by veterans to represent each of the 22,763 British and Commonwealth servicemen and women who were killed on D-Day and during the Battle of Normandy in the summer of 1944 were sold. Barraud said:
{{Blockquote|text=Our enduring hope is that every one of the US, British and Commonwealth soldiers, sailors and airmen who gave their lives will have a bootprint purchased in their memory.<ref>{{cite web |date=28 April 2019 |title=Exercise Tiger: Bootprints mark D-Day disaster 75th anniversary |publisher=BBC News |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-48082397 |access-date=5 July 2022}}</ref>}}