Little-known World War II exercise marked in New Bedford 80 years later

NEW BEDFORD, MASS. (WJAR) — Mostly-unknown members of the US military were remembered and honored Sunday in New Bedford. The Fort Taber-Fort Rodman Historical Association marked the anniversary of Exercise Tiger.

It took place 80 years ago, to the day, in England. Designed as a dress rehearsal for the D-Day invasion, it went tragically wrong with 749 heroic service members lost.

According to Bill Niedzwiedz, president of the Fort Taber-Fort Rodman Historical Association, the main reason Exercise Tiger is so little known is that it was classified for years. It took place at Slapton Sands, an English beach that strongly resembled the French beaches invaded by the Allies on June 6, 1944.

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Niedzwiedz said one reason the exercise was kept secret was that three of the officers who died had plans of the D-Day invasion on them. While they were eventually found and the plans recovered, strict secrecy was enacted because of the pending invasion – which turned the tide of the war in Europe – and afterwards very little word of the operation was reported.

Among things that went wrong, said Niedzwiedz, was that many soldiers drowned because they didn’t know how to put on their life vests. As a result, life-vest training was implemented before D-Day.

While “friendly fire” also claimed some Allied lives at Exercise Tiger, Allied forces were also fired upon by German E-Boats because of intercepted radio transmissions among the Americans, Canadians, ANZAC and British taking part.

According to historians, lessons learned through failures in Exercise Tiger resulted in changes to the battle plan for D-Day, believed to have saved many Allied lives.