My Uncle and the Hidden Tragedy of WWII
By: Evamarie Augustine
Tags: D Day, History, War, World War II, Normandy

I fondly recall my Mom speaking of her favorite brother Joseph, nicknamed Lefty. My Mom, one of six children, lost her mother when she was three, and her elder siblings helped raise her.

But my Mom did not have many years with Lefty. Despite being blind in one eye, Joseph Henry Frank enlisted in the military in 1942. Similar to many other young men at the time, he was eager to fight for his country.

The last time my Mom saw her brother was when he left for training. Stationed in the UK as a US Army quartermaster, he would often write to his little sister.

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I recall my Mom saying that one day they stopped receiving letters from Lefty—then they received notification that he was missing in action.

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In August, they received notification that he was killed in action. Four years later, another communication came, revealing nothing of how he died.

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He would receive a Purple Heart for dying in the line of duty, sacrificing his life for our freedom. My mother held onto that medal, along with memories of her beloved brother.

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My Mom passed away in 1999, the last of her siblings. Searching for my roots, I became curious about my ancestors and spent a good part of my days on a quest for knowledge.

One day my attention turned to my Uncle Joseph. How did he die, and why did he receive a Purple Heart? I sent a request to obtain his military records.

The more I read, the more the circumstances didn’t make sense. There were no major battles of any kind, around the English Channel, on or around that date. How did a quartermaster, blind in one eye, get killed in the line of duty?

I began to dig further, even using the service “Just Ask” to find out if there was a battle in the area around the UK on that date.

I received a swift and surprising reply—the day of my Uncle’s death coincided with Operation Tiger.

The Hidden Tragedy of Operation Tiger

In 1944, the US and Allied Forces were in preparation to invade Nazi-held Western Europe. Exercises for the invasion were of the utmost secrecy. In the days without drones, internet, and other cyber-surveillance, a large-scale military exercise was underway. The exercises were nicknamed Operation Tiger or Exercise Tiger.

It was 1944. The shores of southern England, so similar to the beaches of Normandy, were filled with thousands of Allied soldiers and ships. Simulations began, with ships landing onto a mock war zone. Supreme Allied Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower watched the exercises, which were not going as planned. All were hoping for a better day on April 28.

Instead, the unthinkable happened. A flotilla of eight landing ships caught the attention of Germany’s “fast boats,” small and equipped with torpedoes, which soon began firing on the Americans.

The crew on the boats were startled by the gunfire. In another sad twist of fate, British forces monitoring the seas were operating on a different radio frequency and could not communicate with the Americans. The flotilla’s main escort had returned to port for repairs, and the fleet was protected only by a 200-foot corvette.

The ships were hit by fire, burned, and sank. Survivors threw themselves into the frigid waters of Lyme Bay. Reports vary on how many perished that day, from 846 to approximately 1,000. These brave young men sank with the ships, drowned, or succumbed to hypothermia. Among them was my Uncle Joseph, on LST 531.

Fears of letting the Germans know about the upcoming invasion caused an intense need for secrecy, and the disaster was not made public. Survivors were threatened with court-martial if they spoke to anyone about the tragedy.

Operation Tiger prepared the Allies for D-Day, which led to the end of the War in Europe. And while the US military publicly acknowledged the losses from Operation Tiger in the following months, the tragedy remains a little known event. The families of those lost servicemen were not notified, and knew nothing of the magnitude of their sacrifice.

In my Uncle’s military file there was no mention of Operation Tiger. His death, along with so many others, would remain shrouded in mystery — until Ken Smalls came along.