The 749 servicemen were torpedoed by German E-boats in April 1944 during Exercise Tiger, a practice for the Normandy invasion. News of the horrific attack off Slapton Sands, South Devon, was kept secret amid fears the Germans would realise the exercise had been a rehearsal for D-Day, five weeks later. Today a poignant 54-yard memorial made up of 749 pairs of bootprints installed by the charity There But Not There, will be unveiled.

Those men did not die in vain

Woody Johnson

US ambassador to Britain Woody Johnson said: “For a long time, many people had no idea that so many hundreds of American servicemen lost their lives on the coast of Slapton Sands.

“Those men did not die in vain. Their sacrifices paved the way for their comrades to succeed on the beaches of Normandy and begin the liberation of Europe from Nazi tyranny.” Slapton, with its steep shingle beaches, was picked for the exercise because it resembled the Utah invasion beach in Normandy.

Eight ships full of troops and military gear gathered in nearby Lyme Bay early on April 28, 1944. But they were spotted by a group of fast-attack E-Boats, which torpedoed the convoy.

Among the dead was newlywed Sergeant Louis Archer Bolton, 19, from Iowa, whose platoon of 19 men were to be in charge of burying D-Day’s Utah beach dead. His niece Laurie Bolton who will be at today’s event, said: “Only five men from his platoon survived. I was born on his birthday eight years after he died.”

Pam Wills, who lived near Slapton Sands and was 10 during Exercise Tiger, will also be at the unveiling. She said: “The US soldiers came over and talked to us, they gave us sweets and comics but they then suddenly disappeared.

“We didn’t know Exercise Tiger had taken place but my father, who was in the Royal Observer Corps watching for enemy aircraft, saw ambulances going to and from Slapton Sands, so we knew something was wrong.

“It was a terrible event.” The bootprints were made by artist Martin Barraud, who was also behind There But Not There’s campaign to mark the centenary of the end of the First World War.

Commemorative bootprint plaques made by ex-service members cost £29.99 and money raised will go towards veteran employment projects.

Each plaque represents one of the 22,763 British and Commonwealth service members killed on D-Day and during the Normandy invasion.

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