SX8242 : American Memorial, Torcross
taken 16 years ago, near to Torcross, Devon, Great Britain
Slapton sands forms a bar along the coastline enclosing a freshwater lagoon, the Ley. The whole area is a National Nature Reserve and SSSI, which is managed by the Field Study Centre in Slapton. More information at Link
The bar was formed by a rise in sea level pushing a beach onshore and not by Longshore Drift.
During WWII the area was evacuated and used to practise the D-Day landings. There is a memorial to those who died here SX8242 : American Memorial, Torcross.
Torcross is a small village, on the A379, at the southern end of Slapton Sands. The village has a range of services catering for both locals and tourists.
Link
In late 1943 Torcross was evacuated, along with many other villages in the South Hams area, to make way for 15,000 allied troops who needed the area to practise for the D-Day landings. In the early hours of 28 April 1944 a tragic incident happened during Exercise Tiger: nine German torpedo boats, alerted by heavy radio traffic, intercepted a three-mile-long convoy of vessels travelling from the Isle of Portland to Slapton Sands to undertake landing rehearsals for D Day. Two Tank landing ships were sunk in the engagement and 749 American servicemen died. Poor communications led to badly-timed shelling on the beach, killing about 300 more men. Over 1,000 lives were lost over the course of the operation. A Sherman amphibious tank and several plaques stand at Torcross car park between Slapton Ley and the beach as memorials to the men who lost their lives. The operation to salvage the tank from the shallow waters of Start Bay was financed by Ken Small, a Torcross hotelier, and was completed in 1984.