Editing Exercise Tiger (section)

===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/>