Today in military history: Germans ambush allies during secret Normandy landings practice

On April 28, 1944, German E-boats ambushed allied forces during a secret dress rehearsal for the historic Normandy landings called “Exercise Tiger.” 

Exercise Tiger was one of the largest scale training operations for the D-Day invasion, and for obvious reasons, it was a major hush-hush operation.

Still, nine German E-boats caught sight of the exercise in the early morning hours of April 28th and opened fire. 

They attacked a convoy of eight large tank landing ships, or LSTs, the vessels the allies would use to deliver vehicles and landing troops on D-Day. Only one of the two ships assigned to protect the convoy was present. The other was undergoing repairs.

The German E-Boats attacked four LSTs before they were driven away. 749 allied servicemen were killed in the attack. For perspective, only 197 servicemen were killed on Utah Beach during the actual D-Day landing. 

Additionally, ten officers involved in the exercise had intimate knowledge of the D-Day plan, but luckily, none were captured by the Germans.

Despite the tragic loss of life, many historians believe that lessons learned from the surprise ambush at Exercise Tiger contributed to the eventual success of the June 6th D-Day landing.

Team Mighty is a combination of some of our best voices. Team Mighty includes past and current editorial team members with such expertise as intelligence, Special Operations, all things tactical, aviation, military culture and history.

While Team Mighty is an amalgamation of people, everyone on Team Mighty is human. While we love robots and acknowledge their place in society (looking at you, Roomba), AI functionality is never used in articles on We Are The Mighty. Team Mighty upholds journalistic integrity and you can find our Editorial Guidelines in their entirety, here.  


Learn more about WeAreTheMighty.com Editorial Standards